r/nottheonion • u/Select-Blood-7896 • 11h ago
Cedartown Police Department has confirmed that one of its officers was involved in the fatal shooting of a miniature donkey, HeeHaw
https://www.primetimer.com/news/to-protect-and-serve-unless-you-own-donkeys-cedartown-police-departments-facebook-inundated-with-outraged-comments-following-heehaw-s-shooting490
u/Fast-Damage2298 9h ago
If he was that scared of a tame petting zoo donkey, he has serious mental health issues and should not be armed.
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u/IceColdMilkshakeSalt 8h ago
You must not be familiar with American police, who are cowardly hair-trigger simpletons at baseline. Like there is established case law allowing police departments to decline applicants based in their IQ being too high.
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u/flowergirlsunder 7h ago
I still think about this video of a cop being frightened by an acorn and firing his weapon multiple times because of it
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u/rutuu199 7h ago
Didn't that worthless sack of inbred shit even claim "im hit!"
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u/Sense-Free 6h ago
Yup! My favorite part of the story is the fact that two officers mag dumped into their own vehicle and the suspect in custody was completely unharmed. I’d love to see where all those bullets ended up. Good thing there were no innocent bystanders nearby!
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u/Suburban--Dad 3h ago
Uh…there are no innocent bystanders when cops shoot. Just bad guys who havent been accused yet.
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u/NicholaiJomes 56m ago
I’ve seen his vest cam and he shouts it repeatedly as he empties his weapon at a random vehicle
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u/DE4DM4NSH4ND 23m ago
Its not a random vehicle, it's his own squad car with a suspect handcuffed in the back
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u/misfitofscience76 7h ago
That man was a godddamned American hero! How dare you impugn his martial prowess
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u/liquidsyphon 3h ago
Hide and secure your pets. These guys shoot at almost anything that moves.
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u/NicholaiJomes 55m ago
They trespassed onto private property at like 1 am without notifying the people who live there, who I imagine may have even helped if the police hadn’t approached the situation in the worst manner possible
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u/PlaneswalkerHuxley 41m ago
How much safer would America be if all the cops instantly swapped places with everyone in jail for weed.
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u/ZanthrinGamer 7h ago
he wasn't scared... he's obviously a sadist, and likely capable of far worse, this guy should be under observation, not a cop.
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u/Ameren 9h ago edited 7h ago
This one was a real gut-punch for me; the image of the woman kneeling over his little body was horrifying. And then seeing images of him being bottle-fed milk while wearing diapers in their home, him being loved on by young kids at the petting zoo, it was too much. Who could do such unspeakable evil?
For those who haven't been following the saga, the cops were looking for a missing person at night (note: who may have already been found at the time elsewhere), and they didn't notify or get permission from the landowners at all. They wandered into the enclosure, and when the baby miniature donkey startled them, a cop tazed and then shot it. There's no plausible way in which this petting zoo animal could have posed a threat to them. And even if it did, they could have just left the enclosure and gone back to their cars.
Apparently there's now an independent investigation (not involving the police department, rather the Georgia Dept. Of Agriculture's law enforcement division) of the officer's conduct, and the pet's owner has secured a lawyer to go after those responsible. To their credit, the fact that the PD immediately placed the officer on leave and referred the case to independent investigators suggests that they know what went down was truly heinous. Of course, we all know how these things usually go, no accountability for offenders.
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u/TheSporkBomber 8h ago edited 7h ago
Putting the officer on leave is a pretty normal occurance. It keeps them off the street long enough for the bad press to blow over, then they put them back to work or move them to another department.
So they get a paid vacation basically.
As for the independent investigators, hiring someone to investigate yourself can still be biased. It's the reason why when you buy a house you still get another home inspector rather than the 'independent investigator' the selling realtor brings.
This situation is also the same situation many dog owners find themselves in when cops wander onto their property unannounced and then shoot the first four legged thing that approaches them. It's why cops shooting dogs has been an epidemic. Hell just last month a cop shot and killed a cow. Since pets are property the most you can hope for is payment for another pet, and even then chances are slim because they were 'doing their job'.
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u/Ameren 8h ago
Of course, the leave thing is not surprising. But in my experience with these sorts of cases, it's often handled internally. The speed at which they did this, I think, is a reaction to all the negative press that they've gotten. People have been hounding the PD non-stop.
That being said, you're right. The default outcome in these scenarios is that officers get to kill people's pets with impunity, and it makes me sick. After all, today it was a harmless pet, tomorrow it could be an innocent human being. It points to reckless use of violent force.
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u/DomitiusAhenobarbus_ 2h ago
Would you rather they stay on the streets before the investigation is completed?
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u/TheSporkBomber 2h ago
No. But lets not confuse the 'relieved of duty' IE Paid vacation as something where the PD recognizes they fucked up. This is purely to cover their ass and most times just a measure where they can keep the officer on staff and avoid firing them or having to address the issue.
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u/Malthus1 7h ago
My first thought on hearing this story was: aren’t petting zoo animals specifically chosen because they are totally non-threatening even for small children?
How on earth could a grown armed man ever think such an inoffensive creature was a threat? That he tazed it first makes everything so much worse - this isn’t even a negligent fool with no trigger discipline shooting on reflex in a panic; this person actually thought about what they were doing, and made a deliberate decision to do this.
If they didn’t think it was a threat and just wanted to cruelly torture and kill an innocent animal, how on earth did they think killing a petting zoo donkey would play well for them? Even assuming cops in the US have total impunity to kill anything they like without legal repercussions, they must have known there would be ridicule.
The whole thing is inexplicable.
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u/AdoringCHIN 6h ago
How on earth could a grown armed man ever think such an inoffensive creature was a threat?
Easy: because cops are murderous pieces of shit that have convinced themselves that anything that even twitches in their direction is a threat to their life. And they've decided that the best way to deal with the threat is to torture it and then unload their entire magazine into it. These scumbags don't even value human life. They sure don't care about animal lives.
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u/dogmeat12358 8h ago
Officer given two week paid vacation. Will forever be known to his colleagues as "ass man"
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u/AcrimoniousPizazz 2h ago
I just violently sobbed about this for half an hour. He was just a baby, trained to be around people and be friendly. He ran toward them because he had never had a reason to know fear. I just can't deal with hearing about this shit all the time
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u/mekese2000 8h ago
Dept of Agriculture investigation. They will nothing.
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u/Double-Valuable9632 4h ago
Exactly. Do they even have any enforcement authority or are they just going to point fingers?
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u/SL1Fun 7h ago edited 7h ago
The cops will ruin your life quicker than any criminal. Fuck them.
Also the piece of shit who did it is named Trent Garner, from the Cedartown PD
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u/GoProOnAYoYo 2h ago
Im glad his name is finally out there, Cedartown was doing their absolute best to protect the identify of this bloodthirsty sociopath
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u/TheSean_aka_Rh1no 10h ago
I'm a gonna go out on a limb here, the donkey, wasn't white, was it?
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u/PlantWide3166 10h ago
“It’s coming right for us!”
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u/spasske 10h ago edited 31m ago
I know they are taught every human is out to kill them, but are miniature donkeys included in that as well?
They shot Hee Haw because he brayed at them and they feared for their lives.
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u/shimmeringmoss 9h ago
Not just a miniature donkey, a very young (yearling) miniature donkey that wasn’t even full-grown yet. The excuse was that they tried to shoot him with a taser first but it wasn’t successful. Well why the fuck was this moron trying to taser a baby donkey in his own pasture in the first place? This is so sad, donkeys are some of the most gentle, affectionate, curious, and intelligent animals you will ever meet. Even the Polk County sheriff dept knew Cedartown fucked up with the way they immediately distanced themselves from it with their public statement that it wasn’t one of their officers and extending their condolences to the traumatized family.
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u/13thmurder 9h ago
Maybe less people would want them dead if they didn't do stuff like this and they could be less paranoid. Just a thought.
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u/matt_coffee5 10h ago
Was involved in the fatal shooting is the standard phrasing for people. Somebody in that press office just ran the usual template and swapped in HeeHaw.
