# The Tiger King of Harlem

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 26 Mar 2024, 59 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/0d0810bd-e4d5-4e69-84c8-b13e01143de1/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

Meet Antoine Yates, the man who raised a tiger in a fifth-floor public housing apartment in Harlem. Until, one day, the tiger remembered that it was a tiger. But Antoine didn't just live with a tiger, he also had a lion and a full-grown alligator. Naturally, this one is both wild...and ridiculous! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Elizabeth Zaron Brenette. I am so glad to see you.
[0:07] Speaker 3: Me too, I'm sad to see you as well. Oh yeah,
[0:10] Speaker 3: you always see I really really am.
[0:12] Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't say that about myself. Do you know
[0:14] Speaker 2: what's ridiculous?
[0:15] Speaker 3: Yes?
[0:15] Speaker 2: I do. I knew you would know.
[0:17] Speaker 3: It's something that's ridiculously cool in a lot of ways.
[0:21] Speaker 3: We got an Instagram message from Jot jo d szt
[0:27] Speaker 3: y I and that's the name of a dog, cool, hungarian,
[0:32] Speaker 3: moody dog m d I so Jot send us this email,
[0:36] Speaker 3: but it's actually the owner ah and or some DM.
[0:39] Speaker 3: They slid into the DMS. This dog is sliding, so
[0:42] Speaker 3: says hi, guys. I figured it'd be more fun writing
[0:45] Speaker 3: from my dog's IG account. I have a story that's
[0:48] Speaker 3: perfect for Zarin and Elizabeth as well. It has some
[0:51] Speaker 3: product mash up and dead body parts. There's this cocktail
[0:54] Speaker 3: that you can drink in Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. It's
[0:58] Speaker 3: called Sourtoe cocktail. It's usually made with a shot of whiskey,
[1:02] Speaker 3: usually Yukon jack of course, and a human toe, yes,
[1:06] Speaker 3: a mummified human toe. When you drink the cocktail, the
[1:09] Speaker 3: toe has to touch your lips. Now that we've covered
[1:13] Speaker 3: the ridiculous part, here's the crime. Abortion. In twenty thirteen,
[1:16] Speaker 3: a tourist swallowed the toe on purpose, so he was
[1:20] Speaker 3: fined five hundred dollars Canadian But no worries. Our cold
[1:24] Speaker 3: winters always provide us some frozen toes that can later
[1:27] Speaker 3: be used to make this cocktail.
[1:29] Speaker 2: So they take the same toe, put it in the drink.
[1:31] Speaker 2: The person swallows the cocktail supposed to like make sure
[1:34] Speaker 2: the toe stays in there.
[1:35] Speaker 3: I think it's like the worm in a stell, but
[1:40] Speaker 3: like this one, you just sip it so slightly that
[1:43] Speaker 3: it touches.
[1:43] Speaker 2: Your lip, but in a glass or out of the bottle.
[1:46] Speaker 3: Probably out of the bottle or maybe it's the glass,
[1:47] Speaker 3: and then you put it back into the decant it.
[1:49] Speaker 2: You seem like the snake whiskey with the snake that's inside,
[1:53] Speaker 2: and it's like fermenting.
[1:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, or seagull whiskey exactly I figured.
[1:57] Speaker 2: But those are all that they stay in the bottle.
[1:58] Speaker 2: This person made it sound like it was actually in
[2:00] Speaker 2: the shop.
[2:00] Speaker 3: Is a person swallowed I think they probably chuggled it
[2:03] Speaker 3: from the bottle. But this Jo T. Moody account. It's
[2:07] Speaker 3: the Hungarian Moody dog's life in the Yukon. So cute.
[2:11] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of like Alaskan dogs.
[2:15] Speaker 2: Yes, I know.
[2:16] Speaker 3: I think it's so I'm I'm now, I'm kind of
[2:18] Speaker 3: obsessed with this dog. And I'm just gonna you go
[2:20] Speaker 3: ahead and tell me your story and I'm just going
[2:22] Speaker 3: to have like a slideshow of Jo T going by.
[2:25] Speaker 2: I've got good news for you. My story is about animals.
[2:28] Speaker 3: Okay, Oh that'll let me close the laptop and I'll
[2:29] Speaker 3: be right with you.
[2:32] Speaker 2: Elizabeth. You want to hear the story of Antoine Yates,
[2:35] Speaker 2: the tiger King of Harlem.
[2:37] Speaker 3: Oh yes I do.
[2:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. Now this cat, he's the man who raised a
[2:40] Speaker 2: tiger in a fifth floor public housing apartment wait in
[2:45] Speaker 2: Harlem until one day the tiger remembered that it was
[2:49] Speaker 2: a tiger. Yes, This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about
[3:14] Speaker 2: absurd and outrageous capers, heist and cons. It's always ninety
[3:20] Speaker 2: nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
[3:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, baby, I like it.
