Georgia Cop Claimed Petting Zoo Donkey Was Charging at His Team When He Shot It

In an incident report, the officer who shot the donkey wrote that he had to shoot the donkey to save himself and a K-9 team from injury.

A Georgia police officer wrote in a report that he was forced to fatally shoot a petting zoo donkey named HeeHaw to save himself, a fellow officer, and a team of bloodhounds from the charging animal.

The Sunday shooting in Polk County, Georgia, made national headlines after the anguished owner of the small donkey posted on Facebook vowing to pursue legal action for the killing. The chief of the Cedartown Police Department announced that the officer involved has been put on leave, and an investigation into the shooting has been handed off to the Georgia Department of Agriculture's law enforcement division.

In an incident report obtained by Reason through a public records request, Cedartown Police Department officer Trenton Garner says he was dispatched on the night of August 30 to assist a bloodhound team searching for a missing 12-year-old girl.

The dogs followed a trail to a gate leading to pasture owned by Elsberry Riding and Farm, a business that offers trail rides, pony rides, and petting zoos. "Due to the exigency of locating this missing juvenile," Garner wrote, the officers and dogs entered the pasture.

The incident report continues:

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.

Garner then spoke with the donkey's owner, Hannah Israel, who told him that it had been bottle-fed since infancy and "would never act aggressive towards anyone, nor would it try to bite anyone."

Israel later posted on Facebook that "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."

According to the incident report, the missing girl "was later located further along down Grady Road, in the direction that we were tracking with the bloodhound before the donkey attacked the tracking team."

The Cedartown and Polk County police departments denied requests for additional footage and reports, citing an ongoing investigation.

Reason has covered stories of police officers needlessly shooting family pets for years, an unfortunately common phenomenon that has led to huge lawsuit payouts and viral news stories like HeeHaw's.  

See the incident report below: