The military school
that ordered silence

The student is 17, in his final year of high school and about to graduate from Military School No. 7 Miguel Iturralde, in Portoviejo, Manabí. His mother enrolled him there because she wanted a disciplined education, and she is used to the academy's strictness: cleaning, exercising, following orders. The boy has a medical condition: if he touches muddy surfaces, his skin breaks out severely. That is why he had a medical certificate excusing him from those activities.

On July 11, 2026, he was told to do an activity involving mud. He refused. According to the complaint filed with the authorities by the school psychologist and the mother, and according to accounts from his classmates that the show heard, Sergeant Ochoa, 45, yanked him by the arm, took him to the ground and put him in a military neck hold to restrict his movement, until the student could no longer call for help. He then forced other students to hold him down and carry him, and together they threw him into the mud while hitting him. The student was left with physical injuries and damaged belongings. A medical report from those same days recorded injuries, physical signs and the allergic reaction.

The mother's complaint names Sergeant Ochoa, Sergeant Lara and other instructors for alleged physical violence. Boscán showed Ochoa's face and name on air. In his view, the assault alone would not have made it to the show. What turned it into a case was what came next.

After the complaint was filed, someone from the school spoke to the mother. They offered to handle the paperwork to transfer her son to another school, because he was blacklisted. Blacklisted, as they explained to her, meant they would not let him graduate from the military academy. The student who had been assaulted became the problem for having complained to his mother.

The school's principal, Carlos Guerrero Escobar, asked the mother not to file the complaint, so everything could go on as if nothing had happened. And he threatened her: she had better not think of recording him. Boscán showed his photo and name on air and asked him to explain to the education authorities why he was protecting someone who beats his students.

On July 17, 2026, at 11:32 p.m., the mother began receiving messages and calls. The person writing claimed to belong to an organized crime group, threatened her with death, demanded an answer and warned her not to block them. They told her she talked too much, insulted her and pressured her to leave the area. There were also voice recordings.

To show her they knew where she lived, they sent her photos of her ID card and her son's. The image had a flaw: in the surname, two letters were stuck together because of a printing error. It was not the original card, it was a copy. The copy in the school's file has exactly the same error in the same place. Boscán put the two images side by side.

The mother suspects that a military officer with access to her son's file handed over the data. She and the student left Portoviejo and live in another city. They fear that if the boy goes back to school, something worse could happen. Boscán summed it up this way: the mother reports that her son was put in a chokehold and ends up driven out of her city, harassed by people who used information only the school had, with no authority to turn to.

On August 27, 2026, Andersson Boscán presented the case on the show, with the names and photos of Sergeant Ochoa and Principal Guerrero Escobar. He called on the Education Ministry to act and noted that those involved are fully identified, including the principal, who chose to protect the instructors instead of the students.

The next day he described the reaction. Sergeant Ochoa asked people close to him to comment on the video in his defense and to report it on the platform. And that morning, at the school, the students were gathered together. One student recorded it: first the whole school was told that a Venezuelan journalist was telling lies and that they should not believe what they saw on social media; then only the final-year students were gathered.

Boscán reproached Principal Guerrero Escobar directly: going to minors, one day before the investigative commission, to threaten the witnesses. He asked the students not to be afraid and to record everything, and asked the Defense and Education ministries to take note. He made clear that he has nothing against the Armed Forces, where he has friends he considers honest people.