La noche del sábado 31 de mayo de 2025, la ciudad de Portoviejo, capital de la provincia costera de Manabí, fue escenario de un nuevo hecho de violencia que dejó dos personas muertas y otras dos gravemente heridas. El ataque ocurrió alrededor de las 23:45 en el parque Saavedra, ubicado en la ciudadela Los Olivos, cuando un grupo de amigos fue sorprendido por sicarios que se movilizaban en bicicletas. La irrupción de los atacantes dejó una escena de pánico y muerte que, según testigos, se desató en cuestión de segundos, según reportó Ecuavisa.

De acuerdo con dicho medio, una de las víctimas falleció en el sitio tras recibir varios impactos de bala. Otro hombre intentó huir corriendo, pero cayó sin vida a unos 50 metros del lugar. Los dos heridos fueron trasladados de urgencia a casas de salud cercanas, donde permanecen en estado crítico. El ECU 911 recibió la alerta e inmediatamente despachó ambulancias y unidades policiales a la zona. Al llegar, los socorristas constataron los decesos y procedieron al traslado de los heridos.

La Policía Nacional inició las investigaciones para dar con los responsables del crimen, quienes escaparon del lugar sin dejar rastros. Las autoridades manejan varias hipótesis sobre el móvil del ataque, aunque aún no se ha confirmado si se trató de un ajuste de cuentas, una disputa entre grupos criminales o una acción aleatoria. La escena fue acordonada para el levantamiento de indicios balísticos y toma de testimonios.

Este crimen ocurre en un contexto de creciente violencia en Portoviejo, que ha visto dispararse las cifras de homicidios en el último año. Según datos del Ministerio del Interior citados por Ecuavisa, entre enero y abril de 2025 se registraron 110 asesinatos en la ciudad, un aumento significativo si se compara con los 70 homicidios contabilizados en el mismo periodo de los dos años anteriores. La tendencia al alza preocupa a los habitantes, quienes señalan que los parques, calles y espacios públicos ya no ofrecen garantías mínimas de seguridad.

El doble homicidio en el parque de Portoviejo no fue el único crimen que estremeció al país ese sábado. Horas antes, a las 18:30, en la parroquia Chongón, perteneciente a Guayaquil, otro ataque armado dejó dos muertos dentro de una unidad de transporte público. En este caso, un sicario subió al bus y disparó en reiteradas ocasiones contra un joven de 21 años que tenía antecedentes penales. Las balas también alcanzaron a un segundo pasajero, un hombre de 50 años que fue identificado como víctima colateral.

La Policía presume que este asesinato está relacionado con disputas entre bandas delictivas que operan en la zona. Los cuerpos fueron trasladados a la morgue de Guayaquil mientras continúan las pericias para identificar al responsable del ataque. El distrito Progreso, al que pertenece Chongón, ha registrado un incremento preocupante de muertes violentas: en el primer cuatrimestre de 2025, se reportaron 32 asesinatos, muy por encima del promedio histórico de menos de 10 crímenes en ese mismo periodo, según el medio ecuatoriano.

Ambos episodios reflejan la magnitud de la crisis de seguridad que atraviesa Ecuador, especialmente en sus zonas urbanas y costeras, donde el control territorial de bandas vinculadas al narcotráfico ha generado un clima de temor e incertidumbre. La violencia ya no se circunscribe a determinados sectores, sino que irrumpe en espacios cotidianos, como buses y parques, afectando tanto a objetivos directos como a víctimas colaterales.

Aunque el Gobierno ha anunciado medidas para contener la ola de crímenes, como el fortalecimiento de la presencia policial y la intervención en territorios dominados por mafias, los resultados siguen siendo insuficientes. La Policía y las Fuerzas Armadas continúan desplegadas y realizan allanamientos en zonas de alto riesgo.

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EXCLUSIVE: Over the last several years, a few dozen diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consultant groups have racked up over a hundred million dollars in taxpayer-funded contracts from K-12 schools across the country, a new report by Defending Education found.

The report, shared with Fox News Digital, details how 41 DEI consultant groups garnered millions in taxpayer-funded contracts from 303 school districts and public education entities from 2021 until now.

