Although accustomed to covering violent events in Ecuador, part of their daily work as employees of the local public broadcaster TC Televisión, in Guayaquil, journalists, producers and cameramen never imagined that they would become news protagonists after an armed group took them hostage this Tuesday- fair (9).
“I never thought I would go through this in my life. It was disastrous for all the channel's employees. We were all afraid of dying or that a colleague would be killed or injured,” creative producer Carlos Vega told EFE Agency.
Still visibly scared, Carlos arrived at the station's headquarters this Wednesday morning (10). However, the order given by authorities investigating the incident is that “no one can enter for 48 hours”.
“In addition, the cell phones of all employees who were inside the channel were collected for analysis,” explained a police officer present at the scene.
Resigned, Carlos remembered that, on the day of the invasion, he had just returned from lunch. As his office is directly opposite the studio where the attack took place, he saw “a group of men who forced their way in and started shouting”.
“We ran to another office in the back and threw ourselves on the floor because there were shots. Other colleagues ran into the air ducts to try to protect themselves. It was complete madness. We didn't understand what was happening,” he said.
Ironically, they, who are used to reporting, did not know that, at 2:15 pm (4:15 pm in Brasília) yesterday, a group of hooded men would enter TC Televisión at the moment a program was broadcast live and turn them into news, so much so that today, outside the channel, there were not only journalists from Ecuador, but others who came from Chile, Peru, the United States and Colombia to record the crisis of violence that the country is going through.
Investigation
Once police took control of the situation on Tuesday, the investigation began.
At the scene, there are bullet holes in a wall, a broken glass door, as well as sticks of dynamite and grenades with which the criminals intimidated the TV employees.
“This was a suicidal act,” said one of the police officers who participated in the hostage rescue operation.
The reason, he explained, was that the 13 perpetrators of the crime, including two minors, aged 15 and 17, “would be killed or captured, there was no other way”.
For one of the channel's cameramen, who preferred not to reveal his name, what happened was a turning point.
“We were in a penthouse and, suddenly, in the office chat, our colleagues started asking for help and for us to call the police because they had been kidnapped,” he said.
“The criminals placed a stick of dynamite on the chest of our colleague José Luis Calderón. It's an image that I can't get out of my head and that we all saw in Ecuador. In the 11 years that I've been a cameraman, I've covered robberies and dangerous situations, with the which you get used to when you work in the press, but I never thought I would witness something of this magnitude,” he added.
Leonardo Flores, one of the station's reporters, declared that the armed group sought to “stand out and sow chaos in Guayaquil, because not only did they take over the channel, they wanted to invade barracks and universities and turn everything into chaos.”
Ecuador experienced a day of terror on Tuesday, with at least ten people killed in various acts of violence, including the invasion of the television station, vehicles being set on fire and threats to universities, state institutions and companies.
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