She Survived A Mob Attack And Became A Symbol Of Bolivia's Political Crisis.
Now She’s Back To Work.
Karla Zabludovsky
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From
Vinto, Bolivia
Posted on December 21, 2019, at 10:59 a.m. ET
VINTO, Bolivia — First, they tried to rip Patricia Arce’s clothes off.
When she fought back, the masked men came down on her with sticks, beating her until she passed out. When she came to, they pulled her up, removed her shoes, and forced her to walk down a long street covered with broken glass.
The frenzied crowd led Arce, the mayor of Vinto, a small town in central Bolivia, away from her office. They said they were walking her to her death. Along the way, someone doused her with red paint and gasoline. Then a woman rushed up to her and chopped off clumps of her hair, at one point slicing a chunk of her scalp off.
Videos of the assault, which took place last month, were quickly uploaded to social media and went viral around the world within hours, showing Arce looking shell-shocked. When the crowd finally came to a halt 3 miles down the road, a man forced Arce down on the ground, stood behind her, and grabbed one of her breasts. “We are live, we are live!” someone yelled before he removed his hand.
By then, a handful of local reporters had caught up to them, and planted microphones in Arce’s face. They asked her to recount what she had just been through. Arce, 48, was still being held against her will by the mob even as she tried to speak.
More:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/karlazabludovsky/bolivia-mayor-patricia-arce
If you were a journalist, and came across a lady in this condition, would your first instinct be to interview her?
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