A beloved family pet is dead. A missing child is safe. And a Georgia police officer sits on paid leave after fatally shooting a roughly 1-year-old miniature donkey named HeeHaw in the middle of the night.
This is a very rare incident which has attracted much controversy from across the nation. Hannah Israel, who is the owner of Elsberry Riding & Farm in Polk County, claims that police came to her pasture in search of a 12-year-old girl who went missing. The bottle-fed donkey that belonged to her walked up to the police officers barking at them.
The child was later found safe at a nearby church. The shooting, however, has left the family devastated and many asking how a highly socialized pet donkey ended up dead in his own pasture.
Around 12:45 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026, officers from the Cedartown Police Department and Polk County Police Department entered a fenced pasture along Grady Road belonging to Elsberry Riding & Farm. They were assisting in an overnight search for a missing child.
Israel has said the officers came onto the property without notice or permission. In a Facebook post from the farm, she described what officers told her: HeeHaw
“ran up to them braying and they thought they were in danger and shot and killed him after trying to taze him.”
The family said it took them about 20 minutes to locate the body because officers did not direct them to it.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has clarified that its deputies were not involved.
HeeHaw was more than livestock to the Israel family. Israel bottle-raised him from birth. She said he lived partly inside the family home, was extremely socialized, and regularly interacted with children at petting zoos and residents at nursing homes.
“He was very well socialized. He would go to petting zoos with the kids and adults at nursing homes,”
Israel told WSB-TV.
“Heehaw thought people were his family and he was our family.”
In another statement she called him “my son” and said the family was “heartbroken.”
Cedartown Police Chief Jamie Newsome confirmed that one of his officers fatally shot the donkey. The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave. The department launched an investigation and later turned the case over to the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s Law Enforcement Division.
Body-camera footage exists. Newsome has reviewed it but declined to describe what it shows or discuss the officer’s specific reasoning, citing the transfer to the state agency. The City of Cedartown issued a statement confirming the officer was assisting the missing-child search, that the child was later found safe nearby, and that further comment is limited while the investigation continues.
Key details remain unresolved. Authorities have not publicly confirmed the full sequence of the encounter, the precise level of perceived threat, or whether officers had legal authority or exigent circumstances to enter the pasture without notice. The Taser attempt and the decision to use lethal force rest largely on the family’s account of what officers told them.
No officer has been publicly identified. No disciplinary findings or charges have been announced.
The story spread quickly under the hashtag #JusticeForHeeHaw. Israel has hired an attorney and plans civil legal action. A GoFundMe campaign she launched to cover lawyer fees (with any unused funds going to animal care) quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars.
There could not be a starker contrast than the successful rescue mission for a lost child at night that culminated in the killing of a soft, bottle-fed pet animal on some private property.
The investigation remains open. Body-camera evidence, the findings of state investigators, and any future legal proceedings could reshape public understanding of what happened in that pasture. Until then, a family mourns a donkey they considered one of their own, and questions about the use of force continue.
