Linda Tirado, journalist shot by police during 2020 protests, enters hospice: NPR

Police prepare to open fire with tear gas and non-lethal projectiles on a group of demonstrators protesting the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 29, 2020.

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A journalist who was shot by Minneapolis police while covering the 2020 protests over the death of George Floyd dies from her injuries.

Freelance photojournalist Linda Tirado, 42, was admitted to a hospice in Tennessee earlier this week, the National Press Club said in a statement.

The organization said it was sending Tirado “our love and admiration” and was also providing funds to cover the cost of her care. President Emily Wilkins was “in contact with Linda and is working on a way to honor her legacy,” it added.

Tirado was 38 years old in May 2020 when she moved from Nashville to, Tennessee, to Minneapolis to cover the unrest following the murder of George Floyd. He died when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes. The city became the epicenter of major demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality.

Tirado was covering the protests on the evening of May 29, when police fired “non-lethal” foam bullets into the crowd. One of them hit her in the eye – even though she was wearing protective goggles and a press pass.

“I was preparing to take a photo when I felt my face explode,” Tirado wrote in an op-ed for NBC News in June of this year. “My goggles fell off and suddenly my face was burning and fluid was dripping out, the gas mixing with the blood. I threw my arms up and started screaming, ‘Press, I’m press,’ although I’m not sure anyone could hear me with my breathing apparatus and the general chaos around me.”

Tirado permanently lost vision in her left eye, which led to further complications such as dizziness and lack of depth perception.

The National Press Club said it had learned that Tirado had also suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of the blow and was suffering from dementia as a result.

“As she fought, her condition continued to deteriorate to the point where she is near the end of her life and receiving palliative care,” the statement said.

Writer Noah Berlatsky, a friend of Tirado, wrote on his Substack that she struggles with “short-term memory issues,” adding, “She still has some lucid moments, but they’re becoming increasingly rare.”

Tirado, who won the Press Club’s John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award in 2020, has been unable to work since her injury. She has written about her experience, including a 2020 article in The New Republic that sharply criticized the “police state” and the political climate under then-President Donald Trump..

“I will not regain my vision in my left eye. I will need more surgeries,” she wrote. “But I am not crying over my loss of vision. It feels more like my body is reacting to what is happening to my country.”

Tirado sued the Minneapolis police in June 2020 and received $600,000 in 2022 as part of a broader settlement between the city and people who were attacked by police during the protests. (Earlier this year, Minneapolis approved another $950,000 settlement on behalf of journalists who were injured or arrested by police while covering the protests.)

NPR has reached out to Minneapolis police for comment.

The majority of Tirado’s settlement money, the Press Club said, went toward medical expenses. Tirado estimated that her injury would cost her about $2.5 million in medical expenses over her lifetime, according to a 2022 profile by Long Lead.

“Linda’s husband is doing his best to pay the bills for her care, but they also have two children to support,” the press club added, encouraging its members to send contributions directly to Tirado via Venmo, PayPal or Zelle.

Tirado wrote about “preparing to die” in a June 13 post on her Substack, saying she was “lucky that I was diagnosed early enough that I have time to write another book, or at least keep all of my journals in one place so that if I die sooner than we think, someone can read them all and pull out enough words to publish on my behalf.”

“But I don’t feel happy or unhappy,” she added. “I feel nothing but joy and peace and pain and fear, all at once, so that it merges into itself and can only be described as raw and pure and beautiful and perfect emotions, and also fleeting.”

An X account (formerly Twitter) owned by Tirado has since posted several tweets, including a post on Sunday thanking people for their well-wishes and urging them to use that energy to “go to the next city council meeting and give them hell for me.”

The next day, in response to a user’s question about any funeral arrangements, Tirado replied that there would be no funeral and no travel was necessary.

Instead, she urged people to “turn on some early 80s punk and raise a glass.”