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u/L00kAdistraction 11h ago
What is this, parks and rec?
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u/rnick467 10h ago
No, unfortunately this is real life in the United States.
Police officers shoot dogs, donkeys, falling acorns, and black people sleeping in their own bed, but won't shoot someone actively murdering children and teachers.
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u/EarthToTee 9h ago
and black babies sitting in cars in parking lots, because they wrongly suspect his mother shoplifted diapers.
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u/_Bipolar_Vortex_ 7h ago
Donkeys are guardians. It is in their nature to alert and protect other animals in their herd. Police should follow their example.
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u/Last-Trash-7960 4h ago
this donkey was used in petting zoos, it was friendly. this is a big deal here in rural georgia. our Department of agriculture will be investigating and they don't play around.
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u/ILikeMyGrassBlue 3h ago
God, I fucking hate it when headlines do the passive bullshit like “was involved.” It’s not even journalistically useful.
How was he involved? Involved could mean he tried to prevent it from being shot, or it could mean he mag dumped it at point blank.
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u/sudomatrix 3h ago
The headline didn't do that. The Cedartown Police Department issues that statement using liar's language to downplay that the cop shot the donkey.
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u/3_14159td 47m ago
Or it could mean the donkey shot the cop. Presumption of innocence and all that.
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u/BugsyMcNug 10h ago edited 9h ago
Oh. The donkys name was hee haw.
I thought it was a distasteful addition to the wonky donkey song.
Hee haaaaaaaw
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u/OEAXTAIL_SOUP 9h ago
Maybe my brain is broken but after reading this I wanted to watch that Archer episode with the Nova Scotian separatists.
“You gotta tell ‘em to bring the heavy stuff - those ISIS bastards just shot a black guy!”
https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=archer+they+just+shot+a+black+guy
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u/eatyourvegetabros 9h ago
extraordinary rendition !!!!
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u/OEAXTAIL_SOUP 6h ago
>extraordinary rendition !!!!
I've had two of those this week.
remember the good old days, when "gooning" meant seizing control of the state department from those useless neoliberals?
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u/Ok_Protection164 10h ago
It had a cell phone that looked like a handgun with a sword attached to the barrel.
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u/_Fizzgiggy 5h ago
This is infuriating. So many animals are executed by cops each year for no reason at all. That poor little donkey laying dead on the ground while his owner was crying over him was heartbreaking
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u/liquidsyphon 3h ago
Guy has no business being law enforcement.
Maybe give him a wooden gun like in The Other Guys
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u/lo5t5heep 5h ago
A month or two of paid leave oughta teach that cop. No really, cop is on paid leave.
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u/Peacewalken 7h ago
I would definitely overreact if a cop shot my pet. You gotta be careful as a cop lot of people are just waiting for a good time to check out, I can see that situation being one for me.
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u/Salty-River-2056 5h ago
My guess is he wanted to shoot something and was looking for an excuse.
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u/Double-Valuable9632 4h ago edited 3h ago
That's what I believe too. The officer that did the shooting is Trent Garner, he was with another cop from a different agency. I don't know which one did the tazing or who's bright idea it was to shoot a baby donkey but I suspect Garner shot it as bravado for the other cops consumption. When/if the bodycam video is released, it will tell the tale.
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u/bakeacake45 8h ago
Will they be shooting. cedartown kids next, nothing like a 3 year old in the throws of a tantrum to frighten a grown “man” into committing murder
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u/WeAreAllThem 1h ago
So the officer involved was trespassing on private property while searching for a missing child. What if it had been the child in the pasture? If the officer who shot poor HeeHaw was spooked or threatened by a mini donkey, that officer is a danger to the public and the public needs to be protected FROM that officer.
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u/SuspiciousExtinction 6h ago
Was the donkey armed or reaching? We can't be judgmental, what if officer's masculinity was threatened..
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u/Curious_Trifle_7867 1h ago
Good thing the missing child didn't come out of the weeds running towards him....🤬
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u/TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK 1h ago
rule one