Civil Unrest Hits Puerto Rico

A police riot over budget cuts broke out in Puerto Rico's capital Wednesday, with cops wielding batons and firing pepper spray on demonstrators.

The demonstrators, many of them students from the local university, attempted to enter the statehouse in San Juan to protest budget cuts and other laws under Gov. Luis Fortuno.

Authorities, who had closed the building after learning of the plan for a protest lined up shoulder-to-shoulder forming a barricade in front of the building.

Mary Kay Henry, the new head of the Service Employees International Union, pledged to raise awareness about the event by speaking out: "the intimidation of citizens appear[s] to be escalating on the island and no one is immune: journalists, gay men and women, our union brothers and sisters, and activists from every field who seek to make their voices heard and improve their lives and their communities. I am certain that many members of the U.S. media and many leaders in Washington are completely unaware of the disturbing events that took place Wednesday."

Video below. Warning: Evanescence!