The pigs are here... just check out the car

Vermont's police force was oink-credibly embarrassed when they realised the emblem on their squad cars had been doctored to show a pig.

An insulting term to refer to police, a pig is hardly the symbol that uniformed officers would like to display.

But right there in the state seal on most of the New England state's police cruisers there's now a curly-tailed pig.

The shield shows a cow among other pastoral details and the pig is drawn cleverly, although hardly discreetly, into the splotches on the cow's hide.

State officials noticed on Thursday, then traced the prank to a prison printing shop.

Apparently an inmate four years ago was able to modify the computer program and inserted the extra image.

- AAP