Copyright nytimes
Some 2,500 police officers, in dozens of armored vehicles, had descended on the area, scouring for drug traffickers they suspected were linked to a powerful criminal group known as the Red Command. Overhead, two police helicopters hovered. Gang members retaliated, using drones to drop explosives from the sky, according to police images. Plumes of smoke filled the sky above the cinder-block homes, as traffickers set fire to cars, using them as barricades to block the police from entering. Caught in the middle, residents hid in their homes or rushed out to work in other parts of the city, dodging the hail of bullets. Schools canceled classes, health centers were shuttered and businesses kept their doors closed. “It was pure despair,” said one resident, who asked to speak anonymously because of worries about retaliation from the gang controlling the neighborhood. “I ran and put my kids in my room, the safest corner of the house. We stayed there, not sure what was happening outside.”
