A Georgia police officer who gunned down a family’s beloved pet donkey has been placed on leave after the shooting made national headlines, sparking outrage.
The unfortunate incident went down when Cedartown police were searching for a missing 12-year-old girl in Polk County on Sunday, leaving behind a grieving owner amid questions about the necessity of shooting a defenseless animal.
At around 12:45 a.m, Cedartown Police Department Officer Trenton Garner encountered the one-year-old, bottle-fed donkey whose name was HeeHaw in a pasture at the Elsberry Riding and Farm ranch in Rockmart and fired one shot at the animal after it allegedly charged at police.
Garner, a K-9 handler, and a bloodhound team followed a trail of footprints to the petting zoo where they came across horses.
“As we were tacking down the fence line, the horses in the pasture spooked and ran back away from us across the pasture,” the officer wrote in his report.
“At this time, K-9 Handler Thomasson stated that there was a donkey on the side of the hill. The donkey then began to charge at us,” Garner claimed, stating that efforts to subdue the animal with a Taser failed.
(Video: YouTube/Fox 5 Atlanta)
“This in fact did not deter the donkey, so I removed my department-issued Glock 17 from its holster and pointed it at the donkey. I then fired a single round striking the donkey,” the officer said, explaining the moment when he busted a cap into poor HeeHaw, who retreated up a hill before collapsing and dying.
HeeHaw’s bereaved owner Hannah Israel “stated that the donkey would never act aggressive towards anyone, nor would it try to bite anyone.”
“Every time he saw somebody, he would run up and bray,” she said in a video showing the doomed animal in happier days.
WATCH: Newly released footage of HeeHaw, the beloved family donkey, shows him excitedly running up to his owner prior to his tragic death.
“Every time he saw somebody, he would run up and bray.”
The baby donkey’s owner, Hannah Israel, says the moment captures exactly who HeeHaw… pic.twitter.com/iWW4hsVa45
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 4, 2026
“Cops entered my pasture searching for a missing person WITHOUT permission or warning and shot and killed my bottle raised BABY donkey,” she wrote in a Sunday Facebook post saying that she is taking legal action.
“HeeHaw was raised in the house and did petting zoos he never knew a stranger. And was shot and killed in his OWN pasture for doing what donkeys do. Alerting to a stranger,” Israel said, adding, “We are heart broken 
he was my SON!!”
“He was not, like, an attack donkey or anything like that,” Israel told a local news outlet.
In a video posted to social media, Cedartown Police Chief Jamie Newsome said that Garner has been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is investigated by the Georgia Department of Agriculture Law Enforcement.
Georgia cop placed on leave after fatally shooting beloved donkey ‘HeeHaw’ during search for missing child https://t.co/w3hEdyxVBS pic.twitter.com/aSt0aPU6EM
— New York Post (@nypost) September 4, 2026
“We take animal death investigation extremely seriously. This incident will be investigated thoroughly and impartially, and we will make an appropriate recommendation once the investigation has been concluded,” Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper said in a statement, Atlanta’s WSB-TV 2 reported.
The missing 12-year-old girl was found at a church near the pasture where HeeHaw was shot.
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