Footage shows a Cedartown officer fatally shooting HeeHaw during a search for a missing girl
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Cedartown, GA - Body camera footage revealing the lead-up to the fatal shooting of a pet donkey named HeeHaw was released Friday after being admitted as evidence in a federal lawsuit against the Cedartown police officer who, moments after firing his gun, can be heard telling dispatchers: “Be advised, I just had to shoot a donkey.”
The footage is from the body camera worn by Officer Trenton Garner, who fired the shot that killed the miniature donkey in the early hours of Aug. 30, according to the lawsuit.
The footage depicts Garner walking behind two other officers, one of them holding the leash of a police tracking bloodhound, standing near the top of a small hill as they follow the trail of a 12-year-old girl who had gone missing a few hours earlier.
HeeHaw appears over the ridge and begins to walk quickly toward the officers, who proceed to back up. The donkey continues to approach the second officer while the third officer leads the bloodhound off to the side, out of the camera’s view.
As the second officer slowly backs up, he triggers his Taser into the air, possibly to scare the donkey away.
Garner, who stood a few feet to the right of the second officer, then draws his weapon and appears to fire a single shot at HeeHaw, who quickly walks away, turns once and drops onto the grass.
The footage submitted to court was more than six minutes long, with the shooting of HeeHaw occurring in the first 30 seconds. The remaining footage is of the officers and bloodhound continuing on in the search for the missing 12-year-old.
The officers also continue discussing the shooting in its aftermath.
According to the footage, one officer asks Garner either where the donkey was struck or why he shot the donkey, to which Garner responds, “I don’t know.”
Later, the officer who was about two feet from the donkey when the shot was fired said: “I thought the donkey was gonna kill me,” and Garner responds, “I know.”
HeeHaw’s owner Hannah Israel filed the federal lawsuit against Garner, asking for compensatory and punitive damages, citing unlawful entry and search, unreasonable seizure and destruction of property and deprivation of property, absent due process — all under the Fourth Amendment.