The 2022 Cetinje Mass Shooting and the Final Ballistics Question

Forty-five minutes in Medovina

At about 3:30 p.m. on 12 August 2022, residents of the Medovina neighborhood in Cetinje called police to report gunfire. Montenegrin prosecutors later established that Vuk Borilović used a hunting rifle to kill ten people, including two children, and wound six others. The victims were members of a tenant family, neighbors and other people in the area.

The attack lasted roughly 45 minutes. One responding police officer was wounded. Early reports differed over whether Borilović had been killed by police or a civilian; the later forensic decision explained why both accounts contained part of the truth.

What the ballistics established

The Higher State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica said Borilović suffered five gunshot wounds, each independently fatal. The first projectile was fired from a police officer’s service pistol. Four more came from a pistol belonging to an unidentified person.

Prosecutors concluded that the officer used force lawfully while attempting to stop an ongoing lethal attack and found no basis for a criminal case against him. They opened a separate file against an unknown person to identify the source of the other four shots and determine whether any criminal responsibility existed.

Chronology

The attacker’s responsibility is established

This case does not depend on rumor or a contested suspect theory. The state prosecutor attributed all ten killings to Borilović after the autopsies, ballistics and other evidence were reviewed. He died at the scene, so no murder trial could occur.

The archive classifies the mass shooting as resolved as to perpetrator. That label is narrower than “fully closed”: it does not resolve the identity or legal position of the person who fired four shots at Borilović, the adequacy of the police response, or the separate 2026 allegation involving assistance to a wounded victim.

Response and prevention questions

Police said officers reached the area within minutes, but residents and victims’ relatives questioned why the shooting continued for so long. Officials acknowledged limits in specialized tactical capacity, and an internal commission reviewed the use of force.

Families also asked why Borilović retained access to the hunting rifle after an earlier conviction for violent behavior. In 2024, the Cetinje prosecutor’s office publicly rejected claims that it had blocked an administrative process to remove his weapon, emphasizing that licensing and confiscation decisions belonged elsewhere. The institutional responsibility question therefore remains contested and should not be reduced to a single unsupported accusation.

Victim-centered boundaries

This article names the attacker only because attribution and the ballistics record require it. It does not reproduce graphic details, speculate about motive or turn the disputed final shots into a heroic narrative. The central fact is the loss of ten people and the lasting harm to six survivors, their families and the Cetinje community.

Current status

As of 7 October 2026, Borilović’s responsibility for the ten killings is established in the prosecutor’s decision, and the police officer’s use of force was found lawful. The reviewed public record still does not identify the person whose weapon fired the remaining four fatal shots. A reported 2026 charge concerning an officer’s alleged failure to assist a wounded person is a separate pending allegation, not a conviction.