BPD sergeant injured after laser beam shined in eyes at Canton car gathering, police union says
BALTIMORE -- A police sergeant suffered corneal damage after a laser beam was shined into their eyes while responding to a car gathering in Canton over the weekend, according to the Baltimore police union.
The sergeant was taken to Shock Trauma, and the permanency of the injury is unknown, according to Mike Mancuso, president of the Baltimore City Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Officers responded Saturday night to a parking lot on Boston Street, where a group Mancuso called "street car racing anarchists," comprised of up to 300 cars, allegedly shut down the street.
Mancuso said responding officers were hit with bottles and rocks, along with the laser allegedly utilized by someone in the crowd. No further injuries were reported.
Pinning the blame on "weak leadership and ineffective policies," Mancuso called for 600 more police officers to bolster the department.
The Baltimore Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Widely available lasers could seriously damage the eyes, according to a study by Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Researchers found that some high-power lasers "can damage the retina by shooting a powerful light current into the eye that penetrates the organ's deepest layers in fractions of a second."
