David Yune is a flight instructor for the Navy Seabees Unmanned Systems corps. It is a job he’s well suited for, having been both a wartime drone operator and unlicensed civilian operator.

I had my drone up the minute I heard about Belleville. Chaos was a photographer’s best friend. I flew a triple-camera system, heavily customized with a 48MP 1/1.3″ CMOS medium tele camera as my long range optic. I could make out individual license plates, people were coming in as far away as Arkansas and Ohio. They must have all had the same idea: get to Chicago. It would be safe in Chicago.

The highways were choked with vehicles, not just from downstate. Every road coming into the city was packed, and I-294 was at a dead stop from all the people trying to get to O’Hare. The Far North Side was supposed to be safe, plenty of cops well behind the line right? Wrong. The cops had either turned tail and ran with the rest of the first wave of refugees, or joined all those gun nuts trying to roll up on City Hall. For a minute, it looked like they might pull it off. Since everyone was trying to get out of town, Southbound I-90 was pretty much clear all the way to downtown.

At the head of the convoy was this big red lifted truck, flanked on both sides by cop cars. I got a great shot of the gallows they were hauling, right as they were posting about how they planned to hang the mayor. The National Guard and the handful of loyalist cops managed to stop them just outside of Noble Square. Whoever was in charge of those troops wasn’t messing around. They grenaded the front of the convoy, sent the rest of those trucks peeling out.

I thought that footage would go viral, but traffic online was already swarming to any news about the militias moving into the city. On far-right social media and forums, they were spreading this AI video of a mob of black Chicagoans coming to burn down the suburbs. That was all some people needed to pick up their guns and turn them on their neighbors.

I don’t think I slept once over the next 3 days. Just me, my drone, and my E-bike staying just ahead of the mob. I got shots of the refugees piling out of their cars on the highways and just booking it on foot. I remember, this older couple in a burgundy town car. The refugees were helping them get out. The woman had gotten to her feet, but her husband couldn’t get his walker unfolded by the time the crowd heard the gunshots from the militia. The old lady was trampled to death by the very people trying to help her, and the old man was pushed back inside the car. Never found out what happened to him.

At one point, I saw the militia come up on a small Mosque. It looked like an old Pizzeria. The owners were long gone, the place was deserted. That group must have wasted half their ammo from shooting up the place. Only reason they stopped was when someone threw a can of gasoline through the window. I guess they weren’t satisfied with arson, because just as it started to go up in flames they dragged this poor guy to the front of the building and heaved him into the fire. I don’t know where they got him, I think they just grabbed the first guy they found with dark hair and a beard.

By the third day, we’d all been pushed into Cook county. The National Guard and loyalist Chicago PD were doing everything they could to keep the militias at bay. With every other means of escape cut off, people were swarming the decks of anything that floated in the hopes of evacuating by sea. Great Lakes cruise ships, fishing boats, private watercraft, I even saw a garbage barge overflowing with refugees try to make a go of it. In late January, with the wind chill as bad as it was back then… nobody on that tub was ever gonna make it.

The last week had been like a dream, flying and riding, staying just ahead of the chaos, taking only a few short breaks to eat or take a piss. On r/pics, I was the top poster for that week straight. Broke the site’s all time record multiple times. I was ready to do it again with those shots. I never got to post them.

My 5G hotspot was down. I rebooted it a couple of times, and then decided to head to a Starbucks for some free wifi. There’s was down. It was then I realized I couldn’t get to my apartment. I lived in Oak Lawn, right along Highway 20. It had been overrun a day prior. I’d been so busy getting footage it never even occurred to me until that minute. I was cut off, physically and digitally, along with the rest of the people unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of the line.

At least I got some good pics though, right?

[David Yune would remain in Chicago through the first winter of the war. His photos are a permanent feature of the Smithsonian’s exhibit “American Life At War.”]