On May 28th, 2016 the most terrifying thing a mother could witness happened at the Cincinnati Zoo. Her 3-year-old son slipped into the gorilla's habitat, making a huge splash, attracting the large 450 lb gorilla, Harambe, to come over and check out the situation. He manhandled the child, and though it wasn't aggressive at first, as time went on, the gorilla became agitated and tried to drag the child out of view. According to CNN.com, onlookers saw many times the boy could have been killed, including a time when Harambe threw the child 10 feet in the air. The videos on the internet of this account are incredibly unsettling.

Officials ushered people away from the scene and had to make a decision, because of the imminent danger the boy was in. Because a tranquilizer would take to long to set in, and a dart might anger the gorilla even more, they decided to shoot Harambe. He was killed with a rifle, and the boy was sent to a local hospital to be released that night. This story blew up over Memorial Day Weekend, causing controversy over the animal's death and child's mother's parenting skills.