Originally posted by: marincounty
Now there is a witness, Jennifer Miller, who was at the zoo with her husband and two children, who is saying she saw the "victims" taunting big cats at the zoo.
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Jennifer Miller, who was at the zoo with her husband and two children that ill-fated Christmas afternoon, said she saw four young men at the big-cat grottos - and three of them were teasing the lions a short time before the tiger's bloody rampage that killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr.
"The boys, especially the older one, were roaring at them. He was taunting them," the San Francisco woman said. "They were trying to get that lion's attention. ... The lion was bristling, so I just said, 'Come on, let's get out of here' because my kids were disturbed by it."
She said Sousa - whom she later recognized from his photo in the newspaper - was not heckling. The Chronicle contacted Miller after learning that she and her family had seen the young men at the zoo Christmas Day.
Miller, who said she visits the zoo with her relatives every Christmas, said the young men stood out because she has seen mostly families there. Although authorities have said Sousa was accompanied only by San Jose brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, Miller said four young men were together when she came across them.
Geragos maintains that the brothers ran to the Terrace Cafe after Tatiana escaped and tried for more than 30 minutes to solicit help from zoo employees. He dismissed reports of the victims throwing rocks at the tiger as "just not true."
Miller called the behavior she witnessed by the victims "disturbing."
Her family was looking at the lions when the young men stopped beside them at the big-cat grottos - five outdoor exhibits attached to the Lion House. The young men started roaring at the lions and acting "boisterous" to get their attention, said Miller, who added that she watched the four for five minutes or so a little after 4 p.m.
"It was why we left," she said. "Their behavior was disturbing. They kept doing it."
Sousa refrained from such tactics, Miller said.
"He wasn't roaring. He wasn't taunting them," she recalled. "He kept looking at me apologetically like, 'I'm sorry, I know we are being stupid.' "
When a friend told Miller about the attacks - first reported to 911 dispatchers at 5:07 p.m. - she called police the day after Christmas to tell them what she had seen. She called back Wednesday because she was wondering why news accounts mentioned only three young men.
San Francisco police Inspector Valerie Matthews said investigators had talked to Miller on Wednesday but haven't been able to substantiate yet her account of a fourth person with the victims at the zoo.
Authorities have been unable to corroborate reports that the victims taunted the tigers, she said.
"I don't know if what they did was any more than what kindergartners do at the zoo every day," Matthews said.
She said taunting an animal at the zoo is a misdemeanor.
Zoo officials declined Wednesday to specifically say that they suspected taunting in the escape of the tiger.
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Something prompted our tiger to leap over the exhibit," said Manuel Mollinedo, executive director of the zoo, in response to questions during a 13-minute press conference attended by at least 40 media representatives on Wednesday.
Some of you are too quick to blame the zoo for this attack. Somehow thousands, and possibly millions of people were able to see the animals safely, and it's a coincidence that when these three or four idiots were in the park, a tiger escapes and kills one of them?