CNN.com

The two brothers who survived a tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo were denied help for at least 30 minutes by zoo security who did not take their claims seriously, the brothers’ attorney said Tuesday. Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, tried to get help for their friend, Carlos Sousa Jr., after unsuccessful attempts to stop a 350-pound Siberian tiger that had attacked Sousa on Christmas Day, attorney Mark Geragos said.

According to Geragos, the tiger initially attacked Sousa and Paul Dhaliwal about 4:30 p.m. While Sousa was seriously hurt, Paul Dhaliwal escaped, and he and his brother ran 300 yards to a zoo cafe where they had eaten earlier. But Geragos said the brothers were “denied entry” to the cafe because the zoo was closing. At that point the brothers lost sight of the tiger. The brothers then spotted a female security guard who appeared “diffident” when told of the escaped tiger, Geragos said. After the brothers talked with the security guard, Geragos said, the tiger returned and attacked Kulbir Dhaliwal before police officers arrived and shot and killed the animal.

According to police dispatch logs from the day of the attack, someone inside the cafe called 911 at 5:07 p.m. For several minutes, the medics refused to enter the zoo until it had been secured. Meanwhile, zookeepers believed several tigers were loose, and hoped to tranquilize them. As medics attended to the victim, an officer spotted the tiger sitting down before it fled and began attacking another victim, according to the logs.

I wonder how long it took Mark Geragos to pick up the phone. Either way, I predict a large settlement for the victims. Meanwhile, there are unconfirmed reports of the victims taunting the tiger with a slingshot.




  1. Sea Lawyer says:

    Putting wild animals in cages for our amusement is always fun.

  2. eyeofthetiger says:

    What city zoo doesn’t have a couple empty bottles of vodka and a slingshot. I know someone who has a nice scar for climbing in a the tiger exhibit after hours.

  3. Brian says:

    The sad thing here is the tiger is dead. I guess at home they teased the cat it ran and hid, not so with this big cat.

  4. GigG says:

    “diffident” Somebody got a thesaurs and didn’t know how to use it for Christmas.

  5. wbskeet37 says:

    #4 GigG

    Just another example of a lawyer proving to others that he knows more words than any of the other lawyers.

  6. BillM says:

    I wonder how long it took Mark Geragos to pick up the phone.

    My guess is Geragos called them!

  7. bill says:

    They should close the SF Zoo.. It’s a waste of money and it’s in a bad location. If I were a tiger I would jump the fence too.. “Tired of being in the cold fog. ”

    It;s abusive to any animal that has to live out there.

    Am I wrong or not? Have you been there?
    We’re not talking San Diego Zoo here..

    Why did they build a zoo out there near the ocean?

    I bet some farmer gave them the land because it’s too cold to grow anything or his sheep died from hypothermia…

  8. McCullough says:

    #6. Umm, actually, thats what I meant.

  9. Dallas says:

    I have no doubt these teenage boys taunted the tiger when the zoo was closing and nobody is around. I bet they even enabled the animal to scale the barrier in some way.

    The sad truth is a boy paid a terrible price for teenage recklessness and a wondrous animal are now dead.

  10. hhopper says:

    That’s what I call “Instant Karma.”

  11. jdm says:

    I’d say they got “Tiger Teamed.”

  12. Improbus says:

    I wouldn’t taunt a tiger unless I was caring a large bore weapon. Carlos should get a Darwin award for his trouble.

  13. @#7: Hypothermia? In SF area at all? And in particular for the Siberian Tiger?…

    If I am a jury I’d award them under condition that they go alone and unarmed to the tiger enclosure and apologize in person to the remaining tiger, together with the lawyer of course. At the feeding time preferably.

  14. Mister Catshit says:

    Unless there is something missing from the story, I can’t see the two survivors getting much sympathy from a jury. The fact they refused to talk to police and had slingshots in their pockets suggest to much self responsibility for the incident. The zoo might end up asking the survivors for damages and replacement costs.

    This gets my vote for the 2007 Darwin Award.

  15. Ms. Nipple Pierce says:

    I’m glad the cat got some revenge.

  16. ECA says:

    Q:
    Christmas day?
    Zoo is open??

  17. bill says:

    Hypothermia for the people…

  18. Greg Allen says:

    The Portland Oregonian recently ran a very interesting article that very much paralleled this story at the Portland Zoo almost twenty years ago.

    Those guys were also being incredibly stupid in taunting the lions.

    The attendant was also very unresponsive back then, too:

    Bowers and Gaskell ran for help. Bowers said he alerted an attendant in the zoo office. The attendant came out, saw what was happening and called police. But Bowers says the attendant shut his office door and did nothing more.

    Bowers’ eyes filled with tears as he remembered pounding on the door, looking in at the attendant and the rows of clearly labeled keys hanging on the wall behind him. Bowers pleaded to unlock the cage to free his friend. Then he pleaded to unlock a pen of trash barrels so that he could throw a barrel to his friend to hide in.

    “He didn’t help me,” Bowers said of the attendant. “He wouldn’t even look at me.”

    Anyway, as the story goes, one of surviving guys pretty much had his life wrecked by the experience.

    http://tinyurl.com/2tebhk

  19. KwadGuy says:

    Yeah: The brothers are refusing to cooperate with investegators, and they ambulance chaser lawyered up.

    What I see here is a shrewd lawyer pushing the “no one helped them” angle into the mainstream press, and the zoo doing nothing to counter the impressions he’s trying to form.

    The story appears to be the brothers were slingshotting the cat, the cat got pissed and did what he’s programmed to do. I say not a penny to the family.

  20. hmbterry says:

    I’m really glad that they picked Mark Geragos. Doesn’t he always lose?

  21. Mister Catshit says:

    It is too bad they had to put the tiger down. She only attacked those who had been attacking her and was apparently minding her own business when shot.

    I have yet to read anything supportive about the two guys. Or even the dead one. It appears everyone is supposing they deserved what they got.


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