Franklin Park employee tells of attack by gorilla
Courtney Roberson was worried but not terrified when Little Joe leapt at the glass of his cage. After all, the 18-year-old ticket-taker at Franklin Park Zoo had watched the gorilla grow up over the years. Five other gorillas at the tropical forest exhibit were peacefully eating.
But minutes later, one of the four children she had taken to the zoo screamed. Ten-year-old Temani Feagin, Roberson's upstairs neighbor, noticed that Little Joe had his hands on the top of the glass and was dangerously close to climbing out.
"He was just leaping," said 9-year-old Josette Kimbrough, whose grandmother lives near Roberson. "The next thing you know, he's on top [of the edge of his cage], just banging his chest."
Roberson, carrying 2-year-old Nia Scott, dashed outside the building with the other children and the 300-pound ape in pursuit. Roberson, still holding Scott, threw her weight against the door, trying to keep Little Joe inside.
"I slammed his hand in the door," said Roberson yesterday, recalling the episode.
But the 11-year-old gorilla forced a hairy arm through the crack in the door and pulled on the baby's leg, said Roberson and the children. Kimbrough wrapped her sweater around her arm and tried to beat back the gorilla's hands. But seconds later, Little Joe burst through the door.
"I knew . . . there was no stopping him because he's quick, he's big," Roberson said.
The gorilla picked her up by the front of her shirt, tossing her several feet and causing her to drop Nia, Roberson recalled. The gorilla then bit Roberson in her lower back and dragged her nearly 15 feet as she screamed and punched at him.
"He picked me up, he threw me, bit me, dragged me," she said.
It was only when the ape heard Nia crying, Roberson said, that he stopped attacking her and focused on the 2-year-old several feet away.
The gorilla jumped on Nia, batting her head about three times with his hands, Roberson said. Two of the children -- Feagin and Salanta DePina, a 6-year-old neighbor of Roberson's -- escaped to a booth at the far end of the park.
But Kimbrough said she stayed, hoping to communicate with the animal or find a way to hurt him. Roberson ordered her to run away, and ran away herself to call for help, leaving Nia. "I cried for two hours, knowing that I left her while he was attacking her," Roberson said.
She made it to a nearby booth and sent out a "code one" alarm. She soon heard Little Joe outside the booth and saw his hands reach through the opening.
"I can't say for sure that he was looking for me, because I don't know," said Roberson, who suffered bruises on her face, cuts on her knee and elbow, and 4-inch bite mark on her back.
Little Joe eventually wandered away and was later captured outside the zoo. A security guard rescued Nia.
As the bandaged child returned to her Roxbury home yesterday, she was asked by reporters about the attack. "Monkey bite me," she said.
After the attack, Roberson made a few hysterical phone calls to family and friends: "I was just attacked by a gorilla," she cried on her mother's answering machine.
Some thought she was just joking.
Although Kimbrough went to school yesterday, Feagin and DePina stayed home after suffering nightmares.
Even Roberson crawled into bed with her mother Sunday night. "I can't even sleep," she said. "Every time I close my eyes, I see him coming down the hall."
