 After police left their posts at the presidential palace, Morales never returned and was forced into hiding in an improvised office protected by a small group of his guard.He ultimately held a press conference at the Bolivian Air Force's presidential hangar in El Alto International Airport later in the day, leading some to suspect that Morales had already lost control of the government.Franklin Pareja, a professor of the Higher University of San Andrés, said that because of the abandonment police, the Morales government "lost its shield" and that "it was totally vulnerable and couldn’t go on".