Unlike Ms. Connolly, I was actually IN OAXACA throughout the six months of conflict, and I can count on two hands the days during which the people’s protests could be defined as riots (where street protests actually clashed with police).
Those days are:

June 14th, when police attacked the teachers strike encampment and teachers defended themselves.

July 20th (?),when alleged APPO members vandalized the Guelaguetza auditorium.

August 21st, when the people responded to a paramilitary attack on the Channel 9 antennas by taking over 12 commercial radio stations.

October 27th, when plain-clothed police opened fire on numerous protest barricades.

October 29th, when federal police occupied the city of Oaxaca.

November 2nd, when federal police attempted to take the University radio station.

November 20th, when protesters and police clashed in the historic center.

November 25th, when the APPO’s human chain around the federal police encampment ended in confrontation, and over 100 people were arrested, tortured, and moved to a prison across the country.

That is 8 days, that I can count. There may be other instances that I am forgetting. I do not include here the large-scale acts of non-violent civil disobedience carried out over the course of six months (marches, blockades, rallies, forums, encuentros, concerts, plantones). Those actions do not, by any stretch of the imagination, qualify as “riots.”

The conflict lasted six months. That’s about 180 days. 180 days of sustained, non-violent resistance. 7 days, out of 180, might have looked like riots? I have to vehemently disagree with Ms Connolly’s claim that “riot” accurately describes the situation. If that’s the journalistic standard for describing a conflict, then our presence in Iraq is “peacekeeping” not an “occupation.”

Ms Connolly could easily have chosen any number of other words or phrases to more accurately describe the situation in Oaxaca. Such as: political conflict, popular uprising, street mobilizations. But “riot” is a popular term in the commercial media. It’s applied to any and all acts of civil disobedience, popular mobilization, etc. The WTO protests in Seattle were “riots.” The 2007 May Day march in Los Angeles (during which children, performers, and journalists were attacked by riot police shooting tear gas and rubber bullets) was a “riot.” And apparently, Oaxaca was a “riot.” Often, this term is intentionally used to criminalize social movements. In Ms Connolly’s case, I suspect the word has become so commonplace within commercial media reporting that her intent in using the word was not to purposefully criminalize the Oaxacan people’s struggle, but that’s how it comes across.