“They catch us for the crap”: the mayor of a Uruguayan town denounced that the Brazilian police carry out persecutions in his territory

Brazilian police chased, rammed and beat a 14-year-old Uruguayan teenager at the entrance to a town called Aceguá, in the east of the country and about 500 meters from the binational border between the two countries.

The city's mayor, Javier Rodríguez, expressed concern about Brazilian police incursions into Uruguayan territory, told local broadcaster La Voz de Melo. Rodríguez said that many neighbors contacted him when, in the early morning of this Tuesday, the events happened.

“They told me that several Brazilian patrols had gone through again in pursuit of a minor on a motorcycle, that they had killed him and that he had fallen,” said the official. “This is the third time that the Brazilian police have done this thing of passing by and doing what they want,” he commented and emphasized the recklessness of the Brazilian troops, who rammed with a patrol car the minor's motorcycle.

“When we arrived at the place, almost the entire town was surrounding the Brazilian police,” said the mayor. He went to the scene of the incident accompanied by the Uruguayan police and there he found that the Brazilians had the minor in their patrol car, with their hands handcuffed.

Apparently, the persecution of the minor had begun in Brazilian territory, where the minor was riding a motorcycle without a helmet. The matter was resolved when the mayor, the Uruguayan police and the minor's parents accompanied them to the border.

“The Uruguayan police never disrespected the Brazilian authorities,” Rodriguez said. He explained that, when Uruguayan troops need to act on the Brazilian side, they do so “with a permit and in conjunction” with local authorities. He added that “they enter here as if it were not another country, it is a shame that. They grab us for the crap, we don't seem to exist.”

Noelia Mesa, the teenager's mother, said she will pursue legal action, according to the Independent Network. “I admit that he was wrong to ride without a helmet, but it seems disrespectful to me that a child under the age of fourteen is thrown out of the back,” he said.

When he fell from the motorcycle, after being rammed, the young man suffered some injuries, although none considered serious. “They beat him and pointed a gun at him,” Mesa denounced and agreed with the mayor in the concern for the Brazilian police.

In fact, in November last year there was an incident with similar characteristics, but with the aggravation that at that time the Brazilian police used their firearms. At that time, the residents of Aceguá experienced tension when a persecution, which began on the Brazilian side, moved to the Uruguayan one.

This was a case in which troops from the neighboring country “shot in chasing a motorcycle” and after a chase through the streets of the town “they gave the motorcyclist a chase” with the patrol car, which caused him to fall and be captured, reported La Voz de Melo.

This motorcyclist, also a minor and from a Uruguayan family, was charged not because of a criminal, but because he “would have committed a traffic violation”.

In those days, the mayor regretted the situation and said that what was happening was not something new, but the third or fourth time it happened” in the area. He assured that the commissioner and the prosecutor of the jurisdiction were kept abreast of what happened and that they “have taken action” in this regard.

KEEP READING: