The father of a teen who was killed by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo questioned the facility’s safety on Thursday, as police reportedly considered whether one of the victims taunted the deadly jungle cat.
Sources close to the investigation told the San Francisco Chronicle that police are probing whether one of the Siberian tiger’s three victims climbed over a fence Christmas Day and then dangled a leg or other body part over the moat.
Police said Carlos Sousa, 17, of San Jose was killed just outside the tiger’s enclosure. The two others, who were injured, were about 300 yards away by a cafe.
A shoe and blood were found between the fence and the moat, the Chronicle reported, and a footprint has been found on a metal fence at the zoo. The investigation is looking into the possibility that the tiger escaped by latching on to a leg or other body part, the paper reported.
“Somebody created a situation that really agitated [the tiger] and and gave her some method to break her out,” zoo director Manuel Mollinedo told the Chronicle. “A couple of feet dangling over the edge could possibly have done it.”
—“Victims may have dangled leg over tiger’s moat, says report,” CNN.com