The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Posted on Tue, Mar. 23, 2004

2 teens taunted gorilla, zoo says
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/8254936.htm
By Mary Mckee;Eva-Marie Ayala
Star-Telegram Dallas Bureau

IMAGE: Jabari escaped from his enclosure last week and was killed by police.

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.
--
carrie mclaren
stayfreemagazine.org
carriemclaren.com
ph: 718.398.9324