A 1-year-old miniature donkey named HeeHaw is dead after a Cedartown, Georgia, police officer entered his family's pasture during an overnight search for a missing 12-year-old girl and shot him.
HeeHaw's owner, Hannah Israel, says police came onto the property around 12:45 AM without warning or permission. According to Israel, officers later told her HeeHaw ran toward them braying. They tried to tase him first, then one officer shot him.
HeeHaw was not some half-wild farm animal nobody could get near. Israel bottle-raised him. He lived in the house when he was young, went to petting zoos, and was used to being around people.
Some HeeHaw content for you. 🫏🤍 pic.twitter.com/Pm1BG5R3ua
— Justice For HeeHaw (@Justice4HeeHaw) August 31, 2026
Israel angrily wrote:
“They claimed he ran up to them braying and they thought they were in danger and shot and killed him after trying to taze him. 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.”
Cedartown Police Chief Jamie Newsome confirmed that one of his officers killed HeeHaw. The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave, and Newsome turned the investigation over to the Georgia Department of Agriculture's Law Enforcement Division. Newsome has watched the body-camera footage, but he still hasn't said what it shows. He also acknowledged that he never asked the officer why he fired. Apparently that didn't come up.
People are mad for a pretty straightforward reason. Police were searching for a missing child. Fine. But that still doesn't mean you can walk onto someone's property without permission, shoot the animal that lives there, and call it part of the search. The Fourth Amendment still applies.
HeeHaw is not the only recent example.
Less than two weeks earlier, Hopkins County sheriff's deputies in Texas went to the wrong home while trying to serve what the department called a high-risk felony warrant. Tatyana Carrion opened the door and her 11-year-old greyhound-whippet mix, Terry, came outside. A deputy shot and killed him.
The sheriff's office said Terry pushed past Carrion and lunged at the deputy. Carrion flatly disputed that account, saying there was no warning before the shot. Deputies soon learned another problem: The man named in the warrant no longer lived there. The homeowners said the property had been sold two years earlier.
The department acknowledged the warrant subject no longer lived at the address and opened an internal review. Wrong house, dead dog, paperwork to follow.
In June, Los Angeles police shot a dog named Jameson four times on bodycam. The family is suing.
The circumstances aren't identical, but the pattern holds. Police enter private property during a search or enforcement action, encounter an animal reacting to strangers, and somebody's pet ends up dead.
There is still plenty we don't know about HeeHaw's killing. The body-camera video has not been released, the state investigation is ongoing, and Israel says she plans to take legal action. Her GoFundMe for legal fees has already raised more than $76,000.
HeeHaw never left his pasture. Police came to him.
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