When it went up in flames and the pólice arrived, the criminals temporarily retreated.įar from being another episode of gang warfare, the violence that erupted on Sunday was the result of the residents’ being sick of having to live with a constant sense of insecurity that is widespread in Ecuador.
This residence was considered the headquarters for all drug trafficking activities. The violence culminated in setting fire to the home of the gang’s female leader, known as La Pastora (the Shepherdess). “We all plucked up the courage,” says one resident. Community alarms went off in the vicinity, warning locals to leave their homes and join in the fray. The face-off was recorded on video by the residents, who organized themselves into a small army, removing the cobblestones from the sidewalks, and smashing them into small pieces to be used as weapons. Almost two hours after the conflict got underway, the police appeared on the scene, killing one of the alleged criminals and injuring another person. The Comité del Pueblo neighborhood to the north of Ecuador’s capital, Quito, turned into a war zone on Sunday, June 18, when residents responded to threats from a criminal gang operating in the area with a hail of rocks and Molotov cocktails.
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