Posted on 03/23/2004 11:33:53 AM PST by GulliverSwift
DALLAS - A zoo visitor saw two teen-age boys throwing rocks or ice at Jabari the gorilla shortly before he escaped from his exhibit Thursday and attacked three people at the Dallas Zoo, officials said Monday.
Mammal curator Ken Kaemmerer said the man told zoo officials that he warned the teens not to taunt the gorilla and was walking away from the exhibit when he heard someone yelling that the animal had escaped.
"He just ran," Kaemmerer said. "So he didn't see where the gorilla got out."
Officials said the information, which appears credible and came from a hot line created to collect information about the incident, is helpful because it shows what might have provoked Jabari's escape.
But it also left the zoo without a solid explanation of how the 13-year-old gorilla got past walls 12 to 16 feet high with moats and electrified wires. Jabari, who injured two women and a 3-year-old boy, was fatally shot by police after he charged at them.
"I'm thinking he just got angry enough at being harassed and he either made the climb of his life or a leap and got lucky," Kaemmerer said.
In a tape of one 911 call released by authorities Monday, a zoo secretary calmly tells the operator that police are needed. In another call, Dallas resident Enrique DeLeon urgently requests help.
"There's a gorilla loose, and it's going after people," he says frantically.
"Are you serious?" the dispatcher asks.
DeLeon responds, "I'm serious. I swear to God. I am not joking. There's people yelling. It's going after people. ... There's kids in here. Please. ... Please hurry up."
In an interview Monday, DeLeon said he and his family were near the meerkat exhibit when they heard banging and screams.
DeLeon said he first saw Cheryl Reichert, 39, trying to close a door to the aviary, but the gorilla forced it open and jumped on her. Then DeLeon saw Jabari go after 3-year-old Rivers Heard and his mother, Keisha Heard, 31.
"He picked him up like a rag doll and then bit him in the head," DeLeon said. "His mother started hitting the gorilla on the back, but that just made him more mad. He threw young Rivers and then turned around and attacked her."
DeLeon said he borrowed a utility knife from a young boy and began cutting the mesh netting of the aviary. The gorilla had left the area, and he told Heard to bring her son out that way.
"She was yelling, 'Hurry up! Hurry up!' But I told her she needed to be quiet or the gorilla would come back up," he said.
After they were pulled through the netting, a zoo employee armed with a fire extinguisher led them to a nearby barn, he said. DeLeon said he began administering first aid to Keisha Heard while DeLeon's wife, Andrea, attended to Rivers.
The paramedics arrived soon afterward, and then three gunshots were heard, DeLeon said.
"My wife and I tried to be calm through it, but once everything was over, we just started crying," he said. "It was just surreal, everything we saw."
Kaemmerer said he isn't sure whether the zoo will ever be able to figure out how Jabari escaped. He continued to urge witnesses to call the zoo's hot line at (214) 671-0888 and emphasized that officials are trying to figure out what happened, not assign blame.
"I would have hoped at this point either through the media or through the hot line we would have gotten something," he said. "What I'm afraid of is the people that saw this or caused this are afraid they're going to be liable."
Kaemmerer also responded to questions about why zoo officials with tranquilizer guns could not reach Jabari before he was shot by police armed with safari-style rifles that had been provided by the zoo.
At the time of the shooting, Kaemmerer said the zoo's immobilization team had not gone in to capture the gorilla because personnel were still focusing on the first phase of their emergency operation, which is securing zoogoers and evacuating the injured.
"The vet or immobilization team will come to our command post, but he doesn't go into action until after all public and staff members are safe and the injured people are removed," Kaemmerer said.
"Once we had gotten people out, then we would have gone into the phase of contain and capture," he said.
Kaemmerer said that ideally police and zoo officials would have coordinated their plans. But he said the police were probably responding to 911 calls about a raging gorilla.
"Unfortunately, the police encountered Jabari and he charged them, and they really had no choice," Kaemmerer said.
Zoo officials are awaiting the arrival of the Department of Agriculture's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, which will conduct its own investigation of the incident, before putting some of the gorillas back on exhibit.
Kaemmerer said he hopes to reopen the north portion of the gorilla exhibit before the weekend and display two older gorillas, Jenny and Fubo. Jabari was in the south portion of the exhibit when he escaped.
IMO the blame can be placed completely on the zoo and those whose job it was to build secure housing for dangerous animals who are visited by hundreds of thousands of people each year.
With those numbers of visitors a few unruly teens can be guaranteed.
But yes, it would have been nice if Jabari slapped them a few times when he got out.
The cage wasnt secure, no excuse.
How about putting them in a cage with another gorilla. Quite a few serial killers apparently started out abusing animals. I'm not saying these two will end up that way, but you have to wonder about somebody who would do something like this.
This surely was not a 'first time' for these teens who found such pleasure in mistreating an animal.
Not to pick a fight but that sounds like a radical PETA statement.
Shoot them?!
Lets remember we were once teens who acted up. (well, at least I was)
Lets remember we were once teens who acted up. (well, at least I was)Did you e.g. torture or terrorize a pit bull or a rotweiler until it became so crazed it attacked a mother and a child?
Amen.
Carolyn
I don't understand why in this day and age we need to enclose the friendly gorilla.
I remember one at FW who had a very bad temper, if you even looked at him wrong he would get pissed, jump around, then beat on the glass till you thought he would break through and go on a king kong rampage.
Another female chimp used to enjoy eating her own feces in front of the crowds, they finally got rid of her. (she went on to be 1st lady in the 90s)
This article makes it sound like the teens were stoning this gorilla like a group of palestinians would like to do to do Sharon right now.I am not buying that at all.
I think the zoo staff and city are trying to pass blame from their cage building incompetence and lesson their risk of a law suit from the injured.
Here is an idea, build a cage dangerous animals cant escape from, and that unruly teens cant throw objects into..
And it would have been secure on this day if the staff or whoever has the responsibility to protect the public were doing their job. Could it be after 13 years it needed repair?
I am going down the road of secure the dangerous animals from the visiting public, or expect your no cage building self to be looking for a new job. Or your zoo to be closed.
The "cage" was secure for 13 years!
The gorilla got out, so the cage was never secure.
No gorilla happened to be sufficiently motivated until that day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.