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January 18, 2008, 11:42 am
Taunting Evidence Intensifies the Tiger Case
By Mike Nizza

Was the tiger taunted? The San Francisco police’s first answer was found in a court document 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,” [Inspector Valerie Matthews, the lead investigator in the case] wrote in the affidavit. Police believe that “this factor contributed to the tiger escaping from its enclosure and attacking its victims,” she said.
“… This behavior may be consistent with a tiger that has been agitated and/or taunted.”
The evidence apparently includes statements made by Paul Dhaliwal, one of the three young men attacked by the tiger at the zoo on Christmas Day, to the effect that the trio — Paul and his brother Kulbir and a friend, Carlos Sousa Jr. — were “standing on the railing” and “waving their hands and yelling at the tiger” before the attack. The brothers suffered head wounds; Mr. Sousa was killed.
One part of that story was backed up by a shoe print found on the railing, according to the police report.

But the statements were not made by Paul Dhaliwal to the police. Rather, the Mr. Sousa’s father evidently told police that Paul made the statements in a conversation after the attack. Carlos Sousa Sr. also said that Paul denied other allegations, including claims that limbs were dangled over the railing, or that rocks or sticks were thrown at the tiger.
Marijuana and alcohol apparently were involved as well. According to the police account, Kulbir Dhaliwal told investigators that the three men smoked pot and drank vodka earlier that day; both substances were retrieved from the car and identified in toxicology tests.
While the lawyers representing the two young men wounded in the Christmas Day rampage have flatly denied wrongdoing of any sort on the men’s part, San Francisco Zoo officials have insisted that “something prompted our tiger to leap over the exhibit.”
Last week, the investigation was described as “inactive,” and the week before, the worst-case scenario for the young men was said to be a misdemeanor charge. But the court documents specified that the police now suspect that an unspecified felony was committed.
Shepard Kopp, one of the lawyers hired by the Dhaliwals, said that he couldn’t “conceive of any possible felony that anyone would suspect these brothers of having committed,” according to The San Jose Mercury News.
As the heat intensified, Mark Geragos, the more colorful of the lawyers representing the brothers, seemed to drop into the background, for the first time since taking the case. Though he appeared constantly as a vocal defender of the men in earlier news accounts about the case, the Chronicle wrote today that Mr. Geragos had not returned its call seeking comment