Grenades were dropped and shots were fired on Venezuela’s Supreme Court from a helicopter on Tuesday, allegedly stolen and piloted by a police officer who remains at large, according to authorities.
The dramatic scene was captured and disseminated widely on social media, showing a helicopter circling overhead in Caracas while shots and explosions are heard. No injuries or deaths have been reported as a result of the operation.
The police officer suspected to be behind the attack, Oscar Perez, released a statement on Instagram to denounce the government as criminal.
“We are a coalition of military employees, policemen and civilians who are looking for balance and are against this criminal government,” he said.
“We don’t belong to any political tendency or party. We are nationalists, patriots and institutionalists.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro quickly denounced the incident as a terrorist attack, and made other not-so-subtle threats of using further military force to put down insurrectionists. “I have activated the entire armed forces to defend the peace,” he said. “Sooner or later, we are going to capture that helicopter and those who carried out this terror attack.”
Previously, Perez has starred in a Venezuelan film, according to The New York Times. There, he plays the part of a police officer involved in a dangerous rescue operation after a wealthy man is taken hostage. Little else is known about the man.
Beyond the theatrics of a helicopter protest, Venezuela has been rocked by over two months of daily protests against the government by tens of thousands of Venezuelans, flooding the streets to clash with state security forces. Food has been in short supply as the socialist government has been unable to maintain the massive state-run social programs that were long supported by Venezuela’s huge oil industry. Inflation has skyrocketed as the price of oil has dropped, sending the country in a deep economic crisis.
Maduro has repeatedly mobilized the military to keep the peace as food stocks have dwindled. He has also consistently blamed his country’s economic woes on an American plot to destabilize the socialist revolution.
Featured Image courtesy of Guillermo Ramos Flamerich – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11316924
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