According to police reports Paul Dhaliwal admitted to "standing atop a railing of the big cat enclosure and yelling and waving at the animal that would later maul them," killing Carlos Sousa Jr. on Christmas Day at the SF Zoo.

The trio, it seems, were also hopped up on mary jane and expensive vodka. Toxicology reports turned up numbers indicating that Paul was especially wasted during the attack. His blood alcohol level was 0.16 percent after Tatiana's reign of terror, "twice the legal threshold for drunkenness." ("Threshold for drunkenness." Heh.) Kulbir Dhaliwal's blood alcohol level came out to 0.04 percent, and lightweight Sousa's was at 0.02 percent. According to the Gate:

Police said they had recovered messages and images but apparently nothing incriminating in connection with the tiger attack. Investigators seized a small amount of marijuana as well as a partially filled bottle of Grey Goose vodka from the car, according to the inventory that police submitted from the search.

They also found a kit commonly used to defeat drug testing, which included a vial of unisex synthetic urine, police said. Paul Dhaliwal was on probation stemming from a drunken driving incident that occurred before the attack.

Oh oh. Mark Geragos has some explaining to do.

In the battle to see who's going down and who gets what and how much in court, new "evidence" suggests that possibly, maybe, perhaps Tatiana the tiger was provoked. It seems that said proof is in the form of a footprint and blood found inside the tiger enclosure at the SF Zoo. According to the kids down at KCBS:

...a significant amount of blood was found on an exhibit sign inside the tiger enclosure, a foot and a half from the public railing. The blood on the sign indicates someone may have climbed the railing and was attacked while standing in the planted area between the moat and the railing.

The source also said a footprint found on top of the three-foot high railing was located on a portion of the railing across from the sign.

Pro-Tatiana activist and SF Zoo spokesperson Sam Singer also confirmed that blood was found on foliage inside the tiger enclosure. But? How it got thee or whose veins the blood ran through prior to spattering remains unanswered. Khulbir and Paul Dhaliwal's team of attorney deny that the boys were inside the enclosure during the now infamous Christmas Day big-cat attack that killed their friend, Carlos Sousa Jr.

Footprints? Blood? Rapscallions? We really need Jessica Fletcher on this case.

At the bargain price of just $35 dollars down at City Hall this morning, authorities released the emergency 911 tapes of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attacks. The attacks, if you don't remember, occurred on Christmas Day, taking the life of Carlos Sousa Jr. and injuring the now (in)famous Dhaliwal brothers. The footage is raw, with the most unnerving robotic British female voice overlapping the frantic phone call, but to check listen to the audio, go here. According to the Gate:

The dispatch records include the original call that was made at 5:04 p.m., three full minutes before fire and police logs show anyone was sent to the emergency. The call lasts more than 19 minutes. It was made by a zoo security guard and includes radio transmissions (broadcast over zoo radio and picked up over the 911 dispatch recording of the call) from zoo official Deb Howe who asks for police and fire while downplaying the incident. But after realizing a tiger is loose, Howe says at one point: "Alan, I've got a tiger out. Code One." Alan Feinberg, another zoo official, responds in shock over the radio: "What?"

Overall, you get to hear zoo officials freaking the hell out over the crisis while coming to the sad realization that Sousa has just died. Grim stuff.

Well, not "all," per se, but on Monday night Paul Dahliwal, one of the three people involved in the Christmastime tiger attack at the SF Zoo, telephoned Carlos Sousa Jr.'s mother, Marilza, to tell her that he and his chums were "dancing, talking, and laughing" moments before the attack. (Doing the Turkey Lurkey dance, no doubt.) It seems that Paul also told her that they were not taunting the tiger, something that has been widely speculated.

Mark Geragos, attorney for the Dahliwal brothers, claims that the SF Zoo shifted into smear-campaign gear against Paul and Kulbir right after the attack, claiming that they had taunted Tatiana. This hearsay phone call info to Sousa's parents certainly helps reinforce the brothers' case.

