Crime Blotter: Pig Fights Off Robbers

— -- Beware of Pig

MINNEAPOLIS — This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, but Arnold, he became the crime-fighting pig of Clinton Avenue.

The 300-pound pet became a star attraction of the Minneapolis neighborhood after he saved his owner's bacon last February when two men accosted in her garage.

"I had left the side door open," his owner, Becky Moyer, said. "Pretty soon I felt this thing in my back like a gun." They went into the kitchen where Arnold was lying on the floor, and when Moyer began screaming, the pet pig sprang into action.

"He swung around and grabbed the guy right in the calf muscle." The man yelled, "There's a [expletive] pig in here!" and they ran out, Moyer said. Her other porcine pet, a 165-pound purebred Vietnamese pot belly named Axel, cowered under a chair.

"He was squealing as loud as I was," the 54-year-old remembered.

Police haven't arrested anyone in the incident, but it helped Arnold win an award from the Minneapolis police department, and made him a mascot in the crime-plagued Stevens Square neighborhood where Moyer lives.

"Everybody in the community knows him," she said. "They bring him all kinds of treats."

She explained she received Arnold about a year ago, as a gift from a "romantic friend." He was only 10 pounds at the time, she noted.

Moyer says she still doesn't have an alarm system for her home, but feels safe with Arnold around. And for those concerned about their own safety at home, she has some advice: "Buy a pig."

Stop! Thief! Come Back With That Garage!

DETROIT —

Becky Moyer confronted thieves hiding in her garage, but four people in a Detroit neighborhood were apparently more ambitious: they tried to steal an entire garage.

Residents in the east-side community near Detroit City Airport said that the group - three men and a woman - hoisted the white, two-car garage onto a Ford truck and tried to drive off.

"What they did was jacked it up put it on a truck and pulled out and left it there," said Chris Gaddis, a neighbor. "I guess when it hit the curb it got stuck."