CINCINNATI — On May 28, 2016, the course of Cincinnati history changed when a 3-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden.
Harambe, a 17-year-old western lowland silverback gorilla, entered the moat where the child had fallen and was seen dragging and moving the boy through the water inside the enclosure.
Zoo officials made the difficult decision to shoot and kill Harambe to protect the child.
Watch as Deters and I talk about the case 10 years later:
The incident, which occurred 10 years ago, sparked an intense global debate over zoo safety, animal rights and parental responsibility that dominated social media for months.
Current Ohio Supreme Court Justice Joe Deters was the Hamilton County prosecutor when Harambe was killed.
He told me the decision not to charge the boy's mother was not a difficult one — despite intense national and global pressure following the killing of the silverback gorilla.
"It wasn't even close to being negligent in my mind," Deters said.
Deters sat down with me to discuss his thought process on whether to pursue child neglect charges against the mother of the boy involved. He acknowledged the public grief over the gorilla's death, while making clear where his priorities stood.
"Harambe was a beautiful animal, but this is a 3-year-old kid," Deters said.
The public reaction was unlike anything Deters had seen in his career. He said he received letters from Europe and South America, and one letter from either New Zealand or Australia arrived with a bloody hand print on it.
"Viral mix of people. Wanted somebody to pay for this," Deters said.
Deters said the case also presented a practical challenge in court.
"But more importantly, prosecutors, when you look at a case, you have to believe that you have a likelihood of success at trial," Deters said. "We would have had to try this mother in front of a jury probably full of grandmothers and grandfathers and you know, moms and dads, and they're gonna say, well, my kid's wandered off before, you know, that kind of thing. It just was not, it wasn't even a close call for me."
Deters put the case in perspective against others he handled during his tenure.
"We've had much worse cases, believe me. We've had serial killers. We've had tons of other cases, but in terms of the effect of social media in a particular case. this took the prize by a long shot," Deters said.
When asked whether any other case had generated a comparable level of public attention, Deters said none came close.
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