[3:28] Speaker 2: Fired. This one's a wild one for you. I've I've
[3:31] Speaker 2: been working with you know, themes, different themes. This one's
[3:33] Speaker 2: for my animal theme for you, because I know you
[3:35] Speaker 2: like the animals. Animal, Yes, but it's also got something
[3:38] Speaker 2: for me. There's an animal anyway, I won't ruin the
[3:40] Speaker 2: surprise ending.
[3:42] Speaker 3: Is there cocaine in there?
[3:43] Speaker 2: No, you know what I know, not not one of
[3:45] Speaker 2: my stories. It's just it's got something for me too, anyway.
[3:50] Speaker 2: Antwine yeats. Yes, he's a lot like you, Elizabeth. Animal
[3:53] Speaker 2: lover Okay. He wanted to have a menagerie of animals
[3:57] Speaker 2: to call his own. Only he didn't live like an
[4:00] Speaker 2: animal sanctuary in Texas. He didn't have a farm in California.
[4:03] Speaker 2: He didn't even have a backyard in Iowa. He lived
[4:06] Speaker 2: in New York City in Harlem, in public housing. He's like,
[4:09] Speaker 2: I want all the animals.
[4:10] Speaker 3: Oh no, I mean you could love animals from afar?
[4:14] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, someone want to hug up on them. I
[4:16] Speaker 2: mean you want to.
[4:17] Speaker 3: Hug up I want to hug up on like a
[4:19] Speaker 3: grizzly bear or a tiger, or.
[4:22] Speaker 2: A walrus or pretty much any major mammal and have.
[4:25] Speaker 3: That be like my grand Farewell. But I don't bring
[4:29] Speaker 3: him into my home. Let wild be wild, as you
[4:31] Speaker 3: know is my thing.
[4:32] Speaker 2: Okay, well this story. In the early afternoon of October one,
[4:37] Speaker 2: two thousand and three, a nine to one one operator
[4:40] Speaker 2: entered a call from an anonymous man. They didn't want
[4:42] Speaker 2: to say who they were, but this person they phoned
[4:44] Speaker 2: the emergency line to report a dog attack. The caller
[4:47] Speaker 2: reported that a man had quote been bitten by a dog.
[4:50] Speaker 2: He gave the address. It was twenty four to thirty
[4:53] Speaker 2: seventh Avenue, Apartment fivey as I said in Harlem. Now
[4:57] Speaker 2: a few minutes later, there was another anonymous call because
[4:59] Speaker 2: apparently the officers were not quick on the scene, from
[5:02] Speaker 2: the same address. The nine one one operator noted. And
[5:05] Speaker 2: when and YPD officers finally responded to that second call,
[5:09] Speaker 2: they find Elizabeth on the floor, a thirty seven year
[5:12] Speaker 2: old man in a bad way. Oh yeah, Like the
[5:16] Speaker 2: man was and I quote lying face up on the floor,
[5:19] Speaker 2: and he was located near the fifth story elevators. And
[5:22] Speaker 2: he was quote screaming and crying in pain. Uh oh yeah, no,
[5:25] Speaker 2: this wasn't good. His wounds fresh, extensive all over the place.
[5:29] Speaker 2: The cops they gave a cursory check the victim. They
[5:31] Speaker 2: just said, okay, he's got on his right forearm looks
[5:34] Speaker 2: like he's got some bite marks or some kind of
[5:36] Speaker 2: deep gashes opened by fangs. Then the other arm, his
[5:40] Speaker 2: left arm, also had deep gouges what appeared to be
[5:42] Speaker 2: maybe claw marks. Then there was a long gash on
[5:44] Speaker 2: his right leg and they couldn't determine what that was,
[5:47] Speaker 2: but the whiteness of the leg bone was exposed.
[5:50] Speaker 3: Oh oh no.
[5:52] Speaker 2: That was put in the report, right. So the cops
[5:54] Speaker 2: were like, how big was this dog?
[5:56] Speaker 3: Sir? You know how I get when we talk about
[5:58] Speaker 3: like injuries. Yeah, where my legs start to hurt.
[6:01] Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm sorry about that. I tried not to, like,
[6:03] Speaker 2: you know, sneak up on you.
[6:05] Speaker 3: It's in service of the story, you have to do it.
[6:08] Speaker 2: So the man, he identified himself as mister Antoine Yates,
[6:12] Speaker 2: and he said a pit bull had mauled him. Oh yeah,
[6:16] Speaker 2: and people they hear pit bull, they immediately go that's terrible.
[6:19] Speaker 2: They locked their jaws on exactly now. The paramedics, they
[6:25] Speaker 2: were second on the scene. So the cops are there.
