Crazy Times: Man Throws Feral Hog at Protesters
A coalition of animal-rights activists in south Texas found themselves under attack from a hog-wielding resident who took the activists’ chants at face value.
According to a report in the Victoria Advocate, a group calling themselves Texas Animal Freedom Fighters organized a protest outside of a meatpacking plant on June 11 in Halletsville, Texas, a rural community of 2,550 people and the county seat of Lavaca County, near the Texas/Mexico border. In addition to the meatpacking plant, Halletsville is home to the Texas Championship Domino Hall of Fame, the Texas Semi-Pro Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Texas State Championship High School Rodeo Hall of Fame. Besides the occasional meat-packing-plant protest, residents enjoy festivities that include an annual Kolache Fest in September and a Championship Fiddlers Frolic in April, provided it is not the year 2020.
As the Freedom Fighters held signs and issued chants calling for animal liberation, they were soon confronted by a man in a green Texas t-shirt, black Nike basketball shorts, and camo Crocs holding a pig upside-down by its legs. The man threw the pig at a protestor named Brian Wheat, of Austin.
“A lot of our chants involve freedom for the animals,” Wheat told a reporter for the Advocate. “This individual was agitated enough by our presence that he said, ‘Here, you want an animal to be free?’ as he assaulted us with the pig.”
Pictures posted to the group’s Facebook page show the events as they unfolded. You can see the man pull a pig out of a trailer, place it on the ground on its back, and carry the pig toward the protestors. It is unclear from the images where the pig came into contact with Wheat, but additional photos show the animal getting onto all fours and being attended to by the activists.
A video on the page taken immediately following the incident shows the pig running down the street into the town before cutting to shots of the protestors engaged in verbal sparring with local residents who pause in their commute to question the protestors’ collective intelligence. It is unknown whether the animal was recovered or remains liberated at this time.
The unnamed hog-hurler was cited for Class-3 misdemeanor assault, according to the Advocate.
Jeremy Mallette is co-founder of International Sportsman. An avid hunter and outdoorsman, he has spent more than a decade in the outdoor industry, from hiking and camping to silencers and hunting. His father taught him to shoot at age six, and he received his first firearm at age eight — a 1942 Colt Commando .38 special revolver. He enjoys yearly trips to Kansas for pheasant hunting, spending time with his children at the deer lease, and collecting unique firearms.