Photo by MumbleyJoe

“The tiger was acting as a normal tiger does.”

I’ve waited a long time to post on this until more of the details had come out. However, as CNN.com reported this morning, Kulbir and Amritpal “Paul” Dhaliwal have begun the legal process to sue the city of San Francisco over the Christmas-day tiger attacks at the San Francisco zoo.

Citing “serious physical and emotional injuries,” the boys are seeking monetary compensation from the xity that owns and operates the zoo. The whole situation is a terrible tragedy, but I don’t much sympathy for these boys or their lawsuit: in fact, I feel worse for the tiger.

Before we start the name-calling or any accusations of “bleeding-heart” this and that, please let me highlight a couple of points about this case:

• The Siberian tiger, Tatiana, was captive, and we can only assume was being held against her will

• The boys had been drinking vodka, smoking marijuana, and cursed at and refused to identify themselves to the police who ulimately saved their lives

• They had been harassing the tiger (to what degree is unclear)

• They crossed the protective barrier of the enclosure (a footprint on the railing and witness corroborate this - whether they were hanging their feet over the ledge is also unclear

• One of the boys apologized profusely to the father of the deceased, Carlos Sousa Jr., for his role in Carlos’ death

Now, before we continue, I’d like to clarify that I don’t fault the police and emergency authorities who shot the tiger upon their entrance to the park.

However, I am furious about the chain of events that caused this endangered animal to be killed, and those responsible for it.

I hope the zoo does not settle with the Dhaliwals - from the outside, this looks to me to represent the worst of America’s lawsuit culture, in which an individual can individually fault the law, then sue whoever failed to stop him or likewise protect him from the consequences.

Immediately, the boys choice of counsel is intriguing - Mark Geragos, who is admittedly a super-star attorney, has built his career on just this sort of unscrupulous character and the spotlight afforded to him by his involvement in scandal. Former clients include

• Michael Jackson, on charges of child-molestation
• Scott Peterson, for killing his wife and unborn baby
• Winona Ryder, who was subsequently found guilty of shoplifting
• Members of the Whitewater scheme that nearly ruined the Clinton’s in the 1990’s
• Barry Bonds’ personal-trainer

There are a couple of things we can discern from this client list: Mark Gergaos is addicted to controversy, and loves defending the guilty and famous. Despite the acquittals of Michael Jackson and Susan McDougal, there can be no question that, at the very least, they were flouting both the law and the standards that we accept as a society.

Why, then, was he first in line to lobby for the Dhaliwals? And what does his retainer indicate about their case? Call me crazy, but it strikes me as odd that someone who’s become famous through his role in high-profile defense cases is instead helping two young-boys of questionable repute to sue the city of San Francisco. In fact, it indicates to me that the boys initially believed that they needed a defense attorney and retained Mark Geragos for such a purpose.

Now that it’s become clear that the city would rather put this incident behind them as quickly as possible, rather than pursue a judgment against the instigators in the tragedy that claimed their friend’s life, it seems to this author that the boys or their lawyer have decided to milk the situation for all they can get.

As I said before, I hope the city takes them to court. I think that it might take a legal decision to sort this whole mess out, in a situation where the truth as reported appears to be very different from the public perception.

The public is considered about the boy who was killed; I’m concerned about the tiger. In any event, there were two needless deaths on December 25th in San Francisco, and both appear to have been the result of the Dhaliwal’s gross negligence and disdain for authority, or even common sense. I’m afraid that this sort of recklessness and rampant individualism are the prevailing winds in modern American culture, and that we need a drastic change of course.

After all - isn’t the dangerous, menacing nature of a tiger that which draws us to it in the first place? Isn’t its menace part-and-parcel of its majesty? William Blake wrote:

Indeed, we love tigers because they are something bigger than ourselves, something truly awe-some in a world where it appears the human species has unbounded potential. We love and fear tigers because we know that in a time before society, and in a dark forest on a continent far away, the tiger ruled supreme over man, and would still should we cross her path in the wild.

Why, then, do we sympathize with those who would provoke her? Why would we worry ourselves for their mistakes? I said about sharks that, if you put your hand in its mouth, you cannot complain about being bit. “If he hollers, let him go,” right? In my mind, if you mess with a tiger, you have to won the consequences.

In fact, their recklessness, bad judgment, and worse behavior got her needlessly killed. That’s not the zoo’s fault, nor the city’s, and it’s certainly not the tiger’s. After all, as the zoo’s old director said, she was “acting as a normal tiger does.”

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