Shots fired, explosion, Molotov cocktails as protestors and enforcement engage
At around 9:15 p.m. several “Molotov cocktails” were thrown from within the crowd of demonstrators near the Italian Embassy, over vehicles that the protestors had positioned earlier as barricades, and into police who have formed a perimeter on three sides of the crowd believed to be of several thousand.
In response, the Yerevan night has been brightened with what appears to be red tracer bullets, fired from a direction somewhere southwest of Republic Square.
A quick burst of automatic fire has been heard and a witness in the neighborhood says several shots of small caliber arms have been exchanged.
In the evening the actions of protestors turned into massacre and looting. Due to the police reports different groups of brigands detaching at times from the mob set afire 36 vehicles (among which there were police cars, one ambulance and more than twenty cars of own usage), smashed buses and trolleys, demolished and robbed stores and offices nearby.
With the approach of reinforcement, protesters started melee throwing stones, using iron sticks and bottles full of explosive fluids. Police and special forces responded using only tear gas, hydro-jets and red tracer bullets fired exceptionally high into the sky and not in the direction of the crowd. No fire-arms were brought to the scene.
Actions on protest march dispersal started about 9:30 p.m. With no warning police forces attacked the protestors who by at that time were put into “a stew-pan”, surrounded by law enforcement on three sides. Police forces started a melee firing red tracer bullets and using tear gas.
Uproar and fire shots were heard from nearby.
Witnesses reported of shots fired into the crowd.