Cop mauled by lion in Spain and the story has gone viral. A police officer by the name of Justo Jose jumped into a lions’ den in a zoo in Spain, where he was dragged and mauled by the creatures. It is believed that the cop might be battling depression after his wife left him and his mother recently died.
Lion mauled cop in Spain, who might have been trying to take his own life. On Sunday afternoon, visitors at the Barcelona Zoo, were shocked to see a man dressed in military uniform, with a backpack and a large banner, leap into the lions’ den.
The man has been identified as Justo Jose, the head of the municipal police force in Gelida near Barcelona, who is on paid leave since early 2014 for an undisclosed reason.
According to witnesses, after the cop jumped over the enclosure, he was immediately dragged by three lions into a tunnel and was severely bitten.
Numerous visitors threw rocks at the lions, hoping that the animals would end the attack. Police officers and firefighters arrived at the zoo and tried to use high-powered jet hoses to move the lions away from the man.
It took authorities over 30 minutes to chase the lions away from the man’s injured body. When first aid responders finally got the 45-year-old man, they discovered that he was covered in scratches and bite marks.
Mr Justo Jose, who worked for 13 years as a Civil Guard, was rushed to Hospital de la Vall D’Hebron, where he remains in serious condition.
According to doctors caring for the officer, he is expected to survive the brutal lion attack. Zoo officials and authorities say that the cop jumped into the lions’ den with the intention of maybe harming himself.
Chief firefighter of the Bomberos de Barcelona, Hector Carmona, told local media:
“The security system makes it impossible for a person to fall into the enclosure. It cannot have been by accident, to enter (the enclosure) you have to want to go in.”
Zookeepers claimed that the lions were not trying to devourer the cop, they were actually playing with him. Ignasi Armengol, director of Barcelona Municipal Services, said:
“The intention was not to kill him, they were just trying to play with him.”
The police officer has become a neo-Nazi activist in the past months. In October, he was arrested in Barcelona for draping Swastikas banners with the messages, “abortion murderers” and “4000 babies are killed, Hitler was a preemie,” over the Casa Mila building in an anti-abortion protest.
He also tried to burn banners in front of the Rafael Casanova monument on September 11th and attempted to break in Palau de la Generalitat.
It is also claimed that the cop was depressed and might be suicidal because he divorced his wife, lost custody of his son and his mother died in the past months.
The cop has been homeless in the past weeks and had been sleeping in the forest.
