Secretary of the Government of Bogotá was injured in the face when he was on the Americas Portal

On Friday night, the Secretary of the Government of the Colombian capital, Luis Ernesto Gómez, ended up injured after the clashes that took place between protesters and the Police in the Americas Portal in the south of the city, in the midst of protests due to the national strike against the government of President Iván Duque.

The official, who this week returned to his duties after suffering from covid-19, it was the whole day of demonstrations on Friday in that main station of the Transmilenio system that has been the scene of strong confrontations between the agents of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (Esmad) and citizens since the national strike practically began.

“In this place we have had dozens of citizens beaten and injured in the last nights. Also policemen, today he touched me with a stone in the face. We cannot keep hitting each other, it is impossible to build dialogue in the middle of the stones. We have to make an effort to listen to each other, to de-escalate the tension, to live together again not only here in the Portal of the Americas, but throughout Bogotá,” he said.

Gómez since Thursday has installed a Unified Command Point (PMU) in the Resistencia Portal, as the protesters also tell him, with the aim of mediating with citizens and reducing confrontations.

And although the day of protests on Friday took place peacefully most of the day, at night the dialogue he held with the protesters became tense and became hostile, to the point that at one point during the mediation, Gómez had to leave the site because some citizens wanted to attack him.

“For hours I have listened and attended to different requests from organizations. Unfortunately a few became aggressive, pushed me and stole my dialogue cap. I have entered the Portal to continue attending to the situation from the inside at the Command Post”, he trilled from his official Twitter account at around 10 at night.

Minutes later, a group of protesters clashed with the police and began throwing rocks at the uniformed men. In the midst of these clashes, the official recorded the confrontation with his cell phone and recorded the exact moment when a stone hits him.

“Once again night comes and a few violent people begin to throw stones at Portal Américas despite the fact that there is no police intervention. While I am engraving a stone, my cell phone knocks me down.” Gomez said after posting the video of the attacks against the uniformed officers.

Later a mob attacked the Supercade facilities adjacent to the portal, making it necessary for the Esmad to intervene, as they tried to loot it, in fact, computers were stolen, according to the same secretary.