Police: Zoo survivor told of standing on railing and yelling at tiger

[kskiska]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

One of the two survivors of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack that left a 17-year-old fatally mauled told the victim's father that the three had yelled and waved at the animal while standing atop the railing of the tiger's enclosure, police said in court documents filed Thursday.

(snip)

The search warrant affidavit was prepared Tuesday by police Inspector Valerie Matthews, the lead investigator in the case, and was filed with the court late Thursday. It cites multiple reports of a group of young men taunting animals at the zoo as basis for a court to grant police the right to search the cell phones and BMW, where police said they had seen the partially full bottle vodka bottle in the front passenger seat.

Both Dhaliwal brothers were hospitalized after the maulings with head wounds. Matthews said in the warrant application that Paul Dhaliwal's blood alcohol level had been measured after the attack at 0.16 percent, twice the legal level for drunkenness. She did not indicate exactly when the test had been conducted.

(snip)

Matthews said police had found a partial shoe print on top of the railing and concluded that it matched a shoe worn by Paul Dhaliwal.

(snip)

"As a result of this investigation, (police believe) that the tiger may have been taunted/agitated by its eventual victims," Matthews wrote in the affidavit. Police believe that "this factor contributed to the tiger escaping from its enclosure and attacking its victims," she said.

much, much more…

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/article?f=/c/a/20...