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As a community member of the Toronto Police Services Missing and Missed Implementation Team, I recognize the life saving work that the officers at a police missing persons unit do.  The officers I work with are wonderful people.  But unfortunately once in a while you get really cruel behaviour from police that is an unacceptable abuse of power.

Cedartown Police Officer Trenton Garner shot and killed a 1-year-old bottle-raised miniature donkey in the animal’s own pasture.

 

HeeHaw lived in the house. He slept in Hannah Israel’s bed as a baby. He did petting zoos and nursing homes. He never knew a stranger. She called him her son.

 

Around 12:45 a.m. on August 30, 2026, officers entered that pasture at Elsberry Riding and Farm without telling the owner they were on her land. HeeHaw ran up braying. That is what a house donkey does. A handler used a Taser. Garner then fired one round from a department Glock 17. HeeHaw turned, went up the hill, and died in his own field.

 

The officers left. The family searched with flashlights to find his body.

 

There was no reasonable threat. None.

 

HeeHaw was a miniature donkey. He was bottle-fed from birth. He was trained to walk up to people. He brayed at strangers because that is how a donkey talks. He did not have a weapon. He did not bite anyone. He did not trample anyone. After the shot he turned away and went up the hill. That is the opposite of an attack.

A reasonable person would not have believed that donkey was about to cause harm. A reasonable person seeing a petting-zoo animal come toward him in its own pasture at night would have seen a curious pet, not a deadly threat. Chief Jamie Newsome watched the bodycam. Asked if Garner said he feared for his life, Newsome said no. The video has not been released.

That record is enough to say Trenton Garner is not fit to be a police officer. A man who treats a greeting from a baby donkey as a reason to fire a Glock 17 should be barred from wearing a badge again.

Now look at the law that would have applied if he were not a cop.

Georgia Code § 16-12-4 is the animal cruelty statute. A donkey counts.

Under § 16-12-4(b), a person commits cruelty to animals when he causes death to an animal by any unjustifiable act.

Under § 16-12-4(d)(1), a person commits aggravated cruelty to animals when he maliciously causes the death of an animal. That is a felony. First offense: 1 to 5 years in prison, a fine up to $15,000, or both.

The only off-ramp is justification. § 16-12-4(h) says you may kill an animal only when you reasonably believe it is necessary to stop an imminent threat of injury to a person, another animal, or property.

That defense requires a reasonable belief. Not panic. Not “it came toward me.” A reasonable person, looking at a house-raised miniature donkey running up and braying on its owner’s land, would not have believed lethal force was necessary. There was no imminent threat. There was no harm. There was a pet.

But for the fact that Trenton Garner is a police officer, he would be facing felony charges under § 16-12-4. Prosecutors would not need a new statute. They would have misdemeanor cruelty on the unjustifiable killing. They would have felony aggravated cruelty on a malicious killing with no lawful reason. On these facts, that felony charge is the charge a civilian would be looking at.

A felony conviction of that kind is also the kind of record that bars a person from possessing firearms.

So the issue that has to be asked in public is this: if the same conduct would have put a civilian in range of a § 16-12-4 felony and taken his guns, why is there no serious process to decide whether this officer should keep a firearm after he used one on a bottle-fed baby donkey that posed no reasonable threat?

The badge is what is keeping this in an administrative file. The cruelty statute does not say “except police.” It says the killing has to be justified. On this record, the justification is a claim that a bottle-fed mini donkey charged a grown man. A reasonable person would not have believed that. That is the entire defense, and it does not hold.

Demand the bodycam. Demand he never wear a badge again. And put the firearms question on the table, because Georgia already wrote the answer for everyone who is not wearing a uniform.

Cedartown PD Case 26-7475. O.C.G.A. § 16-12-4. Georgia Department of Agriculture Law Enforcement Division is investigating.

#JusticeForHeeHaw

A beloved miniature donkey named HeeHaw was shot and killed by a police officer in his own pasture early Sunday morning, apparently because he ran toward officers and brayed.

According to owner Hannah Israel, officers entered her family’s pasture in Polk County, Georgia, around 12:45 a.m. while searching for a missing person.  The missing girl was later found safe by a different team of officers at a church nearby.  

Hannah Israel says the police entered without permission or warning.

When HeeHaw approached the strangers and made noise...perfectly normal behavior for a donkey...officers reportedly tried to Tase him before one shot him dead.

HeeHaw wasn’t some wild, dangerous animal. His family says he had been bottle-raised, spent time inside their home and appeared at petting zoos, where children and families interacted with him.

The Cedartown Police Department placed the officer on administrative leave and opened an investigation. Officials have not identified the officer or publicly explained why deadly force was necessary.

And that is the question that matters: How did a routine search for a missing child end with a friendly domesticated animal dead in his own pasture?

Police routinely encounter barking dogs, startled livestock and frightened animals. Officers are supposed to assess threats, exercise restraint and de-escalate when possible.  He wasn’t committing a crime. He wasn’t carrying a weapon. He was an animal in his own pasture.  

HeeHaw had spent his life learning that people were friends. He visited petting zoos, stood patiently with children and, as his family remembers him, “never knew a stranger.”  That trust followed him right up to the strangers who entered his pasture that night. 

Now his owner has started a GoFundMe to help cover legal fees tied to his killing, an effort to find some measure of accountability for an animal who spent his life bringing children joy, and whose final encounter with people brought him anything but kindness.  💔😢