Last year on Christmas day Carlos Sousa Jr. did not get to open any presents, instead, he was eaten by a tiger.
I wrote a post on the story at the time placing great emphasis on the report that an empty bottle of vodka could reportedly be seen in the victim’s car. Most news reports at the time concentrated on the fact that Sousa and his two buddies (also mauled) were alleged to have been taunting the tiger and that the walls of the tiger’s enclosure were too short. Personally I figure alcohol played a much bigger role in the tragedy since without vodka in the equation the taunting probably wouldn’t have happened and the adequacy of the enclosure wouldn’t have mattered.
The autopsy report released this week shows Sousa was not only drinking, but also smoking dope.
Michael Cardoza, a lawyer for the Sousa family, says it’s irrelevant whether the teen was drinking or smoking pot before he was mauled. The family is suing the city.
Not that I don’t have sympathy for the family who has lost a son, but I hope the city’s lawyers bring up the fact that regardless of all our modern safety features and innovations– we have yet learned how to drunk-proof anything.
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He might also remind the court of the old joke about the two friends out hiking who run into a grizzly bear. One guy starts putting on his sneakers, and the other guy is like, “Are you crazy? You can’t outrun a bear.” And the other guy says, “I only have to outrun you.”
In foot race, I’ll put my money on the sober guy.
It’s the same old story of the collateral damage caused by drugs and alcohol that just continue adding up, long after the incident. The family has lost a son, the beautiful tiger was destroyed for being a tiger, and the legal battles that will surely ensue will keep this tragedy fresh in the mind for all involved for years to come.
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Maybe the zoo should sue the kid’s parents for not monitoring their underaged kid’s drinking habits better and allowing their child out in public inebriated. Or they could be sued by the city for some sort of parental neglect. Or for raising a cruel child that makes sport of antagonizing caged animals.
Puleeeze. This boy was wholly in the wrong and a tragedy happened. An animal was pushed beyond its limits and pushed back. Consequences were rendered.
I am sure the pain and misery created by this incident will be prolonged and relived multiple times because of law suits.
I was thinking recently about how, in many ways, my thinking about addiction has become more nuanced in recovery — and how, in other ways, it’s much more black and white. I’ve noticed that other people see nuance where I no longer do — “maybe there was another reason he did it, there could be a lot of reasons something like this could happen, maybe it really was her first time and she just happened to get caught, etc…”
But I’ve found that those “other reasons” are so rare, I never actually see them. And what I love about your blog is that you hammer away at that point — when people are being stupid, there’s usually one very simple explanation.