Dad’s idiocy on exhibit
Selfie-seeker takes tot into elephant pen at zoo
A man and his 2-year-old daughter hopped multiple barriers at the San Diego Zoo Friday to get a selfie with an elephant before being charged by the majestic animal, police said.
Jose Navarette, 25, was arrested on charges of child endangerment and is being held on $100,000 bail after he allegedly entered the zoo’s elephant habitat to snap a picture of the toddler with the animals, police said.
Navarette “jumped the fence” to gain access to the elephant exhibit, police told The Post. He was trying to get a photo with the African elephant.
“A lot of people froze and didn’t know really how to take it in, then immediately everyone was pleading with him, and then it became frantic and hysterical,” eyewitness Matthew Passiglia told San Diego news station NBC 7.
“It was a big roar,” he said. “[The elephant] stuck its head up in the air and its tusks, and he started trotting toward them. I didn’t think it was going to end well.”
Navarette tripped and dropped his toddler as he ran from the charging elephant, which came within five feet of them, the eyewitness added.
“He was able to like tuck and roll and kind of throw the baby back underneath the fence of the enclosure,” another eyewitness, Kyle Rea, told ABC 10 News of San Diego, calling the animal “one of the biggest elephants I’ve ever seen.”
Dad and child made it to safety before the elephant reached the fence, “the tusks actually protruding out the other end,” Passiglia said
Navarette, daughter and elephant all escaped the incident unharmed, according to zoo officials.
A zoo spokesman stated that “two guests, despite multiple barriers, purposely and illegally trespassed into a habitat, which is home to our Asian and African elephants.”
The zoo is home to two Asian elephants, Mary and Devi, and one African elephant, Shaba, according to the San Diego Zoo site.