By James DeWeese
Apollo, a 7 1/2-year-old Bengal tiger who has been with the New Cole Brothers Circus since he was knee-high to a clown, escaped just after 1 p.m. as handlers transferred him from his cage to a smaller one, police said.”We knew the circus was here, but we didn't expect to see a tiger,” said South Ozone Park resident Annie Amaker, who was joining her church's choir group for an afternoon picnic adjacent to the big top. “We were just sitting there talking and all of the sudden the choir director looked and pointed and said, ÔJesus.'”The group from the Berean Baptist Church in Brooklyn turned their gaze to where the director was pointing, only to see a beautiful tiger with black stripes trotting toward the surrounding woods, Amaker said.”It was scary in a way,” she said. “You don't know what to think. They're animals that are supposed to be in the jungle.”After escaping his cage, the tiger waltzed out an open gate surrounding the Florida-based New Cole Brothers traveling circus, passing through a packed barbecue and picnic area and absconding into the woods, said Michelle Rodriguez, who was holding an open-air birthday for her twin 9-year-old daughters, Rosa and Samantha.”We just started running,” Rodriguez said. “We were gonna leave, but they said they caught him.”The tiger led circus workers and dozens of police from the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit and aviation team on a half-mile walk in the park and along the eastbound side of the Jackie Robinson Parkway before being coaxed back into a cage by circus personnel, said Capt. John Durkin of the NYPD's ESU.”The tiger was taken into custody without incident,” he said.No one was attacked by the tiger, which police surveilled with guns drawn, Durkin said.But as Apollo made his way along the parkway's grassy embankment, several drivers traveling in the opposite direction along the notoriously dangerous stretch near Myrtle Avenue apparently slammed on their brakes causing a series of accidents involving five cars.Police said five people, including a woman who was extricated from her late model Hyundai Accent, suffered minor injuries in the series of collisions. A young man traveling in a car that was not involved in the accident was also treated at the scene by emergency personnel after suffering what appeared to be heat exhaustion.Some witnesses said Apollo jumped onto a car before climbing back up the parkway's shoulder and being coaxed back into a cage near 88th Place and Myrtle Avenue. But their accounts could not be confirmed by the police and most said the wandering cat was well behaved.”He was just standing there,” said Glendale native Jessica Occhiogrosso, who saw the tiger from 82nd Avenue, across the parkway. “He wasn't growling or anything.”Police sources said Apollo apparently slipped through a gap as he was being transferred from one cage to a smaller, wheeled one in advance of the circus' 1:30 p.m. show. Handlers, they said, had braced the wheels of the two cages to keep them from sliding apart as they transferred the animal, but they slipped.Durkin said the investigation was ongoing, meaning that the possibility of charges against the circus' operators had not been ruled out.The city Environmental Control Board slapped the circus with a health code violation: creating an animal nuisance. Circus officials refused to comment and security guards did not allow anyone to approach the trailer where Apollo was lounging after his afternoon foray.Durkin said that after a tiger was found in a Bronx apartment in October, big cats might become fodder for a police training manual . “Police have no special training on tigers,” Durkin said. “Based on this tiger and the last tiger, we might need to incorporate that into our training.”Apollo was loose for about 20 minutes, police said. But that was more than enough time for the overly mobile feline to raise both panic and admiration among neighbors, who also said this was not the first time the circus has run into animal problems.”Several years back, an elephant injured an individual, so this may be the last circus we're gonna see,” said Glendale native Jack Zwerenz, referring to a 1995 incident in which elephants at the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus began to fight in the ring while the show was in Forest Park. Audience members panicked and fled trampling some. Zwerenz worried officials might not allow a circus to return to the park.State Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) would not mind seeing that happen. Earlier this year, Kruger criticized the circus for an act in which a house cat jumps the equivalent of several stories, landing on a pillow below. After Saturday's tiger romp, Kruger urged the city Parks Department, which oversees Forest Park, to rethink its relationship with the circus.The Parks Department is evaluating whether to give the circus a permit when next year's shows come up for consideration this winter, Parks spokeswoman Megan Sheekey said.”The incident was disturbing and public safety is our greatest concern,” Sheekey said.On Saturday, the circus' 1:30 p.m. show, the first of three scheduled for the day, went on without handler Cheryl Haddad's famous Marcan tigers, drawing the ire of some circus-goers who thought their $15 tickets did not get them what they paid for.”It was completely despicable the way the circus handled (the situation),” said Tom Cassidy, who said his family was turned down when they asked for a refund before eventually attending the show.The New Cole Brothers circus, which has been touring American towns and cities since 1884 under one name or another, was slated to take off Monday for a two-day stint in Southampton, L.I.Reach reporter James DeWeese by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
