AP Photographer Tells What He Saw

As the government operation unfolded, Alan Diaz, a 43-year-old freelance photographer on assignment for Associated Press, was inside the house with his camera. This is what he saw:

“They’re here! They’re here!” a cameraman shouted in the darkness. Then, suddenly, all was chaos.

Somehow, before a team of federal agents went in, I hopped a fence and ran inside the modest home where Elian Gonzalez had lived since he was rescued from the ocean on Thanksgiving Day.

Inside, family members screamed. I heard the door slam shut behind me. “Go to the room--go to the room,” someone said, directing me to the bedroom Elian shared with his cousin Marisleysis. I rushed in and fumbled for a light switch. Elian wasn’t there.

I banged on the bedroom door of Elian’s great-uncle Lazaro. Angela Gonzalez, his wife, opened the door. Elian was in a closet, cradled by Donato Dalrymple, one of two fishermen who had rescued him.

The boy was crying, asking adults “Que esta pasando?”--”What’s happening?”

“Nothing’s happening, baby. Everything’s going to be all right,” I said. What else could I say to the child whose saga I had chronicled for almost five months?

As a 43-year-old freelance photographer of Cuban descent, I had developed an unusual relationship with the Gonzalez family and the 6-year-old child whose life I had been capturing on film for AP.

When it began, I did what I always do: I started shooting photos. And I worried what the agents might do if they saw me, camera focused, ready to capture their every move.

We waited. Angela watched the locked bedroom door. Thirty seconds passed. Agents banged on the door, then broke it down and burst into the room, guns raised.

“What’s happening?” Elian asked again, through tears.

I was nearby. “Back off,” the agents told me.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent, wearing green riot gear and goggles and holding an automatic rifle, confronted Dalrymple, who was clutching the frightened boy.

I stood, back against the wall, shooting photographs as agents grabbed the boy. As they left the room, I started to follow. “Back off!” an agent screamed. I stopped.

In the living room, agents had pinned Lazaro on the couch. He was in a rage, crying, wanting to go after the child.

A Spanish-speaking female agent picked up Elian and rushed from the house, placing him in a waiting white van. The doors slammed shut and the van sped down the street with Elian inside.