A 3-year-old boy is fighting for his life after a stranger put him in a crocodile enclosure at an English zoo — and the establishment press still can't bring itself to say it plainly.
The facts are stark. A 30-year-old man from Norfolk, unknown to the child, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after the toddler was found inside the crocodile enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst Zoo in Cambridgeshire on Thursday. Zoo staff pulled the boy out and rushed him to Addenbrooke's Hospital, where he remained in critical but stable condition, according to Cambridgeshire police.
Yet every outlet covering the story fell over itself to avoid active language. Live 5 News reported "it is unclear how the young boy ended up in the enclosure." NBC News wrote that the child was "critically injured after ending up in a crocodile enclosure." WJLA repeated the same construction: a child "ends up" in a pit of reptiles. A man was arrested for attempted murder — the crime that requires intent — and the press treats the toddler's presence among crocodiles like a weather event.
The suspect was assessed as "not being fit for interview," Cambridgeshire police said, and was released on bail until September 18. A man arrested for trying to feed a child to crocodiles walks free for three months while detectives, in the words of Detective Inspector Verity McCann, "continue to understand the circumstances surrounding this distressing incident."
Note the institutional reflex: the incident is "distressing." The circumstances need "understanding." The man and the child "are not known to each other," as though that absolves rather than aggravates. When a stranger targets a toddler for predation by reptile, the word isn't distressing. The word is evil.
The family-run zoo closed its Tropical House — where the crocodiles are kept — "out of respect to the family," according to a statement reported by NBC News. The zoo's social media offered "thoughts and prayers." Thoughts and prayers, but no verb.
The boy sustained "serious injuries while in the enclosure," police said. They did not elaborate on the nature of those injuries. No further detail has been released about the suspect's identity, his background, or what led him to the zoo that day.
A toddler clings to life. A man accused of trying to kill him is out on bail. And the best the fourth estate can muster is that the child "ended up" with crocodiles. The inability to name what happened is itself part of the story — and part of the problem.
