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Posted on 10/16/2026 2:30:08 PM PDT by nickcarraway
HeeHaw's owner argues that “no reasonable officer…would have believed that such force was necessary or justified.”
The Georgia officer responsible for killing a 1-year-old miniature donkey, HeeHaw, has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against him, claiming the body camera footage proves he "reasonably believed the donkey posed an imminent threat to a fellow officer." But even if it doesn't, the officer argues he is immune from liability.
In the early morning hours of August 30, Hannah Michelle Israel was at her Cedartown home in western Georgia when she received a distressing phone call. A supervisor with the Cedartown Police Department "tersely informed [Israel] that a donkey on her property had been 'dispatched,'" according to her federal lawsuit. After some clarification, she learned that police had not only entered her enclosed private property in the middle of the night without permission while looking for a missing person, but also shot and killed her miniature donkey in the process.
Israel immediately set out to search for her beloved pet, HeeHaw, only to find her bottle-raised donkey's lifeless body alone in her field. Israel told ABC7 News the incident has left her "traumatized and shocked." She continued, "I honestly can't even believe he's not here…There's no words."
Demanding accountability, Israel filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in September against the shooting officer, Officer Trenton Ryan Garner, for violating her Fourth Amendment rights and submitted a separate demand for $1 million from the City of Cedartown.
Last week, Garner responded by asking the court to dismiss the case, arguing in part that he did not violate Israel's constitutional rights when he entered her property. Under the open fields doctrine, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in one's pastureland, even if enclosed. Further, the motion argues, exigent circumstances existed in the search for a missing 12-year-old girl.
As far as HeeHaw is concerned, Garner claims he acted reasonably by using deadly force and argues the footage clearly shows HeeHaw "charging" and posing an "imminent threat to a fellow officer."
However, the footage, posted by the Civil Rights Lawyer Raw, may not be so clear-cut. Garner's body camera was off at the time of the shooting but had a "rolling buffer of video," a recording without audio of the 30 seconds preceding activation of the camera, according to court documents. During the silent portion, two officers and a bloodhound are in front of Garner with flashlights in a dark field. A small donkey, roughly 3 feet tall, appears and slowly moves toward one of the officers. The officer backs away slowly, but the donkey moves closer and picks up speed. Garner pulls his gun and fires. The donkey turns and runs before falling over.
Whether Garner reasonably believed HeeHaw posed an imminent threat to his fellow officer may be up for debate.
When the audio kicks in, a fellow officer asks, "Why'd you shoot it up?" "I don't know," Garner responds rather nonchalantly before telling dispatch he had to shoot a donkey because "it was trying to attack." If another officer on the scene wasn't sure why Garner used deadly force, perhaps the decision wasn't so reasonable after all.
In her lawsuit, Israel accuses Garner of needlessly killing HeeHaw "maliciously…and recklessly, with deliberate indifference…for [Israel's] constitutional rights." The suit continues: "No reasonable officer in…Garner's position would have believed that such force was necessary or justified."
But whether Garner acted reasonably or not by shooting HeeHaw, qualified immunity may still shield him from accountability. Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine that protects government actors from lawsuits alleging rights violations, unless the right is clearly established. In practice, that means plaintiffs must be able to point to a previous court ruling in a case with the same circumstances to show that the right was obvious to government officials.
The bar can be quite high to show a right is clearly established. For example, in March, the Supreme Court reversed a 2nd Circuit decision in a case involving an officer who was sued for using a rear wristlock to arrest a protester. The 2nd Circuit denied qualified immunity, reasoning that a previous case from 2004 clearly established that rear wristlocks used to arrest anti-abortion protesters constitute excessive force. But the Court disagreed, stressing that "principles stated generally, such as that 'an officer may not use reasonable and excessive force,' do not suffice."
And while there may be ample cases involving officers shooting pet dogs, cases involving miniature donkeys are in short supply. If the court finds that there is no clearly established rule that specifically prohibits officers from shooting a miniature donkey moving toward a fellow officer in the dark, the court may end up dismissing the case and sidestepping both the reasonableness and constitutional questions entirely.
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Maybe Eric Cartman had trained it to bite off his wiener.
A moose bite can be pretty dangerous. Not too sure about miniature donkey bites.
Lets be clear qualified immunity needs to be removed from LEO and any other Gov official stand by your actions or don’t hold the job or office.
I say this a former federal level & military LEO.
Psychopath with a badge. Glad those 99% good officers I keep hearing about are stepping up to condemn him….. oh wait.
A cop who is afraid of an approaching miniature donkey in the dark would also be afraid of some kid approaching him in the dark.
I want to call this cop a disgrace. But instead, I’ll just suggest that he find a different line of work. Perhaps he should get a job in a library. He could spend his days safely cataloging books in the basement.
No dangerous donkeys down there.
I call bull sh*t, he just wanted kill it for the fun of it.
Quick addition to my post #7.
Many cops no longer carry batons (night sticks). Part of that comes from the Rodney King incident, where cops used their batons as baseball bats. So batons got an unfair bad rap.
I’ll bet this cop did not have a baton. If he did, he could have defended himself with one. Just push the donkey away. Then there’d be no need to shoot the poor animal.
What an ass.
Gif...
Used to love that show. Right at my intellectual and cultural level.
Fine actress Lisa Todd. Once in a restaurant she walked down a long aisle in a mini dress and spontaneously the men stood up and applauded.
Same here and I agree with you 100%. I always carried a one million dollar blanket liability insurance policy.
I never trusted the fed/gov to have my back if something went south, I watch other agents get tossed under the buss because of politics.
It would not cover you for any criminal acts while on duty. Which I agreed with.
Judges and prosecutors should buy their own liability insurance and not be automatically covered by the tax payer.
They should not be shielded from the most terrifying word in government 'ACOUNTABILITY'.
What a gutless moron. And that ain’t the only part this fool is missing. There’s wide open spaces down yonder on this coward instead of the normal male anatomy. Shooting a little mini donkey. If you don’t fire him and toss his sorry donkey in jail, the next time it could be a “dangerous” 5 year old kid.
Li’l Sebastian?
Qualified immunity.
That’s some catch, that Catch-22.
A Golden Lab running up wagging his tail or a baby donkey expecting a treat is a threat to any ego...
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