500-pound pig shot to death in Spokane Valley

A 500-pound pig was shot to death by a Washington State Patrol trooper in Spokane Valley this afternoon after escaping a van and absorbing several Taser shocks. Trooper Morgan Mehaffey saw the pig running down the sidewalk near North Pines Road and East Mission Avenue after spotting a van driving erratically with its back window broken out. The driver got out to corral the animal, which had escaped through a broken back passenger window, but it knocked her down and ran, Mehaffey said. Three men at a nearby gas station asked Mehaffey if he had a tow rope. “I said, ‘No. I have bullets,’” Mehaffey said. The pig ran into traffic on Mission, so Mehaffey used his patrol car to push it back onto the sidewalk. Witnesses arrived with a tow rope, and the woman agreed to let Mehaffey shock the pig with his Taser to try to subdue it long enough to lasso it. But the pig seemed unfazed by the Taser and again fled. “As soon as the pig got loose, the lady said, ‘Shoot it,’” Mehaffey said. The pig died of a gunshot wound. A tow truck helped load its carcass back into the woman’s van. The woman had driven from Eureka, Mont., to Valleyford to purchase the pig. She planned to transport it back to Montana in her minivan and use it for breeding, Mehaffey said. Now perhaps she’s considering a barbecue. But, Mehaffey said, “I don’t think that thing’s going to taste very good with all that adrenaline.”