Jan 18, 2008 12:19 pm US/Pacific
SFPD Says Zoo Attack Victim Admitted Tiger Taunts
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP) ―
Police believe a fatal tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo was in part prompted by the victims provoking the animal, according to court documents filed late Thursday.
One of the three victims told the father of the teenager killed in the Christmas Day attack that the trio had been drinking and were standing atop a railing of the big cat enclosure while yelling and waving at the animal that would later maul them, according to a search warrant affidavit.
However, Paul Dhaliwal, 19, insisted the three never threw anything into the tiger's pen to provoke the cat, the court papers said.
Dhaliwal and his brother Kulbir, 24, were severely injured when the tiger crawled up the wall of its enclosure and mauled them. Their friend, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa, Jr., was killed.
Zoo officials have acknowledged the 12 ½ feet tall wall surrounding the tiger pen was four feet lower than recommended by the national zoo accrediting organization.
"As a result of this investigation, (police believe) that the tiger may have been taunted/agitated by its eventual victims," wrote Inspector Valerie Matthews in the affidavit. Police believe that "this factor contributed to the tiger escaping from its enclosure and attacking its victims," she wrote.
Sousa's father, Carlos Sousa Sr., said Dhaliwal told him the three stood on a 3-foot-tall metal railing a few feet from the edge of the tiger moat. "When they got down they heard a noise in the bushes, and the tiger was jumping out of the bushes on him (Paul Dhaliwal)," the documents said.
Police found a partial shoe print that matched Paul Dhaliwal's on top of the railing, Matthews said in the documents.
The affidavit, which requested a search warrant for the surviving victims' cell phones and car, also cites multiple reports of a group of young men taunting animals at the zoo that day.
Mark Geragos, an attorney for the Dhaliwal brothers, did not immediately return calls for comment. He has repeatedly said they did not provoke the tiger.
Michael Cardoza, the attorney who represents the Sousa family, said Friday he had not seen the affidavit and would not comment on the allegations.
But, he said, even if the men had provoked the animal, smoked marijuana or drank alcohol, that would not justify the attack or lessen the zoo's liability.
"The zoo has the obligation to protect the public from the animals and to protect the animals from the public," Cardoza said. "They did not live up to that obligation. They are strictly liable for not properly housing that tiger. It has to be foreseeable to them that people are going to do silly things at the zoo."
Toxicology results for Paul Dhaliwal showed that his blood alcohol level was 0.16 —twice the legal threshold for drunkenness— according to the affidavit. Kulbir Dhaliwal's blood alcohol level was 0.04 percent and Sousa's was 0.02 percent, Matthews wrote.
All three also had marijuana in their systems, Matthews said. Kulbir Dhaliwal told police the three had smoked pot and each had "a couple shots of vodka" before leaving San Jose for the zoo Dec. 25, the affidavit said.
Police found a small amount of marijuana in Kulbir Dhaliwal's 2002 BMW, which the victims rode to the zoo, as well as a partially filled bottle of vodka, according to court documents.
Investigators also recovered messages and images from the men's cell phones, but apparently nothing incriminating in connection with the tiger attack, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported.
Zoo spokesman Sam Singer said he had not seen the court documents but believed the victims did taunt the animal.
"Those brothers painted a completely different picture to the public and the press," Singer said. "Now it's starting to come out that what they said is not true."
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
