Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, interviewed by Independent journal Review, became another in a long-line of celebrities mouring the death of the silverback gorilla Harambe, saying, “I’m sure it was a difficult decision for everyone involved. I mean Why did they have to kill the gorilla? But then, really, who’s to say?”
Johnson didn’t seem to consider the child who may well have been in danger for his life.
Harambe was killed by a single shot at the Cincinnati Zoo on May 28, 2016, after a three-year-old boy fell into the moat at the Gorilla World habitat. After the boy fell in, he climbed a 3-foot-tall fence, crawled through 4 feet of bushes, then fell 15 feet into a moat of shallow water. Zoo officials immediately signaled for the three gorillas in the habitat to return inside, two females did so, but the 440-pound male Harambe climbed down into the moat.
The gorilla became more and more “agitated and disoriented” by the screams of onlookers, prompting the gorilla to drag the boy through the water, propping him up when he sat and pushing him down when he stood. Harambe then carried the boy up a ladder out of the moat onto dry land. That was when the gorilla was shot.
The director of the zoo, Thayne Maynard, asserted, “The child was being dragged around … His head was banging on concrete. This was not a gentle thing. The child was at risk.”
Johnson is not alone among presidential candidates in mourning the death of Harambe; Green Party candidate Jill Stein moaned on Twitter;