No charges will be filed against the mother of a 3-year-old child who fell into a gorilla enclosure, according to an announcement released June 6 from the Hamilton County Prosecutor.
The child was trapped in the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo for 10 minutes on May 28, during which time the gorilla in the pen dragged him around the enclosure before leaving him to rest between his legs. The child had climbed the barrier and fell in while his mother, who will remain unnamed in this article, was looking away and tending to her other 3 children.
In order to save the child the zoo’s Dangerous Animal Response Team (DART) decided to shoot and kill the 17-year old silverback gorilla named Harambe. The child did not suffer any serious injuries as a result to the incident.
Prosecutor Joseph Deter of Hamilton County said; “Many people on social media have condemned the mother for not watching her child carefully enough at the zoo.” The mother shut down her Facebook account after receiving hate messages and threats from strangers.
“Our information is that the mother turned away for a few seconds to attend to another one of her young children and that is when the 3-year-old was able to climb into the gorilla enclosure,” Deter said. “Any parent who is honest with himself or herself would have to understand how this could happen to even the most attentive parent.”
People on social media were also critical of the zoo’s decision to kill the gorilla, saying they should have used a tranquilizer to subdue the animal. Other zoo officials defended the zoo’s DART actions and said they would have done the same thing.
“This was a tragic accident and a terrible loss for the zoo of their beloved gorilla.” Deter said. “However, the zoo did the right thing when they took immediate action to save the life of a young child. A gorilla is a wild animal and, by definition, dangerous and unpredictable.”
The Cincinnati police department investigated the incident. They visited the zoo four times, interviewed four witnesses, spoke with the child’s mother and reviewed a cell phone video recorded at the site. “ None of the witnesses interviewed described the mother as anything but attentive to her children,” Deter said. The prosecutor said the incident was unfortunate but the mother did nothing on her part warrant criminal charges.
Featured image via Flickr/Mathew Hoelscher
