SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. (AP) — A Washington State Patrol trooper fatally shot a runaway 500-pound pig in Spokane Valley at its owner’s direction after the trooper’s stun gun failed to slow the animal.
The Spokesman-Review says Trooper Morgan Mehaffey first saw the pig running down a sidewalk Friday after it escaped from a minivan through a broken back window.
The trooper herded the animal out of traffic with his patrol car, pushing it back onto the sidewalk. When volunteers found a rope, the pig’s owner agreed to let Mehaffey try to slow the animal with his Taser so it could be roped. But that didn’t work.
At that point the female owner told the trooper to shoot the animal.
Mehaffey says the woman drove from Eureka, Mont., to Valleyford, Wash. to purchase the pig for breeding. A tow truck helped load its carcass back into her van.
