Q: How was the research for Charting the Crackdown conducted?
Researchers from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley (HRC) documented 412 incidents of crowd-control weapon misuse during immigration enforcement protests between June 2025 and May 2026 using open-source investigative methods.
Misuse was defined as incidents where disproportionate force was targeted at vulnerable groups (children, the elderly, or pregnant women), at protected professionals (journalists, health workers), or was used improperly against policies or protocols (i.e., direct fire of projectiles not meant to be used in this manner, close-range fire, shots targeted at the head or groin, use in enclosed places/without egress).
Videos, photographs, news reports, and other publicly available information were systematically collected and independently verified by our research team. Most incidents were geolocated by matching videos and photographs to satellite or street-view imagery, and dates were confirmed using metadata, chronological context cues, and event categorization.
This is believed to be the largest dataset documenting the use of crowd-control weapons by law enforcement during this one-year period.
Q: What was your goal in conducting this research?
We wanted to understand what was happening at immigration enforcement protests and provide the public, journalists, government officials, and oversight bodies with the evidence needed to prevent further abuses. To do that, we systematically documented the misuse of crowd-control weapons, identified patterns of abuse, recorded injuries, and built a public record to support accountability and reform.
Q: Between June 2025 and May 2026, was crowd-control weapon misuse in the US an isolated incident or a broader pattern?
The evidence points to patterns of misuse. Researchers documented 412 verified misuse incidents across 16 cities in 13 states involving multiple federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Recurring forms of misuse, including firing kinetic impact projectiles at people’s heads; deploying chemical irritants in enclosed spaces; using crowd-control weapons against journalists and other protected groups; and deploying weapons where people had no safe avenue of escape, occurred across multiple cities and agencies. These recurring practices suggest systemic problems rather than isolated errors.
Q: Which cities had the highest rates of crowd-control weapon misuse, and why?
Although immigration enforcement protests took place across the United States, more than 90 percent of the 412 documented incidents occurred in just five metropolitan areas: Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Newark, and Portland. These cities were the sites of DHS’s largest and most sustained enforcement operations, and nearly all are cities with sanctuary policies and large, sustained protest movements.
Q: Which law enforcement agencies were responsible for most documented incidents of crowd-control weapon misuse?
Federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies were responsible for 64 percent of documented incidents in which the responsible agency could be identified. Los Angeles was the principal exception: there, local agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and California Highway Patrol, accounted for most documented incidents.
We believe this analysis reveals concerning trends in federal law enforcement’s use of crowd-control weapons. It also highlights ongoing failures in Los Angeles, where lessons from the mishandling of protests in 2020 have yet to be implemented. By contrast, in cities such as Portland, Chicago, and Minneapolis, where local law enforcement was responsible for far fewer documented incidents, our analysis suggests that even modest and uneven progress in police reform since 2020 may have had a meaningful impact. Compared with past protest movements, police in those cities appeared to misuse crowd-control weapons far less frequently.
Q: What role did former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino play in the escalation of force during immigration enforcement protests?
In each city where former Border Patrol Commander Bovino directed or oversaw operations, incident counts rose sharply within days of his arrival. Bovino served as Border Patrol’s self-described “commander-at-large,” operating outside the agency’s normal chain of command while reporting directly to senior DHS leadership. Many of the immigration enforcement operations that coincided with spikes in documented misuse were also promoted through his public social media accounts.
Q: Did police use excessive force against immigration protesters?
In many documented cases, yes. Charting the Crackdown found 412 incidents from June 2025 through May 2026 in which law enforcement used crowd-control weapons in ways that violated manufacturer guidance, agency policy, widely accepted policing standards, or international guidance, including firing projectiles at people’s heads, deploying chemical irritants in enclosed spaces, firing indiscriminately into crowds, and using crowd-control weapons against people with no safe avenue of escape. These practices carry a heightened risk of serious injury and raise significant concerns under domestic and international use-of-force standards.
Q: What crowd-control weapons are misused most frequently, and in what ways?
Chemical irritants and kinetic impact projectiles accounted for most documented misuse incidents nationwide, while hybrid weapons such as pepper balls made up more than one-quarter of all incidents. Weapon use varied by city: pepper balls predominated in Chicago, kinetic impact projectiles in Los Angeles, and MK-9 pepper spray in the Minneapolis area.
Across all weapon types, recurring forms of misuse included firing kinetic impact projectiles at people’s heads or from unsafe distances, deploying chemical irritants in enclosed spaces or where people had no safe avenue of escape, firing tear gas canisters directly at individuals, and using crowd-control weapons against journalists, legal observers, health care workers, children, older adults, and other protected or vulnerable people. These practices significantly increase the risk of serious injury.
Q: What is the difference between “crowd-control weapons” and “less-lethal weapons”?
The terms are often used interchangeably and refer to the same category of weapons: tools designed to reduce the likelihood of death compared with lethal firearms. But “less-lethal” can be misleading, since these weapons can still cause permanent disability or death, particularly when used improperly. PHR uses “crowd-control weapons” instead, for two reasons: it more precisely describes weapons used to manage groups of people at protests, as distinct from weapons used in individual encounters, such as Tasers during an arrest. And it avoids the rhetorical implication, built into “less-lethal,” that these weapons are inherently safe.