[6:27] Speaker 2: They've done just a cursory once over. As soon as
[6:29] Speaker 2: the empts get there, they begin to treat Yates. They
[6:32] Speaker 2: staunch the bleeding. He's bandaged up wrapped for the ambulance
[6:35] Speaker 2: of paramedics. They transfer over to Harlem Hospital. Things look
[6:38] Speaker 2: good right now. There was some questions about the story
[6:42] Speaker 2: he was reporting. Both the cops and the EMTs were like,
[6:44] Speaker 2: how big was this dog? Bro? So truth was, of
[6:48] Speaker 2: course far wilder, and I put emphasis on wilder. My
[6:52] Speaker 2: man Antoine Yates was indeed lying. He'd fibbed to the
[6:55] Speaker 2: cops and the empts because he was desperately trying to
[6:57] Speaker 2: protect his best friend, his room made a Elizabeth, the
[7:00] Speaker 2: one who'd nearly killed him, a four hundred and fifty
[7:03] Speaker 2: pounds Siberian tiger named Ming.
[7:07] Speaker 3: Four hundred and fifty pounds.
[7:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, old Ming the Merciless.
[7:10] Speaker 3: You see, well did he was? He trying to play
[7:12] Speaker 3: it off like it was someone else's pit bull?
[7:14] Speaker 2: Yeh, yeah, totally, like some random pit bull ran in
[7:17] Speaker 2: to the fifth floor apartment or a pit floor elevator
[7:20] Speaker 2: lobby and then attacked him. Attacks, and it's like hit three,
[7:23] Speaker 2: I'm going downstairs. I got to attack someone down there.
[7:26] Speaker 2: So anyway, my point is Elizabeth Antoine, He's trying to
[7:29] Speaker 2: protect his best friend, his roommate, Ming the Merciless. They
[7:32] Speaker 2: were old buddies. They lived together for three years and
[7:34] Speaker 2: then one day the tiger's like, hey, bro, I'm a
[7:37] Speaker 2: tiger and totally showed its nature.
[7:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what they do when ming.
[7:41] Speaker 2: Went fully merciless, right, because as you say, that's what
[7:44] Speaker 2: they do. The tiger was going to tiger Antoine Yates
[7:48] Speaker 2: was lucky to escape the apartment with his life.
[7:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, so how did he?
[7:51] Speaker 2: By the way, he had a five room Apartment's.
[7:55] Speaker 3: A square footage on that I don't want. You don't
[7:57] Speaker 3: have a square footage, Kim.
[7:58] Speaker 2: It's multiple bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen.
[8:01] Speaker 3: So so he probably got it with other family members
[8:04] Speaker 3: and then they either departed guest this earthly plane or
[8:08] Speaker 3: the location.
[8:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, or the tiger eate them first.
[8:11] Speaker 3: Or the tiger tiger four kids.
[8:15] Speaker 2: Too. You love animals, You also like to say let
[8:19] Speaker 2: wild be wild. This story falls into the ladder camp
[8:22] Speaker 2: like you're one hundred your instincts.
[8:24] Speaker 3: I told you I always root for these animals. Like
[8:27] Speaker 3: when the chimpanzee rips the lady's face off, I'm like,
[8:30] Speaker 3: you know that's to be expected and well done.
[8:34] Speaker 2: That the champane rooting for nature extant.
[8:38] Speaker 3: Nature extant. But in particular those, because they're always like
[8:42] Speaker 3: in like a suburban house total and it's totally unfit
[8:45] Speaker 3: for a wild animal.
[8:47] Speaker 2: I don't mean to draw your you personally out onto
[8:49] Speaker 2: the carpet, but didn't you used to own a real
[8:52] Speaker 2: life wolf? I did? Okay, it was your family owned
[8:58] Speaker 2: a real life wolf.
[8:58] Speaker 3: Yeah. It was a rescue of the rescue. Someone else
[9:02] Speaker 3: rescued it, and then we had to rescue it.
[9:04] Speaker 2: From the rescued well just yeah, or the rescuer rather.
[9:07] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[9:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, and so then now that you have your rescue,
[9:09] Speaker 2: it was too late to.
[9:10] Speaker 3: Put it back in a while when it came into
[9:12] Speaker 3: our lives.
[9:13] Speaker 2: Maybe Ming the Merciless was in a similar situation and
[9:17] Speaker 2: he's just like, look, I'm going to save the tiger. Yeah,
[9:20] Speaker 2: you saved your.
[9:20] Speaker 3: Wolf, shag.
[9:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved that wolf. I'm just saying, like, there's great.
[9:25] Speaker 2: You see how data bold can be to let wild
[9:27] Speaker 2: be wild once it comes into your life.
[9:29] Speaker 3: That's true, right, Okay, back.
