Prosecutors in OH have announced that no charges will be brought against the parents of a three year old who fell into the gorilla enclosure at a zoo in Cincinnati.
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The Cincinnati Zoo’s gorilla exhibit is reopen with new safety precautions in place.
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. A western lowland gorilla named Harambe, who was 17, dragged the boy off. Zoo officials shot the gorilla.
The incident, however, set off a storm of criticism and threats against the zoo for killing the gorilla and against the boy’s mother for not watching him more closely.
It was the first breach in Gorilla World’s 38 years of existence, according to zoo officials. Every year it passed accreditation inspections from the AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums). A petition in attempt to get “Justice for Harambe” circulated online and received more than 500,000 signatures.
“The little boy himself had already been talking about wanting to go in, go in, get in the water and his mother is like, ‘No you’re not, no you’re not, ‘ ” said Kimberley Ann Perkins O’Connor, a witness.
Zoo director Thane Maynard said at the reopening Tuesday that the loss of Harambe, the zoo’s beloved gorilla, is like losing a family member, but that the zoo needs to move on.
Groups, including Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN), claim the new barrier indicates that the zoo was responsible for Harambe’s death, something the zoo denies.
The USDA continues their investigation into how the zoo handled the incident.
The prosecution’s decision comes after the mother was vilified in the press and on social media for over a week after her son slipped into a gorilla enclosure on May 28.
Deter also noted that anyone who believed a three-year-old could not “scamper off very quickly” has never had kids.
Deters said the zoo lost a “beautiful animal” that was beloved “but it’s still an animal. It does not equate human life, and they felt that this boy’s life was in jeopardy, and they made the painful choice to do what they did”.
Deters said he’s happy improvements were made to the zoo exhibit.
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The zoo’s actions will be reviewed by the United States department of agriculture.
