THE DARKEST IRONY

Black San Jose Man Who Gives Bias Training to Police Shot With Rubber Bullets at Protest

After police hit Derrick Sanderlin with rubber bullets, he’s unsure if he can have kids.

A black man in San Jose, California who has trained local police to mitigate their unconscious racial biases for three years was severely injured at a protest over the death of George Floyd last week. When protesters closed down a major highway, Derrick Sanderlin stepped in to escort a driver of a car with a “Blue Lives Matter” license plate to safety. At city hall, he saw police pelting protesters with rubber bullets and stepped in front of them, pleading with them not to shoot anyone. Though he reportedly made no aggressive motions at the police, they fired at him anyway and hit him in the groin at least once. The resulting wound required emergency surgery, and doctors aren’t sure if he’ll be able to have children. He told ABC7, “The way that they've treated people out there over the weekend has been really heartbreaking because the chief is like a good person, who's really trying to do the right thing.”