The Yantis Family Case Study
OUNCIL, Idaho — The Yantis family was at dinner when the telephone rang. A bull owned by Jack Yantis, 62, had been struck by a vehicle on Route 95, which cuts through Yantis land. He needed to come down.
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Collisions like that are not uncommon here in the rural West, where “open range” signs warn drivers that fences might not count for much. And there is usually a hard Western conclusion: The owner of the animal, if it is still alive but deemed beyond recovery, puts a bullet through its head and hauls it away.
This time, it went wrong. About 45 minutes after the crash, Mr. Yantis lay dying on the highway, shot by two deputies from the Adams County sheriff’s office who had responded to the collision. Mr. Yantis’s wife,
FROM OUR ADVERTISERS
Collisions like that are not uncommon here in the rural West, where “open range” signs warn drivers that fences might not count for much. And there is usually a hard Western conclusion: The owner of the animal, if it is still alive but deemed beyond recovery, puts a bullet through its head and hauls it away.
This time, it went wrong. About 45 minutes after the crash, Mr. Yantis lay dying on the highway, shot by two deputies from the Adams County sheriff’s office who had responded to the collision. Mr. Yantis’s wife,