Everybody has an opinion on the death of Harambe, the Cincinnati Zoo gorilla who was shot to death after injuring a child who fell into his enclosure. Many on the internet seem to be targeting the boy’s mother, who said that Harambe’s death would have been prevented if she had been watching her child more closely. Famed zoologist Jack Hanna came to the zoo’s defense, saying that their decision saved the boy’s life.
Now, for some reason, a group called Anonymous Ohio is weighing in with a Facebook video hashtagged #OpHarambe. Showing video footage of the gorilla dragging the boy, Anonymous Ohio questions how the boy was able to get through three barriers that “experts say” usually surround a gorilla enclosure at a zoo. Anonymous also says that Harambe was trying to protect the child, when he fell into his habitat:
Harambe rushed to the child’s aid. As people screamed in fear for the child’s life, Harambe sheltered the child and looked at the bystanders with fear in his eyes. He drug the child to a corner and protected the child, exactly as gorillas do in the wild with their offspring. Harambe showed no sign of aggression.
If that framing of events is true, then who’s to blame? Anonymous Ohio says that the zoo didn’t do enough to find alternative ways to subdue the gorilla, an endangered silverback, but puts most of the blame on the mom, Michelle Gregg, for not supervising the child. They describe witnesses saying that Gregg repeatedly said no when her son said he wanted to play in the water with the gorillas, but that that wasn’t enough. “At this point, Mrs. Gregg’s parenting skills disappeared, as she failed to supervise her child or become involved with him.”
To this end, Anonymous Ohio has given out the address and phone number of where Gregg works, and is asking for an investigation into her parenting. They even ask Child Protective Services to get involved, and that she should be charged for violating the Endangered Species Act. They do ask for the racist attacks against Gregg, who is black, to stop. Since this is the internet, though, and Anonymous has just given people even easier access to Gregg, something tells me that they haven’t prevented the latter from happening.