Linda Tirado: Journalist shot by Minneapolis police at George Floyd protest is dying from injury

Nashville, Tennessee - Award-winning journalist and photographer Linda Tirado is reportedly in hospice care due to injuries caused by violent police at a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd's murder.

Journalist and photographer Linda Tirado is reportedly in hospice care after getting shot in the face by police at a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Journalist and photographer Linda Tirado is reportedly in hospice care after getting shot in the face by police at a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  © Screenshot/Substack/Linda Tirado

Tirado, just 42 years old, is "at life's end and receiving palliative care," the National Press Club said in a statement.

She was photographing the 2020 Minneapolis protests, after ex-police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, when a cop shot her in the face with a projectile.

Tirado was reportedly wearing protective goggles and press credentials at the time, while carrying professional camera equipment.

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"I was lining up a photo when I felt my face explode. My goggles came off and my face was suddenly burning and leaking liquid, the gas mixing with the blood," Tirado wrote in a June 2020 op-ed for NBC.

Tirado lost an eye as a result of the attack, which also left her with a traumatic brain injury and dementia. She won $600,000 in a 2022 settlement after suing the Minneapolis Police Department, although the money has had to go toward paying off medical debt as she has been unable to work.

"I feel nothing but joy and peace and pain and fear, all of it all at once so that it bleeds into itself and can only be described as emotion raw and pure and beautiful and perfect, and also fleeting," Tirado shared on her Substack earlier this month.

"The only thing that matters to me lately is the moment that I’m inhabiting, the endless thirsty need to feel for as long as I can."

Tirado will leave behind two children. Friends of the journalist are asking anyone who can to extend financial support to the family, with contribution information provided on Tirado's Substack.

Cover photo: Screenshot/Substack/Linda Tirado

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