board. “A citizen has to lose an entire day in order to make the trip to Guayaquil. Here, the only way to publicize a child abduction or other serious crime is through social media, Facebook for example. Don’t demonize it by saying that it spreads fake news.”
Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. For the intervening two months, social media was abuzz with false sightings of the suspect in the Kerly Loor case, and every child, it seems, that was a few minutes late returning home from school was liable to find their picture circulating through town.
On that fateful morning in October, an already hyperalert citizenry reacted swiftly to the news of the drugging and robbery. It is impossible to know how the rumor started that a child was involved—perhaps because the incident began in front of a school, perhaps because it was known that the two women regularly dropped their children off at school around that time—but once started, it took on a life of its own.
The rumor tore through the local markets, tiendas, and cafés like a fast-moving virus, infecting everyone. People abruptly stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk as they studied their phones, absorbing the latest information.
The news that three suspects had been detained was met with relief, followed quickly by a sense of despair. The events, not only of those last two months, but of their entire lifetimes, had convinced the citizenry that the police and the judicial system could not be trusted. They would have to take matters into their own hands.
There is no happy ending to this story. How could there be? On October 14, 2019, just a few days shy of one year after the incident took place, Judge Odalis Ledesma pronounced sentence upon eleven people who were involved. Seven of them received thirty-four years for murder, while the other four were sentenced to seventeen years as accomplices. No one, it seems, feels that justice has truly been served.
María (not her real name), the mother of Ronald Bravo, has custody of the four daughters, ages fifteen, eleven, five, and two, that her son had with Jackeline Figueroa. María, who lives in Guayaquil, chose to allow the children to remain in their own home in Posorja, hoping that the familiar surroundings would help lessen their trauma. María’s aunt moved in with them, and María visits them on the weekend. Of course, the children have not escaped unscathed.
“When their parents were lynched, they watched the videos on social media,” María says. “They know how they died.”
The state has assigned a social worker, who makes frequent visits to the girls’ home to monitor their progress.
María does her best to move forward for the sake of her grandchildren, but it is difficult at times. She misses the frequent conversations that she had with her son. She has kept his last voicemails on her phone. “I try not to listen to them, but on his birthday, I couldn’t help it,” she says, breaking down in tears.
The stiff penalties handed down by the judge provide no comfort to María. She claims that Ronald’s killer is still free. “In the video you can clearly see the face of the man who gave him the final blow,” she says. “I will never forget his face.”
A framed photograph of her son and daughter-in-law hangs in the living room of her home. The caption reads: “We will love them and carry them in our hearts.”
Mauricio Pareja left behind an eighteen-year-old son, Israel (name changed for his protection). Israel, who suffers from cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, remains in the care of his mother, Mauricio’s ex-wife.
It appears that whatever problems he may have had with the law, Mauricio was a good father.
“He provided all of his medications,” says Mayra (not her real name). “He visited every day and took him for walks. They loved soccer and watched the games together. Israel rooted for the yellow and his father the blue.” Barcelona (the yellow team) and Emelec (the blue) are local Guayaquil teams and longtime rivals.
Mayra, who has a ten-year-old daughter from another relationship, works from home assembling cardboard crafts. Her small income is supplemented by the $240 a month stipend that the government provides for persons with disabilities, but it is barely enough. A box of muscle relaxants, which Israel needs to combat pain, costs nearly two hundred dollars and lasts a little more than two weeks.
María and Mayra both say that the beginning of the school year is the hardest time. María had to move her four grandchildren to a public school. The quality of education in Ecuadorian public schools is notably terrible, and even the poorest citizens will scrimp and save to send their children to a private school. Mayra had to accept charity in order to buy the uniform and the school supplies for her daughter.
According to attorney Roberto Malagón, the judge ordered each of those convicted to pay fifteen thousand dollars in restitution, but the ruling has never been formalized. So, María and Mayra wait.
Minister of the Interior María Paula Romo defended the actions taken by the local police on October 16, 2018. “All proper procedures were followed,” she said in an interview a few weeks later. “It was an unforeseeable situation.”
When questioned as to why the ministry doesn’t publicize crime statistics for each of the small towns so that resources could be more efficiently utilized, Romo stated that she was going to work to make a change in the system but quickly followed that statement with this confusing and self-serving one: “Two-way work is very important in terms of responsibility. When these figures are used in a spirit of scandal, there is a conflict like the one we are living in Posorja. We are interested in publishing the figures with an appropriate reading. We are committed, since I arrived at the interior ministry, to incorporate more data to assess the level of conflict in an area, such as the number of calls received by ECU 911.”
Romo’s words largely fell on deaf ears in the community.
A little more than a year later, it is difficult to find physical evidence of what happened in Posorja on that awful day. A woman sells shoes out of her car in front of the police station, drawing a long line of pre-Christmas shoppers. A man repairs his motorcycle on the sidewalk in front of a parts store. A small black dog dozes in the shade of a utility box, escaping the midday heat. The fishing fleet is in, and vendors hawk fresh shrimp, conchas, and corvina, while the frigate birds gather overhead and swoop down to grab up any stray morsel.
But the memory of that day is never far from the surface. Jefferson Paéz, a young patrolman, remembers how he and his fellow officers at first merely locked the door to the station when the crowd began to form, thinking it was just another protest demonstration (something that happens with frequency throughout Ecuador).
“They threw gasoline on the door and set it afire. When the glass shattered, they rushed in and took the prisoners. They weren’t in a cell; they weren’t even in handcuffs because they were waiting to be sent to Guayaquil.” Jefferson—who, because of his rank, isn’t allowed to carry a handgun—cowered behind a desk and watched as his best friend (another patrolman) was hit across the back of his head with an iron bar.
What happened that afternoon was a tragedy and one would hope that lessons were learned from it. One would, unfortunately, be wrong. The tradition of “Indigenous Justice” or “People’s Justice,” whatever it is called, lives on throughout Latin America. Neither Amnesty International nor Human Rights Watch tracks these linchamientos (lynchings), but a 2015 study by the INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística) indicates that such incidents in Guatemala and Bolivia (the two countries with the highest indigenous population) increased nearly tenfold since 2004. Mexico and Peru also experienced marked increases.
The study goes on to say that Colombia and Ecuador—once at or near the top of the list—have
