Posted on 01/18/2008 4:43:05 PM PST by indcons
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."
You certainly have a high opinion of yourself.
You would. You're a tiger...
Those that were "attacked" were not innocent bystanders. They were hopped up on drugs and alcohol and taunting tigers. The "beasts" have been secured in that zoo for 67 years without incident.
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.
Now, run along and do your other errands for Geragos.
You left off, or working for the ambulance chaser who represents the yoots. Or possibly some of his groupies.
Good, informative post. Thanks, BD.
Also, according to the articles I’ve read so far, the tiger didn’t eat anyone. She mauled them—fatally in one case. This wasn’t about hunger.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/chi_8007892?source=most_viewed&nclick_check=1
"But Singer said that finding a sign with blood on it -- inside the exhibit -- on the night of the mauling "would suggest that one or more of the young men was on that side of the railing.""
So start agreeing with me already.
I also want to hear more about the business of the tiger's damaged claws (damaged while climbing up the concrete barrier to get at her tormenters).
Cats don't like to hurt themselves like that.
“Carlos Sousa Jr, recalling his boyhood fondness for Bajheera, thought the tiger would be kind and loving” said his lawyer with hopes of bringing suit against Walt Disney Studios.
Does not mean shit, it is a pretrial allegation to secure a bogus warrant. Tell me what was the probable cause.
The people that need to be charged in this matter are the zoo management for failure to protect the public. That dumb boy could just as well have been a class of school kids. Would you still be cheering for the cat.
You know what, even if someone produced a video of them doing what they’ve admitted to doing, I bet you’d still insist they never did it. Which sort of makes it hard to take you seriously.
What liberal hole did you crawl out of, DUmmie? You seem to be making some judgments about this site after barely a few months here.
Yet it did.
Can I get caged at that zoo?
Stand in line! Babes with guns. It doesn't get better than that.
But for the fact of the Dillyweed boys doing some extraordinary provocation, it probably would have lasted another another 67 years.
It really doesn’t matter to me what those sh!t for brains idiots did unless they opened a gate. Then it would relieve the zoo from any liability. Just harassing the animals should not result in a pass for the zoo. We idiot proof every other imaginable product known to the American public for a reason. Zoo cages must be too.
>>> Tiger experts over and over again have said that it would take extraordinary provocation to get a tiger to leap out of it’s enclosure <<<
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“That height would be scalable,” said Ronal Tilson, director of conservation at the Minnesota Zoo, who since 1987 has been overseeing the tiger species survival plan of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
“A tiger cannot leap over something like that, but what it can do is stand up and *with a little hop or jump, more than likely get its paws on the ledge*,” Tilson said. “That would not be much of a trick. And they are so powerful that they can scoot themselves up.”
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/29/MN88U65U7.DTL
Same AZA who accredited the SF zoo in 2006? Thanks.
Zoo security tried to tranquilize the animal. They kept the life-saving police outside the zoo gates for 6 minutes while they tried unsuccessfully to do it. In the meantime, the tiger was working on victim number three.
That decision slowed the victims' rescue and may have contributed to another attack. The zoo will pay dearly for it.
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