Pregnant Woman Blinded in Left Eye after Ferguson Cop Shoots Her Face with Bean Bag Round

Nov 28, 2014 11:50 PM EST

Demonstrators protest the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown on August 13, 2014 in Ferguson

(Photo : Reuters ) Residents and Police Authorities in Ferguson, Missouri are preparing for the worst, as a grand jury is expected to make an announcement soon on whether Darren Wilson will be indicted or not.

The left eye of a 24-year woman was damaged on Tuesday when she was hit on the face by a bean bag round fired by a police officer in St. Louis. The victim, Dornella Conner, and her boyfriend were just filling up at a gas station on the 10000 block of Halls Ferry and was hit after cops fired their weapons in response to gunshots in the area in the aftermath of the grand jury decision not to charge white cop Darren Wilson over the death of black youth Michael Brown.

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The bean bag round hit the vehicle's windshield and also hit her on the left eye. It caused the glass to shatter with its shards injuring her face. Doctors removed 20 pellets from the victim's face.

Conner is recovering from the wound that caused her to become blind on her left eye and places her at risk of losing some of her visual function on her right eye, said Donnell Conner, father of the victim.

She recounted that her boyfriend, De'Angelas Lee, was attempting to go around the police, but the cops insisted that Lee was driving toward them, NBC reports. Lee was arrested and charged with second-degree assault on law enforcers, the St. Louis County Police said on Friday.

Dornella said she and her boyfriend were in the area "to pay their respect to Michael Brown."

Her father questioned why did the police fire on the passenger side rather than on the driver side of the car if it was aiming to ram them? He said, quoted by KMOV, "I'm very upset, very disappointed with tactics that they used trying to get control of the situation. I understand it's a tough job, I understand that it was chaos, [but] there was no reason to fire upon an innocent person sitting in a vehicle."

She has two children and has one coming up, and being blinded by the bean bag round could affect her chances of employment. However, her father said that Dornella is focused on recovering and has no plans to sue the St. Louis Police Department. She even harbors "no ill feeling" toward the cop who fired the weapon that blinded her.

TagsFerguson, Darren Wilson, michael brown