Q: Does the misuse of crowd-control weapons follow the same pattern at all immigration enforcement protests?
No. Although similar forms of procedural misuse occurred across the country, important differences emerged from city to city.
The types of weapons used varied considerably. Pepper balls accounted for most documented misuse in Chicago, kinetic impact projectiles predominated in Los Angeles, and MK-9 pepper spray was used most frequently in the Minneapolis area. The agencies involved also differed. In most cities, DHS agencies were responsible for the vast majority of documented incidents, while in Los Angeles, local law enforcement agencies accounted for most documented misuse.
Q: What counts as “misuse” of a crowd-control weapon?
Misuse refers to three categories we developed based on manufacturers’ instructions, law enforcement policies, widely accepted policing practices, and international standards. The first is the use of crowd-control weapons against vulnerable groups—including children, older adults, pregnant people, and people with disabilities. The second is use against protected professionals such as journalists, health care workers, and legal observers. Such use not only endangers people who are particularly vulnerable or performing essential public-interest functions, but also suggests that unnecessary force is being used.
The third category covers the procedurally improper use of force, including firing weapons at the head or groin, deploying CCWs at extremely close range, firing chemical irritants into enclosed spaces or areas without a safe avenue of escape, and other tactics that violate established safety guidance. These practices indicate that officers are not following established protocols, increasing the risk of serious injury.
Of the 412 documented incidents, 264 involved the crowd-control weapon itself being deployed in a prohibited manner. These included firing kinetic impact projectiles at people’s heads or from unsafe distances, deploying chemical irritants in enclosed spaces, firing tear gas canisters directly at individuals, and using crowd-control weapons where people had no safe avenue of escape.
Q: How many documented injuries occurred between June 2025 and May 2026, and how serious were they?
Of the 412 documented incidents, 119 (28.9%) involved people with visible or self-reported injuries, and those individuals sustained 203 injuries in total, since some people were injured more than once. Nearly half, 47.1%, reported seeking medical care. The report doesn’t break injuries down by severity, but injuries such as blindness and head injury demonstrate that many documented injuries were indeed severe, and it is explicit that these numbers are an undercount: invisible harm like chemical injury or hearing loss can’t be assessed from video and photo evidence, which is what the methodology relies on.
Q: What was the role of journalists at these protests and in this study?
Many journalists were present at these protests in a professional capacity, alongside much smaller numbers of health care workers and legal observers, both protected categories under international guidance on policing assemblies. Footage of violence towards these groups is prevalent throughout the study, likely a function of their work.
Journalists made up 177 of the people subjected to crowd-control weapon misuse in the dataset, 43%, the second-largest category after demonstrators. The dataset includes numerous verified incidents of clearly identifiable journalists struck by crowd-control weapons while reporting.
Q: What is missing in this data, and what are the limitations of this report?
We identified and reported only the clearest cases of crowd-control weapon misuse that could be verified using publicly available media, documenting 412 incidents. There were likely thousands of additional instances in which force may have been disproportionate, excessive, or unnecessary. We did not include incidents that required contextual or legal analysis to determine whether the decision to use force was improper because our visual investigative methods could not reliably identify or verify those cases.
Our dataset also excludes incidents that were never publicly reported, were not captured on video or in photographs, or could not be independently verified. As a result, the 412 documented incidents represent only a snapshot of the true scale of crowd-control weapon misuse. The actual number is likely substantially higher if additional categories of misuse such as disproportionate, excessive, or unnecessary force, and non-public sources of evidence, including hospital records or law enforcement incident reports, were taken into account.
These limitations underscore the need for the U.S. government to establish an independent, publicly accessible reporting mechanism or ombudsperson to systematically document the use and misuse of crowd-control weapons. Without comprehensive, transparent reporting, meaningful public oversight and accountability remain challenging.
Q: Did law enforcement violate US law or international standards through the misuse of crowd-control weapons during immigration enforcement protests?
The documented practices, including firing projectiles at people’s heads, deploying chemical irritants in enclosed spaces, and using force against journalists and other protected groups, raise serious concerns under US constitutional protections for freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, freedom of the press, and excessive force; as well as international human rights standards requiring that any use of force be lawful, necessary, proportionate, precautionary, non-discriminatory, and subject to accountability.
Many documented uses of crowd-control weapons were inconsistent with manufacturer guidance, law enforcement policies, and international standards governing assemblies and the use of force.
Q: What can be done to reduce the misuse of crowd-control weapons?
Authorities should immediately phase out those crowd-control weapons shown to pose an unacceptably high risk of serious injury, including stun grenades and kinetic impact projectiles, particularly scatter shot projectiles.
Federal, state, and local authorities should strengthen safeguards governing the use of crowd-control weapons. This includes prohibiting particularly dangerous practices, such as firing projectiles at people’s heads, deploying chemical irritants in enclosed spaces, and using crowd-control weapons at unsafe distances.
Governments should adopt clear public use-of-force policies consistent with international human rights standards, require body-worn cameras and visible officer identification, mandate reporting and after-action reviews whenever crowd-control weapons are deployed, strengthen training, improve transparency, and establish independent oversight and accountability mechanisms.