By MINDY KEPFIELD

Staff writer

A Florence man’s pigs have been shot by concerned neighbors after they got loose yet again and left nearby Summit Cemetery looking more like a bomb site than a place of rest.

The pigs’ owner Stan C. Ammeter, has been hit with charges of criminal desecration and maintaining a public nuisance after his 14 pigs dug around headstones and rooted a mine field of craters in the soil.

The cemetery’s desecration was the last straw for several area landowners, who took matters into their own hands after months of inaction by authorities.

“Last week, a couple of good Samaritan killer angels shot and killed every one of those pigs except for one,” said a neighbor, who has asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.

Ammeter neighbor were out looking Friday evening for his remaining pigs which would be buthered so nothing would be wasted.

“It’s gotten completely blown out of proportion and I am tired of dealing with it,” he said. “So, I will just take care of it.”

The anonymous neighbor said area landowners had put up with swine rooting in nearby bean and wheat fields every day for nearly a year

“There was five days out of seven when I would come home from work when the pigs weren’t visible from my yard on someone else’s property,” he said.

He is grateful for the action of his neighbors but worries about a “gray area in the law.”

Sheriff Robert Craft had told the resident before the shootings deputies had no authority to shoot pigs unless they are threatening.

But, he said, if Ammetter’s pigs continued to run loose, they could be considered feral, and legally any property owner could shoot a feral pig.

Kansas statute makes no such allowances — swine are considered feral only if they have no visible tags or markings and only if an owner cannot be identified.

The area neighbor said he and other volunteers have spent hours this weekend hard at work mending as much damage as they could to cemetery’s grounds before families visit Easter weekend.

“I couldn’t plant grass. It’s early he said. “We’re probably going to have to go back in fill in holes caused by the pig’s rooting after a rain.”

The anonymous neighbor “literaly was sick” over the damage to Summit Cemetery and hopes Ammeter will be required to pay restitution to the board.

“All he had to do is pen them up,” he said. “If an animal gets out, you need to make the pen stronger or get rid of them.”