'Throw a rock for Ireland," shouted a G8 summit protester, recognising me from an interview earlier in the day. The repeated volleys of tear gas had left a stinging, blinding sensation and I had just whacked my forehead off an iron bar which I failed to spot as I looked over my shoulder and ran backwards at the same time.
This was day three of the mass protests in Genoa. I had already lost my laptop and telephone and now nearly added my left eye to the sacrificial pyre. It was an ugly feeling, hemmed in on all sides, helicopters howling above, navy patrols closing in from the sea and tear gas canisters flying through the air. In a surreal parallel reality, locals strolled along the esplanade, eating ice creams as waves of protesters advanced and retreated, herded from one section of the seafront to another.
All had changed utterly in the 24 hours since police shot dead Carlos Giulani, shifting the threshold of repression into top gear. Now the police had killed, they could kill again. The innocence of the protests was at an end.
The video footage showed a frightened young police officer trapped in a vehicle, afraid for his life. The outcome could easily have been the reverse if the police officer had hesitated, but fate chose Giulani, making idle speculation of any other scenarios.
It was time to get off the streets, so I ran to the Independent Media Centre (Indymedia), high above the seafront. The Indymedia building housed dozens of "media activists" who fed raw footage on to a website, beating the professionals at AP and Reuters to the news scoops. "Don't hate the media, become the media," was their catchphrase, inviting anyone with a story to approach them and post it on the Internet. Their greatest strength was also their greatest weakness, as accuracy was often sacrificed for the speed and immediacy of the testimony they posted on their website.
An hour after Giulani was shot the walking wounded filed into the building, many in severe shock. "They killed everyone, they killed everyone," said a young German. A British cameraman, Adam Porter, had a bloody gash in his leg. A young woman had blood streaming from a head wound. "I put up my hands and lowered my camera bag," she said, "but seven cops beat me around the head, chest and legs." Next in was a Swiss woman who put her hand to her face when shooting started, leaving her with a nasty graze to the hand but probably saving her life.
Then the rumours began. The police were about to raid the Carlini camp site and arrest anyone found there. As I prepared a report, an Italian youth ran into the office. "The police are outside," he said. "Jump out the window." I looked out at the 20-foot drop and reluctantly returned to my work. The Italian picked up a phone and called his mother, beginning a heated and unintelligible conversation.
By then the events of the previous three days seemed like a hallucination. It began when I emerged into the hot sun at Milan train station, looking for a public toilet. I put a coin into the slot but instead of releasing a lever I found a clean syringe in my hand. An hour later, my travel companions and I were on a bus that twisted up from the city, utterly lost in our efforts to find some sign of anti-globalisation organisation. No one knew anything.
I had fallen in with Martin, in his 20s, from Cork, travelling alone. "The world leaders are going to finish off what's left of the planet," he said. "Someone has to stop them." At a bus stop, a group of elderly people watched our bedraggled procession with keen interest.
"Good luck to you," said a 91-year-old man in Italian. He chatted about his life during two world wars, while his friend, a youthful 87, laughed at the prospect of closing down the summit. "Everyone will die," he said, before also wishing us luck. The people of Genoa opened their apartment doors to help protesters escape pursuing police, apparently radicalised by the insanity unfolding around them.
By Sunday evening, protesters were being openly hunted down by police, who launched a savage raid on the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum, injuring 61 people.
"Please don't wash the blood off the walls," read the sign in the school building when I arrived, as a forensic test was planned to establish official responsibility for the raid. There was blood on the walls and blood on the floor, bits of computers and tattered clothes. Across in the Indymedia centre, survivors of the raid wept as they told their story, unable to comprehend the ferocity of the unprovoked attack.
We went back to Carlini stadium to pick up our possessions, but when we got there the organisers were herding people out.
In the nights before the protests, the stadium was home to 20,000 people who slept side by side under a tarpaulin, the facilities laid on by the Italian authorities. The motivation for such generous state assistance became clear at 6.30 am on the morning after my arrival. Over the PA system we heard: "There are 500 riot police outside the stadium and they want to come in." The sleeping bodies woke with a start, beginning several days of unbroken tension as rumours of violent raids and arbitrary arrests shook the crowds.
The next day a torrential downpour dampened spirits and threatened to turn the improvised camp site into a disaster zone. Volunteers immediately set to work, building dams around the marquee, stopping the water before it could damage sleeping bags.
Black Bloc was a phantom presence as people sensed that whatever action that fringe group chose to do would dominate the memory of the days ahead. The Black Bloc is reportedly made up of European anarchists who co-ordinate violent actions over the Internet. The truth seems more complicated, as the group doesn't exist outside of the momentary chaos that opens up in a crowded protest. The group is predominantly male, aged 15 to 24, and considers the destruction of property the best way to overthrow global capitalism.
Protesters were deeply divided on the role of the Black Bloc in Genoa, initially rejecting their tactics which broke up a well-organised march. The subsequent brutality of police modified the general opinion, but photographic evidence of police infiltration into the Black Bloc ranks fuelled speculation that the violence was a distraction manoeuvre which allowed police to attack protesters.
During the march, people passed by me in wheelchairs, a man strolled by with a live cow, and an Irishman pushed his pirate boat, "Genoah's Ark", equipped with a radio playing Cuban music, inviting refugees to board two by two and sail to a safer life.
Later that evening the Irish protester sat stunned in the Indymedia office. "I came here for a peaceful, funny protest," he said, "but now I've lost my sense of humour." On the way to the French border, he called up, terrified out of his wits. He said that police had just intercepted the van he was travelling in and placed hammers and axes in the back.
I haven't heard from him since.
As I boarded my train to Milan, a delegate from the G-8 Summit, clutching his souvenir G-8 briefcase, shifted impatiently in his seat. "Look what they've reduced us to," he said to me, "travelling in this way by train."
Michael McCaughan covered the Genoa protests