Cleveland Zoo Plans to Seek Charges After Boy Falls Into Cheetah Exhibit
Published at
Enjoylife2/iStock/Thinkstock(CLEVELAND) — The Cleveland Zoo plans to seek charges against the parents of a 2-year-old boy who fell into its cheetah exhibit, saying witnesses indicated that the boy was held over the railing and then dropped.
The boy suffered a leg injury and was taken to Metro Hospital on Saturday, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo officials said. The cheetahs ignored the boy, whose parents climbed into the exhibit to get him out, zoo officials said.
“You could just hear the screams and all you could see was the adult that jumped in got the kid,” Michael Lurie, another visitor to the zoo who witnessed the incident, told WEWS-TV. “Then somebody pulled him out.”
The zoo planned to file child endangerment charges against the boy’s parents on Monday, zoo officials said.
“Unfortunately, we have a number of eyewitness accounts that point to the strong likelihood that the child was dangled over the railing,” Christopher Kuhar, executive director for the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, told ABC affiliate WEWS-TV in Cleveland.
Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.