Victim stood on rail, yelled at tiger

One of the three victims of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted standing atop a railing of the big-cat enclosure and yelling and waving at the animal that would later maul them, killing his friend, police said in court documents filed Thursday.

Paul Dhaliwal, 19, told the father of Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, who was killed, that the three yelled and waved at the tiger but insisted they never threw anything into its pen to provoke the cat, according to a search warrant affidavit obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

The affidavit, which requested a search warrant for the surviving victims’ cellphones and car, also cites multiple reports of a group of young men taunting animals at the zoo, the Chronicle reported.

Toxicology results for Dhaliwal showed that his blood-alcohol level was 0.16% after the attack – twice the legal threshold for drunk driving – while his 24-year-old brother Kulbir Dhaliwal’s blood-alcohol level was 0.04% and Sousa’s was 0.02%, according to Inspector Valerie Matthews, who prepared the affidavit.

All three also had marijuana in their systems, Matthews said. Kulbir Dhaliwal told police that the three had smoked pot and that each had “a couple shots of vodka” before leaving San Jose for the zoo Dec. 25, the affidavit said.