In June 2006, disgruntled teachers ignited a national crisis in Mexico. When police tried to break up a union protest demanding higher wages outside the state capitol in the city of Oaxaca, teachers and their sympathizers stormed government offices, chased out the governor and forced the police to flee the city. 

They barricaded the downtown with burning vehicles, seized control of local television and radio stations and beat up government employees who tried to continue working. After five months of anarchy and the death of an American journalist, then-President Vicente Fox sent in thousands of riot police to retake the city of 258,000 people.