Today I had to run for my life from police officers, yeah, police officers, u may wonder, why? Well that is how life is in Venezuela, u fear the crime and fear the law, I will explain how everything happened. One thing u need to know before everything, its that the situation in Venezuela hasn't been at all secure, people, the citizens go angry to supermarkets and do this thing we call "saqueos" it basically is a massive group of persons going to stores and stealing everything with violence and no control, you may wonder, why? Well, we can't get any food, our children are starving, our mother have to struggle to give one food per day. everything is expensive. So, let's start. I waked up, my alarm didn't get off, so i thought "well shit, this is gonna be a shitty day". I went to college and started my first class, everything was normal, little did I know that the student were planing a pacific protest outside the college. That happened bc people were doing the "saqueos" and were tired of this shit. Classes got suspended, nobody knew what to do, going out was dangerous, some of the students had the chance to leave, some got picked up, I stayed bc the "saqueos" were in the part of town where I live. So I went to the front of the college (they closed the door so no one could get in again)and watched how the students were singing and holding papers with messages, close to a pile of broken chairs using it as kind of wall, a barricada(search it if u wanna know). Everything was going well, photographers from different journals were coming and that is what we wanted, to get notice, suddenly, people from the barrio next to the college came and wanted to "support us". But they also wanted to disturb our pacific protest and turn it into something violent. They set on fire the chairs everything got out of hand, the students set off the fire, but minutes later like 20 armed guards came in motorcycles and hopped off and ran to us pointing us with their guns(the guns they use to situation like this are tear gas pumps). We didn't know where to run, I was with my friends and we only heard people screaming "RUN RUN RUN", some students were jumping the fence and get in into the college, we got lucky that in the moment we were close to the fence someone opened or broke it idk but we ran to the buildings. Then we heard the guards shoot, we went mental. We got to the first buildings and someone was screaming "TO THE SECOND BUILDING, GET UP TO THE FOURTH FLOOR". Me and my friends just keep runing and climbed up the stairs to the fourth floor, there were tons of girls crying, talking to the phone, nobody would shut up, there is always a leader in the group, this guy keep saying, "please keep the calm, be quiet or they will find us". To be clear imagine being looked up in a school and some psychopath enters with a gun, wanting to shoot someone, imagine being in a classroom hinding with people freaking out, scared as hell., not knowing if the shooter will find u.Thats how i felt. The only thing that change is that they were guards,POLICE MEN, THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT US, sure we knew we were not gonna die, but they would hurt us, they could beat us and tell an excuse like we were being violent and take us to jail. Staying in the fourth floor wasn't option, the guy that assumed the leadership, talk us down so we could go two floors below, to the forum room. We couldn't peek through the windows, bc they could see us and come for us. We stayed there two hours, waiting for them to go away, waiting for some sort of attack, every now and then students would come with information from outside, if they were waiting, if we could go. When we finally could go out, outside the college were all the guards in a side, looking at us with kind of a wicked smile. I didn't get to hone right away, a friend give me and my friends a ride to the closer house. There i found out that some of the students that didn't get in, got beaten up by the guards, but didn't take them to jail. I want u guys to read this and wonder "did this really happened?" and I will answer "yes it did". If u don't believe me feel free to ask me any doubts you have. This is happening on my country, some students have died, violence in Venezuela is no joke.
