Civil Unrest in Santiago Chile

 My long time buddy Jonathan Franklin and I went into the streets to check out the latest developments in the ongoing civil unrest just around the corner from where I live. It was a wild night taking pictures of the people in pitched rock battles with the police who have this little metal road warrior motor vehicle called the "Skunk" that comes charging into the mob of rock tossers and blasts everybody with heavy doses of tear gas and sometimes shot gun pellets. Fortunately, I was able to 'not' get hit with the any projectiles but I did eat tear gas all night long. Regardless of being half blind most of the night, I managed to capture some of the images of what is going on here in Chile where there has been an ongoing civil unrest since last October.

We had a beer and prepared our equipment prior to taking off into the night to photograph the riot. Jonathan was ready for the night with this mask he bought in the street and I had a paper particle mask to fend off the tear gas.

This is my friend and the man that got me to come down to Chile Jonathan Franklin, a journalist of the gonzo variety. Here he dons his roller blades that he uses to cover these type of events. I rode my bike.

The area that I reside in is just a couple blocks from the main protestor meeting zone called Plaza Italia and a few blocks from Palacio deLa Moneda, which is the country's presidential palace. Most of the civil unrest in Santiago starts in between these two areas along the giant boulevard called la Alameda and eventually bleeds onto the side streets where people sat up barricades. Much of these picture took place on the side streets.

In this image below, the protestors were hanging out around a corner of a street where they would then run into and toss rocks, use slingshots, build fire barricades and launch molotov cocktails at the police down the block. Once you peek out behind that corner you could get hit with a rock, have a lamp post come down on your head or have the "pacos" cops blast you with tear gas riot gun shot round or meet the dirty water a armalite's water canon. 

Jonathan breaches the corner heads into the zone of violence to check out what is going on.

 This young lady was crossing thru the battle area and had received a face full of gas for her troubles.

I stepped into the zone of violence once my eyes adapted to the tear gas and tried to capture what was gong on.

The police were just down the block and had just made a mad dash at the protestors with the Skunk spewing thick streams of gas at everybody. This is just after the gas had pretty much cleared out and the cops retreated down the way again.

Jonathan gingerly makes his way through the rubble in the road.

 These people are volunteers that help out the wounded people that can get overwhelmed tear gas, blinded by a projectile or ran over by a cop driving through the mob with their heavy duty metal war machines. 

Just down the street, the folks had captured a slow moving bus and were taking it apart and pretty much having a party onboard. I am glad they decided not to burn it up as it was just below some apartments and those folks do not need that.

Jonathan got onboard the captured bus and was interviewing people

 Punk rock chic is cheering on the mob of protestors.

 

 We ran into Jonathan's daughter Susan Franklin Casanova and like tens of thousands of school aged children and college kids, Susan is actively involved in this movement to bring about equality to this neo-liberal country.

   

This is la Alameda and the main street that runs down the heart of the giant city and it was shut down for blocks. 

Sometime later in the evening, we headed over to Carabinero calle which sits next to San Borja Parque which lately, always seems to be a war zone. I lasted over here for about fifteen minutes as the Skunk came ripping down the street and blasted us with gas and since I only had a particle mask I was pretty much out of there when I regained my sight.