If they didn’t kill the gorilla who was going to step into the cage to demand the gorilla give up the kid???
With someone of THAT caliber as a parent, who knows what kind of parenting was going on in that home. And when the kid told his mother he wanted to go into the water, why didn't she remove him from the area immediately?
The people who knew the gorilla best, who cared for it every day, shot it without hesitation in that situation. Why are everyone else questioning their judgement?