A father has been arrested on suspicion of child endangerment after he carried his 2-year-old daughter into the elephant habitat at the San Diego Zoo to take a photograph with the animals.
The man bypassed multiple barriers and “purposely and illegally trespassed” into a habitat for Asian and African elephants Friday afternoon, zoo spokesman Andrew James said.
A witness video provided to NBC San Diego shows a man dropping the child as they flee the enclosure as a trumpeting elephant charged at them. The man picked up the toddler and was able to get her out safely.
Police said the 25-year-old man wanted to take a photo with the African bull elephant. James said the elephants were not harmed.
San Diego County jail records show Jose Manuel Navarrete was being held on $100,000 bail for investigation of child endangerment. He was set to be arraigned on March 30.
It wasn’t immediately known if he had a lawyer who would speak on his behalf.
Witness Lori Ortale told KSWB-TV she heard a woman yelling “Jose, stop” before a man jumped the fence and through the elephant enclosure.
“These guys right away were saying, ‘That elephant is going to charge,’ and it did,” Ortale said.
“We told him to get out and he turned around and he saw it thankfully just in time,” said Jake Ortale, who also witnessed the incident. “He runs, throws his baby through the gate and it’s seconds from hitting him. He jumps through the gate, falls on the ground and then it roared.”
“The baby starts crying and people were just mad at this guy,” he said.
After Navarrete’s arrest, the child went home with her mother, police said.
(AP)
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One Response
Sometimes it is appropriate to arrest a parent for the way he handles his child. Based on the story as presented here, this is probably one of those times. However, the story out of Canada where a father was jailed because he referred to his 13 year old daughter as “she” (she thinks she’s really a boy, and the Transgender nonsense has become gospel for the leftists) is certainly not one of those times.
The question, then, is, can we trust society to correctly and appropriately deal with parental aberrations, or do we need to blanketly allow parents sole discretion with their children, to avoid what is happening in Canada, but thereby lose the control we may need over seriously foolish parents like this nutcase at the elephant habitat. Once upon a time, we could trust society, because sanity generally prevailed, but nowadays that doesn’t seem to be the case…