Watch the video that exposes the savage police violence in Uruguay against animals

By Jesus Vargas

Trigger-happy attacks those who have no voice

The night of Paso de los Toros became the scene of a tragedy that goes beyond the anecdotal to become an alarming symptom of the police violence in Uruguay. A cash, whose identity is still protected under the wing of the Home Office, decided that the solution to a conflict with a canine was an accurate shot to the abdomen. There were no containment protocols, there was no crisis management; There was a gunshot and the devastating image of an official dragging the animal's body by one leg to throw it, as if it were waste, into the bed of an official truck.

What is circulating on social networks is not just a video of animal abuse; It is irrefutable proof of a modus operandi where brute force replaces intelligence. Police abuse in the streets seems to have found a new training ground in Tacuarembó, where a dog that barked or “attacked”—depending on the version you choose to believe—ended up paying with his life for the incompetence of someone who carries a State weapon. While the animal rights platforms cry out for justice, the administrative silence of the weekend It sounds like complicity.

My Paso de los Toros shelter has already filed a complaint with INBA.
We need the people who were there to give their testimony. https://t.co/gu9Uq9SlhL

— Animalist Platform (@PA_Uruguay) January 31, 2026

Versions that smell like an official cover-up

As happens every time the uniform is stained, the “contradictory versions” did not take long to appear to muddy the field. The president of the INBA, Esteban Vieta, acknowledged that the narratives intersect, but the Chief of Police of Tacuarembó, Roberto Pereira, has already gone out to assemble the armor: he alleged that the officer was bitten by a “large” dog. However, this justification of self-defense fails to explain the subsequent viciousness or the lack of skill in subduing an animal without resorting to lead, a repetitive pattern of the police violence in Uruguay.

It is curious how, in the absence of cameras or definitive evidence, the officer's word always carries more weight than that of civilian witnesses who claim that the animal was only barking. The Police under the magnifying glass feeds on that asymmetry of power, where a uniformed officer can execute a living being and sit and wait for an “emergency investigation” to determine if it complied with the law. For the residents of Paso of the Bulls, the fact is clear: a firearm was used in a residential area to silence a dog, an excess that does not withstand the slightest ethical analysis.

The INBA and a bureaucracy that always arrives late

While the animal lay dying in a veterinary clinic and then died, the agency in charge of its protection was “closed for the weekend.” This institutional apathy is what allows the complaints about police practices undue progress without brakes. Only on Monday will they meet to “ask for information,” giving those involved enough time to accommodate the story. If the National Institute of Animal Welfare It does not have the capacity to react to a public execution at the hands of authority, its existence becomes purely decorative.

The Animalist Platform has already filed the complaint, but the thermal sensation On the street it is totally unprotected. The police violence in Uruguay against animals is not a minor issue, since it reflects the threshold of tolerance of a force that seems to have lost the compass of respect for life. If a police can't handle the attack of a dog without unholstering its 9mm pistol, what security can we citizens expect when the conflict is with a person? The lack of immediate sanctions only confirms that, for the Tacuarembó leadership, the life of a dog is worth less than the processing of a bullet.

The owner's responsibility as a smokescreen

In a predictable turn, the Chief of Police He slipped that the owner of the animals, a supposedly drunk person, will be the one "responsible. It is the classic tactic to divert attention from the police violence in Uruguay: blaming the victim or those around him so that the focus stops being on the officer who pulled the trigger. That the owner was negligent—which must be proven—does not grant a license to kill. The police response to a municipal violation regarding pet ownership cannot be, under any circumstances, the summary execution in the middle of a public street.

Paso de los Toros today mourns an animal and distrusts its guardians. The police violence in Uruguay has added a new milestone of cruelty that social networks were responsible for viralizing before the cameras “disappeared” or the reports became illegible. It's not just about a dog; It is an institutional culture that despises social sensitivity and takes refuge in corporatism when the chips are down. The question that remains floating in the air of Tacuarembó is as simple as it is terrifying.

How long are we going to accept that the state response to any domestic conflict is the indiscriminate use of firearms?