January 3, 2008
Tiger Attack Update: Witness Account Says She Saw Taunting, Teasing
Damn. Ing.
An eyewitness has stepped forward, giving her account of what she supposedly saw on Christmas Day at the SF Zoo. Jennifer Miller, who visited the now infamous park with her husband and two small children, tells the Chronicle what she claims to have seen, just before the Tatiana mauled Carlos Sousa Jr. to death and injured Paul Dhaliwal and Kulbir Dhaliwal.
"The boys, especially the older one, were roaring at them. He was taunting them," the San Francisco woman said. "They were trying to get that lion's attention. ... The lion was bristling, so I just said, 'Come on, let's get out of here' because my kids were disturbed by it."
Miller also says that she recognized Sousa from his photograph, saying that he took no part in the rumored taunting that led to the tiger jumping out of her pen.
"He wasn't roaring. He wasn't taunting them," she recalled. "He kept looking at me apologetically like, 'I'm sorry, I know we are being stupid.' "
The boys' attorney, the Inside Edition-ready Mark Geragos, claims that Miller is stupid stinky pants lair face. He goes on to say that what the SF Zoo is doing is "a calculated attack on these victims ... when in actuality the zoo security didn't do what they should have been doing after the attack."
What, no sightings of slingshots or nacho flinging? What a letdown. It seems that if the brothers were only "roaring" at the tigers, then the zoo, well, could be even more accountable for this entire mess.
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The Zoo might get out of this yet. The witness saw taunting .. that creates an unusual circumstance. The zoo's 12.5 foot grotto protected visitors just fine for 67 years give or take a few under normal conditions. These boys (not the dead one) created an unusual condition, and the boy that did get killed did not act to stop this as they were taunting lions before going over to the tigers.
The delayed response is totally understandable - a few minutes went by while the folks tried to ascertain if they had a criminal or maybe Virginia Tech gunman nut case screaming outside ... I wouldn't open the door immediately for people screaming these days .. RULE #1 - Make Sure Your Person is Safe First - Ascertain Your Safety First Before Opening Doors to potentially violent, crazy people. Also, kids today were raised on TV shows like Punk'd and Jackass ... who can believe any "situations" without seeing a lot more information first to figure out if it is reality or a prank?
Who the hell can you believe these days? The zoo and the guys who got mauled hired the best "spin" masters in the country. One says taunting, the other says not.
I'm not religious, but this makes better sense: "Let god sort this out."
I'd also add that my layman's opinion is just that ... I'm an IT and public finance guy, just an armchair legal opinionator ... kinda like Nancy Grace (ew!). I do think the boys are more accountable for their friend's death if they created the unusual circumstance that pissed a tiger off enough to go after them. 67 years of no tigers jumping that grotto is a pretty good history of safety ... and that Zoological society's stamp of approval.
Several young San Jose thugs/bullies were seemingly auditioning at the Big Cats enclosure to become Bushies and work in Washington DC for the First Crime Family: first do some stupid things, then lie about and then cover up and finally hire a fancy attorney to shill for you.
Close all the animal prisons (zoos) now.
These punks hired Mark Geragos?! The guy who defended Scott Peterson?
No innocent witness to a malicious tiger attack would ever do such a thing.
I agree that if the boys were taunting the animal, they bear some responsibility for the one death. And they should be punished somehow for just being total d-bags. (Though, sadly, I doubt that taunting animals is that "unusual" at the zoo.)
At the same time, I think that legally the level of security that the zoo is supposed to provide is such that one could safely (as my friend put it) "wear a ground beef suit" and still not be attacked by a tiger jumping out of its pen.
So, unless the boys went into the pen or unlocked the door to it, I don't think that the zoo will be helped in court much by blaming the boys' actions.
So, she saw the taunting the tiger, but did not tell anyone? Or see what happened later?
Postscript to SFPD: hey, you might have tried looking for witnesses in the actual zoo, before everyone went home. Because now, I think the guy in the full tinfoil outfit who hangs out in front of my office might want to tell you he was at the zoo that day, too.
"These punks hired Mark Geragos?! The guy who defended Scott Peterson?
No innocent witness to a malicious tiger attack would ever do such a thing." --
Good point.
Do we have to look at Geragos again? :( He's such an idiot. Didn't help Scott or Winona, just made a fool of himself and them.
If these guys were innocent they would speak out and not hire someone so ridiculous. It should be quite a side show. Will Gloria Alred be joining in the circus, defending the deceased Tatiana? News at 6
As an aside, these guys better watch their backs if PETA gets involved.... those PETA folks are fierce!
Wow, the douchewhalilals now hired a douche lawyer who loses most of his cases. A CRIMINAL DEFENSE lawyer.
Please, can we just make these fools tell the truth, and move on? Or at least serve Geragos a big healthy does of STFU?
What was Tatiana's TRAINER doing wrong when Tatiana bit her last year? Was SHE taunting, teasing, or roaring at her when Tatana chewed her flesh from her arm? No!! No other tiger at this zoo has EVER attacked anyone-- but THIS tiger, who was new to this zoo and ready to test limits, struck twice. It seems to me that this was a particularly agressive tiger! And HOW could these boys know that calling out to an animal, roaring or meowing or saying "Hi!" would annoy it rather than make it feel playful? Kids do that EVERY day at zoos!! Kids are raised to play with domesticated cats and dogs that way! Most kids toss balls toward dogs or balls of string at cats and expect that the animal will love the attention. Are the boys here at fault for not knowing the grave difference here-- especially after tigers are on stages playing games with people all over the West Coast? Sure any wild exotic animal can turn on humans-- but here in Northern California's amusement parks, circuses, & nearby in Vegas and Reno we have tigers on exhibit "PLAYING" with trainers directly in front of and within striking range of people, doing magic stunts, and performing obediently like cute & cuddly kittens, despite the fact that they can be truly dangerous. Little kids "pet" baby tigers routinely in Vegas-- are we supposed to imagine that suddenly these young men and teens are supposed to second guess what a tiger raised in captivity by and around humans might do to them at a public zoo? Are they in any way responsible for the ZOO not meeting safety standards? If these were YOUR kids-- how would YOU feel?