The so-called less lethal weapons are designed to break up mobs engaged in dangerous behavior or deter would-be assailants who pose a threat. They aren’t intended to kill. But research has shown the weapons can cause devastating injuries or death. Federal guidelines generally prohibit agents from targeting the head, neck, throat or spine when firing projectiles like rubber bullets or pepper balls.

ProPublica and FRONTLINE conducted dozens of interviews at protest scenes, reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents and photographs, and analyzed some 50 video-recorded incidents in which immigration agents and officers used these weapons in the last five months. That review found more than two dozen cases in which officers deployed the weapons in ways that appear to flout the government’s own rules, including by aiming at someone’s head, spine or groin and deploying chemical agents at moving vehicles or near children.

In Southern California, federal law enforcement fired pepper balls and rubber bullets at people’s heads and backs at least five times, and at least once at a man’s groin, records and interviews show. In Oakland, California, an unarmed pastor who posed no obvious threat was blasted in the face with pepper powder. In Chicago, where more than a dozen people reported being indiscriminately pelted with pepper balls, entire blocks were enshrouded in tear gas, forcing people from their homes. A religious leader was targeted in his head with pepper balls.