A Georgia cop has been placed on leave after shooting a baby donkey that approached officers during a late-night search for a missing person. The donkey’s owner, Hannah Israel of Elsberry Riding and Farm in Rockmart, Georgia, said officers entered her pasture without permission at about 12:45 a.m. Sunday as part of their search and encountered a small male donkey named HeeHaw. The donkey approached the police and began braying at them. After trying unsuccessfully to tase the animal, an officer who said he felt under threat shot HeeHaw dead. The Cedartown Police Department has opened an investigation into the shooting and put the officer on administrative leave. Israel wrote in a Facebook post that HeeHaw, who was “raised in the house and did petting zoos,” was “shot and killed in his own pasture for doing what donkeys do: alerting to a stranger.” A GoFundMe that Israel created to raise money to bring legal action against the police department had raised more than $56,000 as of Monday morning.
Read it at The Guardian
