Yes you are right about how unpredictable black bears can be w/their meals.
I live in utah not far from the aforementioned attack and spoke w/my brother who knows one of the authorities involved w/the bear attack on the 11yr-old boy.
I’d like to put this as delicately as I can... but yes, unfortunately a large portion of him was consumed by the bear after he was drug out of the tent. I have more detailed info but will withhold mentioning the gruesomeness.
The black-bear knew it had food.
If everybody was sleeping, I would imagine a rip in the tent would only be a fraction of a second and might even sound like a sleeping bag zipper... again.. no alarm to be taken especially if everyone was sleeping soundly. I’m sure his scream woke them up.... even if the step-dad had a pistol, a sure target couldn’t be aquired in pitch dark. At that moment they probably went in to the boys “tent room” to see the commotion and to discover he was gone. They never even suspected a bear at that time. I believe cuddling w/the gun would be a good idea but there was probably not any presentable target. ... thus a dog might have been better in that exact situation.
The news media hasn’t given enough info for us to know how & why it happened. Since they weren’t warned of any previous bear activity, I don’t think there was much his family could have done to prevent it. It’s not like it’s Alaska or Yellowstone around here, I didn’t know bears were even around this area of the state. Just a freak accident... but you can bet I’ll be packing my 10mm w/double-taps housing a mounted LED light on my wilderness trip w/my kids next month. The dog can come too. At least I have a warning of a possible threat now!
The last thing we need to do is quit camping because of a liberal black bear!