Saint Louis Zoo closes early Sunday due to fights at nearby carnival
ST. LOUIS – The Saint Louis Zoo closed early this past Sunday due to multiple fights at a Washington University student-run carnival.
Zoo staff learned teenagers involved in fights over the weekend at the ThurtenE Carnival planned to move their fight to the zoo.
“I have a child myself. If it’s something that has to do with violence, it does not need to be in an area with kids,” Angelica Rolph said.
St. Louis police officers escorted zoo goers out of the park at closing, including a large group of young people. No major incidents were reported, but police claim zoo security detained a 15-year-old who admitted to having a handgun.
“I think they should find a different way to solve their issues instead of bringing it to public areas,” Dre Crites said.
Safety of Zoo guests, staff, volunteers, and animals is our highest priority, so precautionary measures were taken on Sunday, April 21, to prevent a potentially bad situation from happening. While it’s disappointing that we had to plan for this, all of us should take pride in the fact that we do so in order to offer a safe place for everyone to connect with the natural world. To me, this is more than just an offering – it’s our responsibility. The Zoo is and should always be a safe place for everyone.
I want to thank Zoo Security, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, including the Forest Park Rangers, as well as key community partners like Forest Park Forever and Washington University in St. Louis. We received credible intel that fights that broke out between young members of our community on Saturday at the ThurtenE Carnival at WashU were going to continue at or near the Zoo yesterday. As such, we were successful in working together to prevent this from happening at the Zoo and in Forest Park. We did have to close the entrance gates approximately 30 minutes early (Sunday) [so, about 4:30 p.m.], but there was no impact on Animals Aglow, which started on time at 6:30 p.m. While closing, Zoo security approached an unaccompanied teenager who was not exiting in attempt to get him to leave. Through this process, it was discovered that the teen was carrying a weapon. Zoo security acted quickly and apprehended the teen and SLMPD took him into custody.
Yesterday, we were able to keep all Zoo guests, staff, volunteers, and animals safe and we were able to prevent a bad situation from happening.
Now more than ever, we as a Zoo community, we as the St. Louis region, must do everything in our power to work together and be a safe place free of violence.
Saint Louis Zoo Director Michael Macek
Washington University made the decision to cancel the ThurtenE Carnival for Sunday.
“The safety of our community is always our highest priority and we felt it was necessary to take this step to prevent an unfortunate situation from becoming worse,” Anna ‘Dr. G’ Gonzalez, vice chancellor for student affairs, said. “We’re proud of our student organizers for all the hard work they put into planning this year’s event. We will work with them to make sure they recoup any losses incurred from this cancellation.”
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