Trooper Shoots 500-Pound Pig After Stun Gun Effort Fails

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. (AP) — A Washington State Patrol trooper shot and killed a runaway 500-pound pig after the officer's stun gun failed to slow the animal.

The Spokesman-Review says Trooper Morgan Mehaffey first saw the pig running down a sidewalk in Spokane Valley in eastern Washington Friday after it escaped from a minivan through a broken window.

The trooper herded the animal out of traffic with his patrol car, pushing it back onto the sidewalk. Mehaffey then tried to slow the animal with his stun gun so some volunteers could rope it.

The paper reports that when that didn't work, the pig's owner told the trooper to shoot the animal.

Mehaffey says the owner had just purchased the pig for breeding.

KXLY-TV:

A Montana woman, Pam Lane, had driven to the Spokane area to pick up the pig and take it back home in her minivan. According to Pam at some point as she was preparing to get back on Interstate 90 and head home the pig went ballistic in the back of her minivan.

Lane pulled over near the Conoco gas station located at the intersection of Pines and Mission and it was at this point the pig decided to make a getaway and busted out a back window of the minivan, climbed out and began to scamper around the gas station and through the streets, creating a traffic hazard.