SANTIAGO, Dominican Republic – One person was killed and four more were injured Tuesday during a protest in the northern Dominican Republic, an activist said, blaming the violence on police.

A spokesman for the Broad Front of Popular Struggle, or FALPO, told Efe that residents of several towns peacefully mobilized to demand the creation of local public infrastructure when they were fired upon by the National Police.

Victor Breton confirmed the death of Alfredo Gomez, 26, an accounting student and FALPO organizer.

A group of people were gathering “peacefully” in the municipality of Moca when a police officer “without a word fired at the crowd, killing our comrade and wounding four others,” Breton said.

However, the spokesman for the regional command of the National Police, Col. Antonio Perez Calvo, denied that police shot Gomez.

Perez said that during a pause in the protest, one of the demonstrators opened fire from a “little hill,” killing one person and wounding the other four.

After learning of the young man’s death and the injuries suffered by the others, demonstrators burned tires, threw trash onto the streets and marched with the man’s body to the Licey Al Medio municipal hospital, Breton said. EFE