True patriot': White House pays bizarre tribute to Harambe 10 years after gorilla's death

A White House social media post marked the 10th anniversary of Harambe’s death, calling him a true patriot. Harambe was a 400lb western lowland gorilla shot dead at the Cincinnati zoo on 28 May 2016 after a three-year-old climbed a fence, entered the enclosure, and interacted with the animal. Video showed the gorilla pulling the child through water, and the child suffered only minor injuries. The incident became a viral internet sensation, generating memes, tributes, music, poetry, and calls to rename sports teams. The zoo later reopened the gorilla enclosure with higher walls and additional barriers. Harambe was born in captivity in Brownsville, Texas, in May 1999.

"Security staff at the zoo shot and killed the male silverback on 28 May 2016 after the boy, three-year-old Isaiah Dickerson, climbed a fence, crawled through a hedge, and dropped 15ft into the enclosure holding Harambe and fellow gorillas. Video captured the gorilla pulling the boy, who received only minor injuries, through water. The incident became a viral internet sensation, prompting memes, tributes both fake and real, music and poetry, and calls for sports teams to be renamed for Harambe."

"It also sparked safety improvements at the zoo, which reopened its gorilla enclosure a year later with higher walls and other barriers. Wednesday's bizarre 123-word memorial post to the animal by the White House, which remained silent when the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney died in November, evoked that aftermath. He became a symbol of loyalty, strength, chaos, unity, and the strange beauty of the internet bringing millions of people together for one cause: never forgetting Harambe, it said."

"Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. And somehow, a decade later, his legacy still lives on. Gone, but never forgotten. Rest easy to a true patriot. Harambe was born in captivity at a zoo in Brownsville, Texas, in May 1999. Soon after the 2016 incident, Donald Trump, then a presidential candidate, spoke of how it was so beautiful to watch Harambe wi"

Read at www.theguardian.com