More info is being documented. I have family in the San Francisco Bay Area, and they have been updating me, as this is a top story there.
It turns out that the wall surrounding the exhibit was substandard. Initial press reports said that it was 20 ft tall, and then later ones said that it was 15 ft tall.
Well, it now turns out that the wall is really only 12 ft and 4 inches tall, well below the recommended minimum standard for such an animal exhibit. The Zoo's director has publicly now admitted that this was the actual height of the wall.
Here is a news story outlining this development:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/us/28tiger.html?ref=usA lot is being said now about the two surviving men: brothers aged 19 and 23: Amritpal and Kulbir Dhaliwal. The father of their dead friend actually called them on their cell phone after the attack, before the father learned of his son's death. He was very worried about this son, as he had not shown up for the family's Christmas Dinner that evening.
The father reports that the brothers told him that they had not seen his son that day, wished him a Merry Christmas, and then hung up the phone. The dead boy's father is dumbfounded as to how the young men could have been so extremely cruel to him, and deny that they knew nothing about this son.
The San Francisco Police department has also stated that both Amritpal and Kulbir already have criminal charges currently pending against them, from a recent incident where they were chasing two other men down the street. The brothers resisted arrest, and were extremely hostile to the officers, cursing them repeatedly. They were also both drunk, and were also charged with public intoxication.
The brothers and their family have retained an attorney, and are refusing to make any further statements without first consulting with their attorney.
So it would seem that these two young men are not exactly what one would consider to be "model" citizens.
Here is a link to this development:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/27/MN7RU5I8P.DTLSIG 220
