It was the day that many had feared but few had truly imagined: heavily armed Spanish police dragging voters from the ballot box, batons and rubber bullets flying, and elderly women with gushing head wounds.
Police helicopters hovered over polling stations across Catalonia as riot officers charged at unarmed voters to crush an independence referendum that Madrid branded a coup. Videos emerged of police raining blows on those who refused to abandon the poll. At the Ramon Llull school, police fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd: one person was taken for surgery after being shot in the eye.
The Catalan Government says that overall yesterday, 844 civilians and 12 police were injured.
"This is shameful, this is a dictatorship," cried Gina Carreras, a 53-year-old outside the Colegio Infant Jesus in Barcelona's Gracia neighbourhood, where police had tried to force their way through the school's iron gates to push back voters. They retreated, but an elderly lady was left with blood pouring down her face. Voters refused to abandon the centre, their determination hardened by the violence. "We will stay here until we can vote," Mercedes Carral, a 59-year-old lawyer, said.
The Spanish Government was "incapable of talking, incapable of accepting that others want something different," she said. "It is indefensible".