It should also be mentioned that, according to CBS 5, "a necropsy of Tatiana the tiger revealed that the claws on her hind paws were torn or frayed, perhaps suggesting that she struggling to gain traction on the grotto wall, trying to get out." The reason for Tatiana's desire to get out of her pen just prior to the attack remains an unanswered question in this case.

Tiger attack victim, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr., was mourned last night at the Five Wounds Portuguese National Church in San Jose by hundreds of loved ones.

His altar was decorated with a flowers, including Raiders logo. It seems Sousa was an Oakland Raiders fan, reportedly wearing a Marcus Allen Raiders jersey the day he was killed at SF Zoo. According to the Gate, some of Carlos' "friends showed up at the funeral wearing 'In Memory of Carlos Sousa Jr.' T-shirts emblazoned with his photo and the messages, 'Sunrise 9-26-1990. Sundown 12-25-2007. Rest in Paradise.'" (Hey, he was a Libra! Very nice.)

For more information on vigils, donations, and more for Carlos' family, visit his memorial page.

No word yet as to whether or not either of the Dhaliwal brothers paid their respects to their friend last night. Given the media surrounding their current case and what's at stake, probably not.

Update: Paul Dhaliwal and Kulbir Dhaliwal made cameo appearances at the funeral, "escorted by one of their attorneys," it seems! Smart move, kids. Smart move.

Oh my God, you guys, no way. Get this: the New York Post was wrong. What's next: Intelligent Design? Celebrity weddings? Our meth-induced epiphanies that the CIA, in cahoots with the Norteños, are reading our emails and listening in on our phone calls? See, it seems that "[n]o slingshots have been found" and that the NY Post was wrong. And we refuse to believe anything Rupert Murdoch-related is less than perfect.

Thankfully, according to Dan Noyes, San Francisco Police Department. Sgt. Steve Manina did confirm that "the brothers had a vodka bottle in their car that night." (Grey Goose? Smirnoff? Mixed with Mountain Dew? These details are most critical, people.) Because there ain't no party, like a vodka-drinking, tiger-taunting SF Zoo party, right? Right.

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."

The Dhaliwal brothers, they seem like a couple of nasty little rapscallions. Ruffians, we'll go so far as to say. Why? Because after last week's Christmastime big-cat attack - a mauling that took the life of their "friend," Carlos Sousa Jr. - it seems that at the two brothers "had slingshots on them at the time" - well, at least according to "sources" at the New York Post. (Seriously, aside from aspiring serial killers, who does this? Who goes to a zoo to aggressively taunt the animals? This behavior goes well above and beyond the reliable boys-will-be-boys excuse.)

In addition to the mini catapult, an "empty vodka bottle was also found in a car used by Amritpal Dhaliwal" the Post goes on to say. (What, no Ranch Dressing?)

But have no fear, the Dhaliwals landed themselves Mark Geragos, the same media slut attorney who defended Michael Jackson, Winona Ryder, Gary Condit, and the dreamy Scott Peterson. Regarding the rumored taunting, Geragos hyperbolically told the Chronicle that "'as far as [he was] concerned, that's an urban legend ... there was no taunting of the tiger.'"

And with that, we're off. Come on, a media circus involving actual animals? This is going to get interesting.

(Ah, the year of the tiger. OK, month of the tiger. But still.)

A reader brings up an interesting point -- thanks, reader! -- who asks, "The boys had it coming. True, but can they be buried/released from the hospital before we start pointing fingers. Did this happen before 24/7 news channels existed?"

(S)he makes a good point. Surely something similarly maul-related has happened before at a zoo somewhere, yes? Happened on busier news days as well, we imagine. Animal taunting must occur on a daily basis at SF Zoo. Seeing as how the zoo must already prepared for ill-mannered youths or men who visit the place every day, the problem here is that the tiger exhibit wall "doesn't meet national standards."

And, sure, the belligerence of the now hospitalized boys raises some fingers all too easy to point. But they were scared, possibly hungover, and just witnessed the loss of a good friend in a most violent way. (Not to mention how pain killers affect one's manners. Greatly.) We don't know. We just feel bad for pointing too many fingers - righteous or not - at a couple of patients who are still surely in a Vicodin haze.