SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (WKRC) — A former pro soccer player was arrested in El Salvador after he was reportedly caught on video dangling a small dog by its legs from an apartment window last week.
The incident happened on Oct. 20 in El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador. The video allegedly showing 64-year-old Héctor Alejandro Rosales Bonilla hanging a pug from the window of what appears to be a fifth-story apartment while it cries in distress has since gone viral. In the video, the man is also seen taking what appears to be a photo or video of the pug as it dangles for at least four seconds.
Rosales Bonilla is a former professional soccer player who played for C.D. Águila, a club in El Salvador’s Primera División, in the ’90s, and is now a dentist, according to the New York Post. He is facing animal abuse charges for the incident, according to the National Civil Police of El Salvador (PNC).
“We will not tolerate this type of action,” the PNC wrote in a translated post on X following Rosales Bonilla’s arrest.
“We received a report through social media about a little dog that was being a victim of animal abuse,” San Salvador Mayor Mario Durán said in a separate X post. “Immediately, our team, along with @PNCSV, intervened and managed to rescue it. Now it is safe and will receive the care it needs.”
Durán’s office also shared video of the pug playing with an official following the former soccer player’s arrest.