Witness to Cincinnati Zoo Incident Is Harassed Online

A child touches the head of a gorilla statue where flowers have been placed outside the Gorilla World exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, in Cincinnati. AP Photo/John Minchillo, File

Brittany Nicely isn’t the mother of the boy who fell into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, but she was a witness to it, and had been interviewed by the media about the incident. 

Some people online are confusing Nicely for the mother of the boy, and are blaming her for the death of the gorilla, who was shot by zookeepers out of safety concerns. 

Nicely has received harassing Facebook messages, and she has had to shut down her account temporarily because of it. 

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“Just a bunch of name calling and people saying I’m an irresponsible parent,” Nicely told Cincinatti.com. “I think there’s a lot of people out there who don’t read anything. They see something, they go by what other people are saying and then they jump to conclusions.”

Nicely was there when she saw the 4-year old boy fall into the gorilla enclosure. 

“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the little boy in the bushes past the little fence area. I tried to grab for him. I started yelling at him to come back,” Nicely said. “Everybody started screaming and going crazy, it happened so fast.”

The exhibit area was then evacuated. 

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“About four or five minutes later we heard the gunshot,” she said. “We were pretty distraught. All the kids were crying.”

Nicely said that she supports the zoo’s decision to shoot the gorilla, and at the same time doesn’t blame the mother.