The Story About the Gorilla

By now, most people have heard the story about the three year old boy that slipped into the gorilla enclosure over Memorial Day weekend at the Cincinnati Zoo. The gorilla was shot and killed in order to protect the boy. I admit I am obsessed with this story. I have spent a fair amount of time reading articles and skimming through some of the thousands of comments. Comments that blame the mother for letting the child slip away from her and therefore want to hold her accountable for the gorilla's death. Comments that say we can't possibly blame the mother. Comments that think the zoo could have done something differently or that the gorilla's behavior was misinterpreted as aggressive. The comments are accompanied by nasty criticisms too, like the mom is overweight, black and has too many kids so she's probably on welfare. They should call CPS on her! Clearly she can't take care of her children. Criticisms like the father also has kids with other women and has a long record - what an upstanding citizen (not)! As if that has anything to do with it. But everyone is arguing with each other over which way the finger should be pointed. It's parents vs. non-parents, rich vs. poor, black vs. white.

There has also been a general escalation of issues that goes beyond what happened at the zoo. For example, look how many people signed a petition to hold the mother responsible for what happened. Why has everyone banded together so fiercely over an animal when there are children in our country that are beaten, starved, neglected and hardly noticed? They are innocent, just like the gorilla, and the masses hardly go to bat for their safety and well-being. And while we are on Harambe, we shouldn't keep animals in zoos in the first place! THAT'S the real problem!

And on. and on. One commenter stated that the zookeepers missed when they shot Harambe (they should have shot the mother). !!! It's fascinating to me, and horrifying. Here's why.

Earlier this spring I took the boys to a playground for a quick meet up with friends. The playground is part of a larger park that has baseball fields, basketball courts, etc. So, a very large area and it was tee-ball opening day, so there were kids and parents everywhere, festivities, a parade, etc. The street was packed with cars and the play structures were overcrowded with kids. I stood to the side chatting with two friends while I kept one eye on Ashton and one eye on Alex. At one point, Alex crawled up into a tube and remained there (or so I assumed because I saw him go in and he hadn't come out).

Then a couple of minutes later, out of the corner of my eye, I spied Alex's red and white striped shirt approaching me from the opposite direction of where I thought he was. I had not seen him leave the tube and I remember thinking "Huh, where did you come from? Weren't you in the tube?" It was fleeting and I scooped him up in my arms and continued to chat.

A few minutes had passed when a woman came up to me. She pointed at Alex, who I was still holding. "Is this your son?" she asked me. I told her yes. She said, "Did you know he was just out in the middle of the street?"

I couldn't even reply. I squeaked out a "No, I didn't! Oh my god..." and she proceeded to tell me that he had wandered out into the road (there were no gates), she had seen him and stopped her car. Hadn't I heard all the honking? She said she was grateful that the other drivers behind her didn't try and go around her  - they might not have seen him.

The conversation went on but I was speechless and honestly in disbelief. There was nothing I could say. The truth was that I thought I knew where my son was, I stopped paying attention for a split second, and he escaped me. The woman was very nice about it - she seemed to understand that my horror was probably punishment enough. To this day I still shake a little when I think that Alex could have been hit by a car. I was really, really lucky.

Then this happened with the gorilla. That could have been any parent, anywhere. Little kids are sneaky, fast, and have no sense of danger or consequence. What if Alex had wandered into the street and caused a car accident? And someone died? That's akin to what happened with Harambe. Would I be sued for negligence? Would I be the one responsible for the death of that person? What if it wasn't Alex that ran into the road but a dog who escaped his owner? Would it be the owner's fault?

So I admit, I have been following this story very closely, wondering what would happen. Today at 1 pm, the announcement:

And all I felt was relief. Thank GOD. The event at the zoo was a sad, terrible accident. An endangered animal was killed and it's awful, but I'm glad she won't be held responsible. She has stood enough judgment. I imagine people saying about me what they said about her and it makes me sick to my stomach. I happened to get lucky with Alex and I will never forget it.