Gates

clipped from www.slate.com About 200 riot police waited in the middle of the square. I headed down an alley, just steps away, where protesters had created a blockade of flaming garbage cans. The demonstrators pushed aside a garbage can, opening a path, and rushed forward. Simultaneously, baton-wielding police charged. The protesters hurled rocks, and the police responded by beating everyone who couldn't escape into one of the connecting alleys. Citizens, nearly all on the side of the protesters, left their front gates open just a little to offer those of us fleeing the police an escape route. As we caught our breath in someone's driveway, I asked a man in his mid-30s whether he had witnessed anything like this before. "Over the last two weeks," he told me, "between the debates, the number of people in the street last week, and the violence now—no. I've never seen anything like this."