Cedartown Police Department has released bodycam footage capturing the moment Officer Trenton Garner shot and killed a small pet donkey during a late-night search operation on a Georgia farm.
The video shows HeeHaw, a yearling donkey barely waist-high to the officers, trotting toward police with his ears up as they moved through Elsberry Riding and Farm ranch in Rockmart, Georgia, around 12:45 a.m. On Oct. 4. The officers were carrying flashlights while searching for a missing 12-year-old girl.
Hannah Israel, 25, who operates the ranch where HeeHaw lived as part of the petting zoo, has fiercely disputed the officer’s account of the shooting. She has vowed to pursue legal action against the department.
“Cops entered my pasture searching for a missing person WITHOUT permission or warning and shot and killed my bottle raised BABY donkey,” Israel wrote online Sunday.
Israel continued her emotional statement about the animal she considered family: “We are heartbroken. He was my SON!!”
The footage reveals HeeHaw walking slowly toward one officer, who quickly deployed a Taser that failed to stop the animal. Garner then fired his Glock 17 from approximately 10 yards away, according to his incident report.
The wounded donkey fled, collapsed, and was later found dead from the gunshot wound.
In the bodycam audio, Garner could be heard telling dispatch, “Firearm discharged at a donkey. It was trying to attack us on a pasture.”
Israel directly contradicted that characterization in an interview with WSBTV. “HeeHaw thought people were his family, and HeeHaw was family,” she said.
Garner wrote in his report that a CPD officer, a K-9 handler, and a bloodhound team searching for the missing girl were able to scare off horses on the property. He claimed the donkey was the only animal that allegedly charged at them.
Israel shared a statement on social media alongside the released footage, writing, “The bodycam footage is finally out. And now the truth is there for everyone to see. HeeHaw wasn’t charging. He wasn’t attacking. He wasn’t some uncontrollable threat. He was doing what everyone who knew him said he always did: running up to greet someone in his friendly.”
Garner has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of investigations. The Georgia Department of Agriculture is conducting its own probe into the incident.
The missing 12-year-old girl who prompted the search was not located on Israel’s property, and the circumstances of her eventual recovery have not been disclosed in available reports.
Neither Israel nor the Cedartown Police Department responded to requests for comment from the original outlet.