Crowd control

Last week I went to the police academy to cover the graduation of the Haitian National police's crowd control section (CIMO) from an intensive course that started in July. Normally it's a very dull affair with lots of speeches and not much action. This time I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of the regular agenda they decided to put on a display of the techniques they had learned with the help of UN police trainers. 

It's quite fun to be in mock riots - all the action, non of the danger. Instead of throwing rocks - that have a habit of breaking heads and such - they threw water bottle with some pebbles inside. There was much chanting and singing and charging about. There was even water canons. But, I discovered to my dismay that I have become rusty. At one point thee was a massive BOOM and a smoke canister erupted in the midst of the "protesters". Where as in the old days I would have started shooting the moment of the BOOM, I found myself half crouched with my camera pointing uselessly at the ground. Now if you have ever snuck up on someone and scared them you know that the face they make is priceless. When one of these smoke bombs go off it's not just the people's face that reacts, it's their whole body. Thankfully, I regained my composure enough to get some images. Here's the first one unedited, you can see I was a little off aim.

Photo Logan Abassi UN/MINUSTAH

I'm attaching some more images of the demonstration and you can read the story and see all the images at www.minustah.org.          

Photos Logan Abassi UN/MINUSTAH