Caught in the middle of a scrum covering protests in Minneapolis on Saturday, photojournalist Ed Ou could feel his hands and face were wet. For a long time, he didn’t know if it was teargas, pepper spray, or blood – in the end, it turned out to be a combination of all three.

‘I’m getting shot’: attacks on journalists surge in US protests

Sheltered behind a wall in a pack of journalists, Ou had not seen the attack coming. He has documented civil unrest in the Middle East, Ukraine and Iraq, where he learned a few things: never get in the police’s way, find cover, stick together, always know your exit and make sure you are clearly identifiable as press. So when the curfew hit and police fired teargas into the crowd of protesters, Ou stood steady, out of the way, documenting. And then the unexpected happened.

“They literally started throwing concussive grenades in our direction, in the middle of the journalists,” he says.The police approached Ou directly and maced him […]