In total, the groups collected over $123 million from public schools in 40 states. The report found public school DEI contracts in both red and blue states, from Florida and Alabama to California and Washington.

Erika Sanzi, a spokesperson for Defending Education, described the schools-consultants partnership as a «total racket that makes schools worse» and often takes no consideration of age-appropriateness in curricula.

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According to the report, the biggest winner in the scheme was Amplify, a firm that provides professional development and curricula to school districts, which scored a total of over $70,500,000.

The report states that in a now-scrubbed statement on its website, Amplify said its mission is to «make education, and thereby the world, more equitable and accessible» and to «help teachers support their students in constructing, questioning, expanding, and strengthening knowledge of where they come from and who they are becoming.»

In response, a representative for Amplify told Fox News Digital that the group «publishes textbooks and other instructional materials that help students learn reading, math and science» and that «there is no place anywhere in Amplify’s products, or in the training programs about how to use them, for ideologies or political agendas.» 

The representative said «our programs help students learn how to think, not what to think.» 

The report highlights another consultant group, Adjusted Equity Solutions, which it says is associated with the Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute, that claims to help schools challenge «whiteness and hegemonic epistemologies in school,» use «equity audits to measure student inclusiveness, policy, and practice» and serve as «advocate and social activist for community-based causes in both the school and neighborhood community.» 

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Students arrive at Benson High School for the first day of hybrid instruction for middle and high schools on April 19, 2021, in Portland, Oregon. (Carlos Delgado/AP Images for Portland Public Schools)

This group took in over a million dollars from public schools during the study period.

«Tinkering in the minds of other people’s children is big business and countless K-12 schools across the country are active participants,» Sanzi said. «They pay big bucks to enter into contracts with ideologues and activists who, in turn, gain access, directly or indirectly, to a captive audience of young minds.»

Speaking with Fox News Digital via Zoom, Sanzi said that «rather than this being a focus on sort of academic interventions, it’s a lot of jargon that so far has not proven itself to be measurable. And there’s really not much evidence, if any, that any of this is helping students or helping schools or helping staff.»

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Sanzi said that though these DEI groups couch their activities in agreeable terms like «belonging» and «empathy,» they often end up being a «wolf in sheep’s clothing.»

«At first, you’re thinking lesson on empathy, like that’s good,» she said. «Who wouldn’t want their child to be empathetic? We want that. Until you realize that the lesson on empathy is going to be about something like a little girl in her bathroom at school, a staff member who’s trans, so biologically male, but identifies as female, comes into the restroom with her. She naturally feels uncomfortable because that’s a very natural feeling in a circumstance like that. But she’s told that she needs to have ‘empathy’ for this grownup who identifies as female, right? And that her discomfort is the problem… That feeling discomfort in that situation is wrong or makes her un-empathetic.»

Morning sun lights the front of the Department of Education building in Washington, D.C., Feb. 4, 2025. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

The Trump Department of Education has warned state education departments in all 50 states that they must remove diversity, equity and inclusion policies or risk losing federal funding.

Despite this, Sanzi said many of these consultant groups have adjusted by scrubbing references to DEI on their websites and using other words to describe the same thing. 

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«We see a lot of renaming,» she said. «So, they might say, ‘Well, we’re getting rid of our DEI office or we’re getting rid of our equity officer.’ [But] the proof will be in the pudding because what we notice often is that you’ll see a switch, like suddenly we hear the word belonging a lot more now. And so the question becomes, ‘Are you getting rid of it? Or are you just rebranding it and shifting it somewhere else and taking it off your website?’» 

«What many people don’t understand is that the founders of these consultant companies and the people who run them and the practitioners are activists. They are ideologues,» she went on. «They have every right to believe that what they’re transmitting is the right thing, but in a public-school setting that is required to maintain viewpoint diversity, these really have no place, not only because of the cost, not only cause it’s public money, not only because they’re not very transparent about what they’re doing, but also because they are really trying to push an ideological agenda on other people’s children.»

The Culturally Responsive School Leadership Institute did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.