By Liz Jones and Isolde Raftery
On Sunday night, on the tenth day of protests for racial justice in Seattle, a petite young woman stood between protesters and a barricade of police.
Aubreanna Inda tried to speak with the police to create a rapport with them to ease tensions, but she said “it wasn’t going through”.
And then BANG. The police had thrown a blast ball that hit her in the sternum. A fireball flared at her feet, nearly half her size. And then another flash, as smoke filled the air. She spun around, her hand covering her face. She collapsed, and screamed.
Later doctors would tell Aubreanna Inda, 26, that she died three times that night.
Inda and the three other protesters at the front began to kneel, and put their hands in the air.
“As I was about to get on my knees, I was shot in the chest with a flash grenade and I had another flash grenade go off at my feet,” she said.
Protesters closed in around and helped lift her off the ground, out of the fray. She was hyperventilating.
“I got the wind knocked out of me completely,” Inda said. “I couldn't hear anything. My ears were ringing, and after that I just completely blacked out.”
Police continued to advance on the crowd. Street medics put Inda on a cot, running to get her to safety.
She lost consciousness, and didn’t have a pulse. Someone started chest compressions to bring her back to life. Inda opened her eyes briefly, but closed them shut because they felt like they were on fire from the pepper spray.
“I just remember looking up and seeing a lot of doctors and hearing their voices, saying that I was losing pulse again,” Inda said.
The next morning, Inda woke up with a tube down her throat, and a doctor walking in, asking her for her name.
The doctor told her that if the street medics hadn’t helped her on Sunday night, she might not be alive. She’d undergone cardiac arrest on the street, and then again in the hospital.
On Tuesday evening, she said her throat feels scratchy, and she tires easily.
“I can't walk too much,” she said. “If I stand for a long period of time, I have a really hard time breathing. I feel like someone is stepping on my chest.”
She’s had vertigo. Noises sound louder than usual, and when she closes her eyes she sees “the cops’ shields in my face.”
Aubreanna Inda was hit by a nearly lethal shot by a supposedly “non-lethal” weapon.
How traumatizing! Aubreanna had been hit in the back with a baton by a National Guardsman previously, but she persisted. And her passion is so strong she intends to return to the Black Lives Matter protests. What a strong courageous Latina! What an inspiration!
Mayor Durkin is speaking live on TV now. She is clapping back at Trump’s filthy threat to send the military to Seattle on twitter.
“It is unconstitutional and illegal to send military to Seattle”
“I have spoken to Governor inslee, and together we will insure the people this will not be happening. Many people are actually afraid that it would happen because the president said it. We would like to be able to trust what the President of the United States says, but I want people to know there is no imminent threat of invasion in Seattle.”
Feds arrest Tacoma woman for allegedly burning 5 police vehicles in Seattle protest