Caracas: Venezuelan police trashed an apartment block and shot a dog dead when they raided the building with shotguns and armored cars in the hunt for alleged anti-government rioters, residents said.
Elevators, apartment doors and vehicles were damaged and windows smashed at the El Paraiso complex in western Caracas, where residents recounted the chaos of Tuesday night's raid.
They said dozens of National Guard military police smashed down the front gate with armored cars, firing tear gas, cartridges of metal shot and ball bearings.
It was one of the latest incidents during two and half months of violent clashes between police and anti-government protesters -- though so far much of the reported unrest has been in the street.
Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said police arrested 23 men accused of shooting and injuring police officers, and seized guns and explosives in the raid.
"They cut off the power, they destroyed apartments and elevators. It looked like a battlefield," one resident, Iraida Malave, 62, told AFP on Wednesday.
"They robbed many apartments. The tear gas went up and my six-year-old grandson was choking."
Yasmin Navarro, 55, said officers entered her apartment and accused her of "hiding terrorists." They shot her dog dead when it ran up to them, she said.
Socialist President Nicolas Maduro is resisting calls for early elections to remove him from office by protesters who blame him for a desperate economic crisis.
Maduro says the crisis is a US-backed conspiracy.
The government accuses protesters of seeking to topple it violently. The opposition accuses the authorities of violently repressing demonstrators.
Prosecutors say 68 people have been killed in the unrest since April 1. Hundreds have been injured and 3,000 arrested, according to non-government judicial watchdog Foro Penal.
