Police: Victim drunk during tiger attack

One of the three victims of San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted to yelling and waving at the animal while standing atop the railing of the big cat enclosure, police said in court documents filed Thursday.

Paul Dhaliwal, 19, told the father of Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, who was killed, that the three yelled and waved at the tiger but insisted they never threw anything into its pen to provoke the cat, according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

"As a result of this investigation, (police believe) that the tiger may have been taunted/agitated by its eventual victims," according to Inspector Valerie Matthews, who prepared the affidavit. Police believe that "this factor contributed to the tiger escaping from its enclosure and attacking its victims," she said.

Sousa's father, Carlos Sousa Sr., said Dhaliwal told him the three stood on a 3-foot-tall metal railing a few feet from the edge of the tiger moat. "When they got down they heard a noise in the bushes, and the tiger was jumping out of the bushes on him (Paul Dhaliwal)," the documents said.

Police found a partial shoe print that matched Paul Dhaliwal's on top of the railing, Matthews said in the documents.

The papers said Paul Dhaliwal told Sousa that no one was dangling his legs over the enclosure. Authorities believe the tiger leaped or climbed out of the enclosure, which had a wall 4 feet shorter than the recommended minimum.

The affidavit also cites multiple reports of a group of young men taunting animals at the zoo, the Chronicle reported.

Mark Geragos, an attorney for the Dhaliwal brothers, did not immediately return a call late Thursday by The Associated Press for comment. He has repeatedly said they did not taunt the tiger.

Calls to Sousa and Michael Cardoza, an attorney for the Sousa family, also weren't returned.

Toxicology results for Dhaliwal showed that his blood alcohol level was 0.16 — twice the legal limit for driving, according to the affidavit. His 24-year-old brother, Kulbir, and Sousa also had alcohol in their blood but within the legal limit, Matthews wrote.

All three also had marijuana in their systems, Matthews said. Kulbir Dhaliwal told police that the three had smoked pot and each had "a couple shots of vodka" before leaving San Jose for the zoo on Christmas Day, the affidavit said.

Police found a small amount of marijuana in Kulbir Dhaliwal's 2002 BMW, which the victims rode to the zoo, as well as a partially filled bottle of vodka, according to court documents.

Investigators also recovered messages and images from the cell phones, but apparently nothing incriminating in connection with the tiger attack, the Chronicle reported.

Zoo spokesman Sam Singer said he had not seen the documents but believed the victims did taunt the animal, even though they claim they hadn't.

"Those brothers painted a completely different picture to the public and the press," Singer said. "Now it's starting to come out that what they said is not true."

“Yes the truth is slowly coming out...no slingshots....they were cooperative...no incriminating cell phone evidence...no shoe in the moat...no dangling....the zoo’s defenses keep falling apart.”

It was also released today that blood was found on the sign PAST the barrier on the enclosure.

http://www.nbc11.com/news/15079337/detail.html?subid=10111094

“Police found blood on an informational sign as well as the foliage and plants around that sign and that’s clearly something they’re looking at,” he said.

Singer said investigators took the sign and ground samples as evidence but he does not know if anyone has determined where the blood came from.

“The blood in this no man’s land in between the fence and the tiger’s enclosure would lead one to believe someone was in that area that shouldn’t have been in that area,” he said.”

The SF Police are playing this correctly, they are letting the young men hang themselves slowly. Their story is falling apart, it’s no longer possible to claim they were randomly attacked by the tiger, and most likely provoked it into a rage that led to it scaling the wall.

The necropsy report, which i can’t find at the moment, showed that the tiger’s claws were shredded and broken from the wall. If you know anything about cats, you kno wthis means Tatiana was in extreme pain from scaling the wall, her anger was enough to override this. Yelling and shouting at her was NOT enough to do it, she was not reported to have a short temper, or had ever tried to scale that wall.

The zoo DOES have some blame here, but horrifically found out because these dolts decided to get wasted and go to the zoo, and did *something* to provoke the tiger to ignore severe injury to herself to attack them. In fact, i have a hard time saying it’s an “attack” anymore, I believe she was defending herself, and if there was blood on the sign in the grotto, they went past the barrier, circumnavigatingsecurity, and possibly dangled body parts into the grotto, and/or threw something at her, hitting her and angering her.

Anyone who thinks this attack was inevitable is deluded, stupid, and being a drama queen. These idiots created a scenario where the wall became an issue, this was not something that was considered “normal” circumstances.

The ONLY good that will come from this is more zoos protecting themselves from idiots like these two doing something like this again, and that nobody innocent was hurt.

Beyond the possible charges in the death of the friend, taunting or abusing endangered animals is at the very least a misdemeanor under the wildlife protection act, and there may be other Federal charges along that avenue.

Yes, the zoo’s official who said the wall was higher than it was should be fired. Yes, we sadly know that the wall was too low, and it’s been fixed, at least temporarily. And we know beyond a reasonable doubt that we need to design zoos to keep idiots from creating tragedies like this from happening again. We need to protect the animals, and we need to protect the visitors from harming themselves, because it’s no longer common sense to stay the hell OUT of a tiger pit.

Great country we have, eh? We trulyhave to dumb down everything, so the morons don’t kill themselves doing stupid things. “Nobody told me the tiger would get mad and chase me!” Well, dummy, nobody should HAVE to tell you THAT.

From everything i’ve read, the brothers are druggie wanna be gangstas. NO sympathy, and if I sat on a jury for their case, i’d refuse to award them a #@#$#@ dime.

And just how do you think an adult can “address” her “family issues with her dad” who is ALSO an adult (73 years old)??? If someone has prejudices against other races, and they’re 73 years old, chances are they’re going to die with them. So what do you think I am supposed to “do” about it? Change him? Shake him? Smack him around? I did what I always do — when he makes his racist remarks, especially in front of my children, I correct him and politely tell him he is wrong and he is judging people based on the color of their skin.

YOU must be one of those liberal animal lovers who cares more about the locked up tiger than the boy who was killed and the two boys who were mauled. The whole thing would NEVER have happened if that tiger could never have gotten out of that pen. Period. That’s it. That’s the fact. Yes, they were drunken idiots, but they didn’t deserve DEATH or MAULING.

This site can be so incredibly judgmental of bad behavior. Some of you think anyone who does something stupid should be tossed into the lions den, or locked up in a cell forever. I wonder how many of YOU have done stupid things when you were young — or even older — that could have ended tragically, but didn’t.

Mercy trumps fairness every time.

“Yes, they were DRUNKEN IDIOTS, but they didn’t deserve death or mauling.”

And a person driving a car 90 mph in a 35 mph zone doesn’t DESERVE to crash and die, either. But anyone with half a brain would pin most of the blame for that driver’s death on their stupid, reckless, careless behavior. But people like you would argue that actually, the city is at fault for not having a police car at every corner to stop people from speeding, and the city should have paid $40 million for cushioning devices on either side of the road, and that the car manufacturer should have designed a shut-off switch that would slowly bring the car of a speeder to a slow controlled stop, to keep people from getting into accidents when they feel compelled to speed.

You’re an idiot, and people like you are screwing up this country.

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