Polk County is a small, mostly rural county located along the northwest Georgia border that the state shares with Alabama. It's not too far from Metro Atlanta, where I live — I actually adopted my last dog, Sadie, from the animal shelter there.
It's just not the sort of place that gets a lot of attention. But lately, it's been making national news, and people have all sorts of opinions on the reason why.
It started on August 30, around 12:45 a.m., when local police were searching for a missing 12-year-old girl in the area of Grady Road in Cedartown. Some of the officers entered a pasture, private property, without warning or communication with the property owners.
The animals in the pasture at Elsberry Riding and Farm were understandably spooked. The horses ran away. One of them approached the officers, a miniature donkey named HeeHaw. He was apparently making a lot of noise. One officer attempted to use his taser on the animal, but it didn't stop it. Another officer removed his gun and shot and killed the donkey.
Donkeys tend to be naturally protective of their home turf. As a matter of fact, a lot of people get them to use as livestock guardians for their other animals. They will typically bray loudly when a predator enters their pasture, alerting the other animals and their owners of the threat, and potentially scaring predators, like dogs and coyotes, away. If the predator isn't scared away, the donkey will potentially bite or kick it. Otherwise, they tend to be good-natured, intelligent, and gentle animals.
Now, let's talk about HeeHaw. According to his owner, Hannah Israel, HeeHaw was just a baby, around a year old. She'd hand-raised him in her home and bottle-fed him from birth, and to her, he was simply a pet — a sweet little guy who even made appearances at petting zoos because he was so good with people. While I can't find his exact size, a fully grown miniature donkey is typically between 32 and 34 inches tall and weighs between 200 and 350 pounds.
Israel says he was simply doing what donkeys do and alerting everyone to a trespasser in the pasture. She told local news that her family had to search the farm for an hour in the dark to actually find HeeHaw's body, with no assistance from law enforcement. She also says that it's not clear how the officers got onto the property as it's fully fenced, and all gates were locked.
The family has hired an attorney and plans to seek justice for the little guy who Israel said was like a son to her.
A Polk County family is demanding answers after police shot and killed their pet donkey, HeeHaw, while searching for a missing person.
— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) August 31, 2026
The family says HeeHaw ran toward officers braying before he was tased and shot, and the officer involved is now on leave. pic.twitter.com/SEvCRmyCbJ
WATCH: Newly released footage of HeeHaw, the beloved family donkey, shows him excitedly running up to his owner prior to his tragic death.
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 4, 2026
"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
The officer who shot HeeHaw, Trenton Garner, is currently on administrative leave. In his report, he claims that he had to kill the donkey to save himself and his colleagues and that he entered the property "due to the exigency of locating this missing juvenile." For what it's worth, the missing 12-year-old was found at a church up the road. Here's more from the incident report:
As we were tacking down the fence line, the horses in the pasture spooked and ran back away from us across the pasture. 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. Haralson County's K-9 team retreated, and K-9 Handler Thomasson removed his Taser-7 from it's holster and began to arch it to attempt to deter the donkey from attacking us. This in fact did not deter the donkey, so I removed my department issued Glock 17 from it's holster and pointed it at the donkey. I then fired a single round striking the donkey, at which point the donkey turned away from K-9 Handler Thomasson, retreating up the hill before falling over. We then informed Polk County 911 that I had to use my firearm to dispatch the donkey and prevent injury to K-9 Handler Thomasson and the Haralson County K-9 team.
Georgia Department of Agriculture's law enforcement division is currently investigating the situation to determine what will happen next, but let's just say that Garner is not the most popular man in Polk County right now. There have been protests outside the county courthouse, complaints across social media, and petitions set up to have him fired. Police watchdogs are currently asking for the release of the body cam footage.
I can get behind that: release the body cam footage. I've tried to withhold my judgment on this case until the investigation is complete, but I think the body cam footage would be quite telling.
I am a big supporter of our law enforcement officers — I've spent Friday morning mourning the brave souls we lost on September 11, 2001. I even worked in law enforcement for a bit. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. But I also believe that private property means private property and fully believe in holding these officers accountable when an incident like this occurs.
Unfortunately, it happens far too often. According to the Justice Department, officers shoot approximately 10,000 pet dogs every year (or about 25 to 30 dogs per day). And that's probably a low estimate because some agencies do not keep up with such incidents. "Officers are rarely trained how to read dog behavior or handle aggressive dogs with non-lethal methods," according to Reason magazine.
I'm an animal person, so that bothers me, but it's not so much about "animal rights" or whatever you want to call it. It's the toll that killing someone's pet can take on a human. We live in a lonely society, and for many people, a dog or cat — or donkey — is all they have. If a police officer can just come on your property and shoot your pet, what's the point? I'm sorry a 12-year-old girl is missing, but I have nothing to do with it. If you want to come search for her on my property, you're going to need a warrant or something. It's right there in the Fourth Amendment. Anything else hurts my small government-loving heart.
These incidents of police officers shooting pets are also expensive.
In Colorado, a town had to pay $675,000 after a police officer shot a couple's 14-month-old pup in a parking lot. The dog was walking toward the officer with its tail wagging, and he shot it, stating that he had no way of knowing what the dog would do and that he was not in the business of "getting bit." Even worse, he wouldn't let the couple take the dog to the vet, which may have saved its life.
In Missouri, a town had to pay a man $500,000 after an officer shot and killed his 13-pound blind and deaf Shih Tzu. The dog had gotten out of the man's yard and went to his neighbor's house, and the neighbor apparently called authorities, claiming the dog seemed to have something wrong with it and needed help. The officer who arrived on the scene shot it twice, stating that he thought it might have rabies, when the reality was that the poor thing was blind and couldn't see where he was going.
In Louisiana, two New Orleans Police Officers were called out to a house about a noise complaint. Once they arrived at the home, they heard dogs barking. One officer went back to the car, but the other remained in the home, and two dogs came down the stairs to greet them. He shot one of them — a 16-week-old puppy — three times. This led to a trial funded by taxpayers.
What say you? Should the officer pay for HeeHaw's death? What can be done to prevent incidents like this from happening as frequently as they do?
