By: Yildiz Subuk, Staff Writer
Content warning: mention of police shooting.
Recently, a pair of escaped pigs ran loose across a field outside of an elementary school in West Kelowna. Multiple police officers attempted to apprehend the two pigs, but the scene soon became rowdy once a group of children started cheering, “Go pigs, go!!!” This led to widespread confusion among the adults present who weren’t sure which side of the chase the encouragement was for.
At first, the officers felt encouraged, thinking the kids believed in the value of law enforcement. However, after the pigs displayed an NFL level of running and dodging the opponent, it soon became clear whose side the kids were on.
The officers’ go-to approach (shoot them and say they were getting aggressive), ended up being replaced with a strategy usually reserved for white offenders: catching the runaways alive. According to bystander accounts, this prompted the children to groan, “Aw the pig got caught.”
The pigs were taken in by a pig sanctuary, where they will live peacefully until their owners reclaim them. Many called it the good ending to Animal Farm, where instead of forming an authoritarian government, the pigs were taken to a nice little farm where they could live in peace and not worry about exploiting the other animals.
The amused children were soon escorted back to class, but got to see something quite extraordinary — a police officer not using excessive force on someone innocent.
This also saved the police department’s PR team a ton of work, as now they don’t have to worry about drafting a statement about how “the officer has been suspended (with pay), and will face serious consequences (relocation to another geographical area).”
This whole situation was quite a change of pace for all the living beings involved. The officers got to protect the vulnerable instead of oppressing the poor and the pigs disproved the negative stereotypes about them by lapping everyone in the schoolyard. Ultimately, the pigs also got lucky as most people in their position would be faced with a sinister reality — the Canadian legal system.
