Thanks! - it does give credibility to your claim that they took control of the tranq guns. Mia culpa
It still think it’s a HUGH leap to assume they executed a tranquilized cat, but we all have our biases that taint our assumptions. ;~)
from JSOnline article-
“When members of the zoo staff realized a tiger was loose, he said, “the zoo shooting team was assembling,” with tranquilizer guns. “But when police saw the weapon, they took it away. They had taken control of the scene.”
The article is not clear as to the logisitcs. I am not convinced of Gray’s statements about the tranquilizing.
“The zoo team was assembling...”
= they had not even gotten a bead on the animal yet ? Meanwhile people are being stalked by the tiger?
and the cops arrived and shot the tiger, hence
“taking control of the scene...” .
No where is it reported that the cops took away the tranq gun and then killed the tiger or that the tiger had been tranqed at any time.
More likely the cops didn’t want anyone running around with bigger guns than they had.
Or they’re trained to disarm all non-LEOs.
I'm not sure how SF runs things, but in most zoos the weapons team has real guns. The tranquilizers are used by the vet staff only. In an emergency the vet staff gets first crack at it. Then if the danger escalates, the weapons team takes over. Finally if the animal leaves zoo grounds or threatens someone the police take over. Sounds like the situation was already at "police" level so they took over.