My 1st Time Tear-Gassed in Bogota

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Colin in colombia

I got a small dose of tear gas for the first time in my life today. Late for a class, I was speeding north on the Carrera 11 bike path. When I pulled up to Calle 72, I saw there was a small but common riot outside Universidad Pedagógica Nacional. Pedestrians blocked the sidewalk near the intersection so I had to slow my bike to a stop. There was no car traffic as the coppers had blocked off 11 and 72.

Being in a hurry, I quickly sized up the situation. Facing north up 11 from the south side of 72, I saw the rolito rioters standing on the median on the other side of 11. They were throwing rocks at the riot police who were holding their position north of 72 next to the Porciúncula church. This was my exact view of the northeast corner (from the southwest).

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I had to continue up 11 so I’d pass the church on my right. The rolitos were throwing rocks toward the church from the median in the center of this image.

I hastily judged that it’d take a college baseball player or football quarterback to hit me from that distance with a rock heavy enough to hurt while I’m speeding past. So these little pussies wouldn’t have had the power or accuracy to do any damage.

I squeezed through the audience and took off into the empty street. Just as soon as I built some speed heading across 72, I noticed a second group of rolito rioters on the northwest corner (not pictured) throwing rocks at the same cops standing next to the church. These guys were positioned behind the university fence that separates campus from the Carrera 11 sidewalk and bike path.

With more haste than I made my first decision I changed course and turned left after the 72 median heading west. So Plan B was to go around the puppet show. Just as I started to speed downhill, I heard two loud pops a couple seconds apart. My nostrils filled with chemicals, as if someone broke their solution beaker in science lab class or mixed the wrong chemicals together. My eyes immediately teared up and tears ran from each eye while the smell made me nauseous. Fortunately I was hauling ass downhill and my next breaths were fresh air. I never saw the clouds.

I turned right at Carrera 13, which I followed north for two blocks, then cut back to the 11 bike path. My class was on Calle 94, where those nerds’ little disturbio had backed up southbound traffic the whole way. I made it to class on time.

My Photoshop masterpiece:

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As you can see, my kid brother could hit me with a rock from behind that fence.

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Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, or UPN as it’s spray-painted all over the city, is a big Education school. So those idiots throwing rocks are going to be teachers someday. They stage one of these harmless skirmishes often, so much so that nobody takes them seriously (me included, obviously).

And here’s YouTube footage of some other riots those kids have staged.

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Here’s that area on Google Maps:

[googleMap name="La Porciúncula‎"]Calle 72, Bogota, Colombia[/googleMap]

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Tags: bogota, civil unrest, crime, police, protest, violence