No charges for toddler’s mom in US gorilla storm
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The parents of a toddler who fell into a gorilla enclosure at a US zoo — leading the animal to be shot — will not face charges, a prosecutor said Monday, closing the probe into an incident that transfixed the nation.
The boy’s family faced a deluge of public criticism after keepers were forced to kill the rare 400-pound (180 kilogram) animal to protect the three-year-old during the incident at the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio.
The mother — who was watching three children in addition to the toddler — did not act “in any way where she presented this child to some harm,” Hamilton County prosecutor Joseph Deters told a news conference.
She was “attentive by all witness accounts, and the three-year-old just scampered off,” he added.
An accompanying statement from Deters’ office said the mother turned away for a few seconds to attend to another of her children, and it was at this point that the boy was able to climb into the enclosure.
“Any parent who is honest with himself or herself would have to understand how this could happen to even the most attentive parent,” Deters said in the statement.
He went on to defend the mother: “Had she been, for instance, in the bathroom smoking crack and let her kids run around in the zoo, that would be a different story.”
