< Go back to News Updates

Officer upheld in tiger's shooting

Bobo's owner wants the officer to apologize to him.

By Rochelle Brenner, Dwayne Robinson and Mark Schwed

Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, July 27, 2004

At one end of the rifle was Bobo, an escaped pet tiger that had spent 26 hours on the run.

On the other end, the man with his finger on the trigger was a stunned 24-year-old wildlife officer named Jesse Curtis Lee, who had never been trained to deal with tigers before he spent about 21 minutes watching one amid thick brush in Loxahatchee.

Standing 30 feet away, Lee was calm until he saw the 600-pound tiger pin its ears back, growl and lunge forward. Fear set in and the 180-pound man stepped back as he called for a nearby officer in increasingly shrill tones: "Scott, Scott, Scott."

Five shots sounded. Two struck near the tiger's right cheek. "I shot until the cat was down," Lee told an investigator.

Lee was "in fear of his life" and had no other choice but to kill Bobo, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission concluded Monday in its preliminary report on the July 13 shooting, which drew worldwide attention and even death threats to the agency.

Among other possible contributing factors, the report said, were that Lee had to stand dangerously close to keep an eye on the tiger and noise from approaching trackers may have startled Bobo. The report also noted Lee's roughly 21-minute wait for help and his lack of training in handling the deadliest class of predators, which includes tigers and lions.

Lee wasn't supposed to be in that position. As a member of the commission's Special Operations Group, he was there to protect residents by blocking off the area where the tiger was roaming. He found himself on the front lines when a neighbor led him to a pond near her property, which happened to be where Bobo was resting, the report said.

"Ever since my first day on the job, all that I have done is to safeguard the interest of all the natural resources of our state," Lee said in a statement released Monday. "So to read and hear that I was being classified as someone that 'murdered' an animal truly hurt.

"I never purposely intended for this incident to end up the way it did."

Lee, who has worked for the wildlife commission since April 2002, could not be reached for further comment. The commission previously had withheld his name, citing concerns about his safety.

Even if Lee had a tranquilizer gun instead of a rifle, it would not have stopped a tiger in mid-attack, officials said.

While the commission said its report helps vindicate Lee, the tiger's owner, former Tarzan actor Steve Sipek, said it demonstrates the officer's wrongdoing.

"I am disgusted with this," Sipek said. "If he's done nothing wrong, why is he upset? Am I supposed to believe that?"

Sipek said he wants Lee to apologize to him in person. "I don't want him killed, OK? But I would like to see him face to face. I would ask him one question only: 'Why didn't you walk away and wait for me?' "

Lee is a lifelong hunter and fisherman who grew up in a rural area near Naples and likes to spend his time airboating and diving, according to his personnel records. He is a sworn law enforcement officer who went through the same training required for every city police officer in the state, along with 10 weeks of specialized wildlife training.

His training included tracking wildlife, observation, knowledge of wooded areas and practicing extreme patience, commission officials said. But because run-ins with fierce predators such as tigers are infrequent, no standard training exists for dealing with those creatures, commission spokesman Jorge Pino said. He said the agency is reviewing its training and its overall response to the incident to determine whether policy changes are needed.

The report includes some possible inconsistencies and unanswered questions. While Lee reported hearing Bobo growl, backup officer Scott Van Buren, who was 45 feet away from the animal, said he did not hear a growl. He said he was holding a radio to his ear at the time.

Lee also said he heard a helicopter approaching, but the only one whirring nearby was more than a mile away on the ground, Pino said. Pino did not know whether Lee would have been able to hear it. In the report, Lee said a Ford Mustang arrived at a neighbor's home and someone got out and started yelling. He said the noises around him grew louder before he fired.

Dr. William Castleman, who performed the necropsy, was unable to determine whether the tiger was standing, sitting or moving when it was shot.

Sipek's private investigator is developing his own report, but he was not able to arrange for a second necropsy. Sipek had a veterinarian attend the initial necropsy at the University of Florida, but Sipek said the doctor wasn't permitted to do anything but observe.

The commission's final report on the shooting, due in a few weeks, is expected to include radio transcripts among wildlife officers, a diagram of the shooting scene and the full necropsy report.

Commission spokesman Henry Cabbage said a second investigation, examining how the cat escaped, will be completed and turned over to state prosecutors this week. Sipek could face misdemeanor charges for "any condition which results in wildlife escaping," commission rules say.

Cabbage said state law also requires Sipek to inform officers if a cat escapes, but Sipek got the news from officers after the tiger charged a sheriff's deputy's car, the report says. Meanwhile, the commission is trying to move past the tiger saga and emphasize that the goal of all officers is to protect wildlife.

"We are back out there protecting the wildlife, whether it's the lobster cases, the deer cases or the manatee," Maj. Brett Norton said.