Christopher Manawa/Season 1/So Close, Yet So Far

## Summary

This article contains details of the events during the episode "So Close, Yet So Far" which were directly contributed to or witnessed by Christopher Manawa.

## Plot Details

Chris on his way home; he gets on the bus from school, finds a seat on his own and sits down with his earphones in. He gets a call from Travis which he red buttons and then goes back to his music.

The bus stops in traffic and Chris is watching an ambulance go past, all sirens and lights. Whilst the bus is stopped a young man gets on and shouts that the police have shot a homeless man about 20 times, the teenagers rush off the bus to see what has happened. Once off the bus he follows the crowd. He passes an ambulance with an EMT treating a policeman, sitting on the back step of the vehicle, for a bite on his arm.

Chris finds the main crowd but he’s at the back trying to see what’s happening. He can just see a body on the ground, covered with a sheet, and he's filming everything he can. People in the crowd are saying that it’s wrong for the police to have shot the man. A police officer tries to move them one and tells Chris to stop filming. "Do you want to go to jail son?” But people near Chris in the crowd back him up, and he doesn't stop recording.

The crowd in the city is even more agitated now but Chris is continuing to film, he can see the riot police starting to arrive. Travis and Liz are close but haven't found him yet, and Travis pushes a way through to Chris, he tries to pull Chris away from the front of the crowd and Chris argues. Kneeling down, Liza can see the body of the homeless man, he's been shot in the head and she watches as men in anti-infection suits get out of an ambulance. Concerned, she turns back and intervenes with Chris, who does as he's told.

As they move away we see the riot police arrive and a young officer shoots a tattooed infected woman. She shoots her twice, in the chest and then the head. The crowd react to the shots by panicking and running in all directions.

The Manawa family run through an increasingly violent and frightening scene. As they run down some steps we see a sign dated Aug 7 2010 advertising Los Angeles Library Week. People are vandalising things at random and trying to overturn cars. Daniel Salazar, a barber is just finishing up with a customer, seeing him out of the door and closing up his shop because of the disturbances. He's already pulling the metal shutters down when the Manawas arrive at his door. They ask to go in until it's over, Daniel wants to refuse and tries to but his wife, Griselda Salazar, tells him, in Spanish, to let them in and shut the door. He doesn't look happy, but he does as his wife asks and lets them in and locks up, as he does so some young men kick at the shutters - the street is chaotic now.

Travis is agitated and wants to know: Is there a back way out? Is there roof access so that they can see? Daniel wants him to slow down and to stay in the front, in the shop, and not go in the back which looks to be their home. Travis, Liza and Chris stride through followed by Daniel who tells them firmly to go back into the front, Travis is worried it won't be safe there. It's all starting to get tense when Ofelia Salazar enters from the back from her room. Daniel tells her to go back but she calms things nicely and invites the Manawas to "have a seat" in the front.

Later, when it's dark outside and the riot is building a head of steam, Chris is looking through the gaps in the metal shutters and Travis tells him to come away from the window.

Chris and his parents prepare to spend the evening, and perhaps the night, at Salazar's Cuts.