[9:31] Speaker 2: To Antoine, it's whatever. After he's saved by the cops,
[9:33] Speaker 2: the MTS, he's rushed to Harlem hospital, he refuses to
[9:36] Speaker 2: give up the truth. He's like, oh no, it's a
[9:37] Speaker 2: big dog. They're like, come on, heavily. Medicaid says, like
[9:42] Speaker 2: a big dog.
[9:43] Speaker 3: He's the biggest dog.
[9:45] Speaker 2: You were practically driving a bus this big. And then
[9:49] Speaker 2: the cops four.
[9:50] Speaker 3: Hundred and fifty pounds dog exact like this landlord's going
[9:54] Speaker 3: to prove that one.
[9:55] Speaker 2: The cops are like, sir, are you sure this wasn't
[9:58] Speaker 2: maybe a tiger? Now. The reason why they said this
[10:02] Speaker 2: is because some of Antoine's neighbors had let it slip
[10:05] Speaker 2: to the cops that Antoine was living with a tiger.
[10:07] Speaker 3: Oh sure, Oh my god, because can you imagine the smell.
[10:10] Speaker 2: Not only that one neighbor had complained about constant urine
[10:13] Speaker 2: pouring down her the windows because he would dump it
[10:16] Speaker 2: out of the fifth floor apartment window. The urine would
[10:19] Speaker 2: hit like the third floor apartment and just like get
[10:21] Speaker 2: blown back by the you know, the whatever winds that
[10:24] Speaker 2: go past residents buildings. And then so she get this
[10:27] Speaker 2: splatter of urine and she could ever figure out why
[10:29] Speaker 2: he was so pungent.
[10:30] Speaker 3: Well, he wasn't just flushing it down the toilet even incrementally.
[10:33] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[10:34] Speaker 3: He can't take it out to like the dog.
[10:36] Speaker 2: Pund tear everyone away.
[10:40] Speaker 3: But you know, you can't like take it out to
[10:42] Speaker 3: do its business.
[10:42] Speaker 2: Oh yes, can't take the tiger out. But he can't
[10:46] Speaker 2: even take the tiger's urine out. If you dump that somewhere,
[10:48] Speaker 2: other animals would stay.
[10:49] Speaker 3: So far clear, how big is a tiger dump?
[10:53] Speaker 2: I did not investigate that for you. I wish I
[10:56] Speaker 2: had like photo evidence. Loll go, Elizabeth's here in exhibit A.
[10:58] Speaker 2: You know, it's like about the of a small child.
[11:00] Speaker 3: Some of those dog like waist bags. Like you know,
[11:03] Speaker 3: if you have a big dog, it's it's a.
[11:05] Speaker 2: They eat a considerable amount of Like if you were
[11:07] Speaker 2: to weigh their food and just poundage, it's a.
[11:10] Speaker 3: Lot, right, that's where I'm going a little protein. Yeah.
[11:13] Speaker 2: Anyway, So anyway, as I said, the cops arrived, the
[11:16] Speaker 2: neighbors were like, he's got a tiger. So the cops
[11:20] Speaker 2: were like asking him in the hospital, like are you
[11:22] Speaker 2: sure it's not a tiger? Heavily medicated, sticks to his story.
[11:26] Speaker 2: And then you know his brother who was also you know,
[11:29] Speaker 2: in that same housing complex, he was also speaking with
[11:32] Speaker 2: the cops while Anton was you know, ferried away by
[11:34] Speaker 2: the e mts. And he had admitted to the cops
[11:38] Speaker 2: that his brother was indeed living with a tiger in
[11:40] Speaker 2: his fifth floor apartment.
[11:41] Speaker 3: And public housing. In public housing, which is always so dicey.
[11:45] Speaker 3: People can lose their public housing for infractions.
[11:48] Speaker 2: You lose it for a tiger. Yeah, they don't even
[11:52] Speaker 2: have an appeal process for that.
[11:53] Speaker 3: It's like, not like my grandson was selling crack. It's
[11:56] Speaker 3: like this, you have a tiger exactly.
[11:58] Speaker 2: The cops like, okay. The brother goes to the cops, right,
[12:01] Speaker 2: and he says the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
[12:03] Speaker 2: but the truth, and he's like, yeah, my brother is
[12:05] Speaker 2: a big ass tiger in there. I just want you
[12:08] Speaker 2: guys to know that what you're dealing with, you don't
[12:10] Speaker 2: go sending anybody in there. They'll get hurt. That's smart,
[12:13] Speaker 2: very responsible. I thought you liked that right well.
[12:14] Speaker 3: And running off future liability too.
[12:17] Speaker 2: There's that as well, if you're looking at it from
[12:18] Speaker 2: the legal culture anyway. A couple of days after the incident,
[12:21] Speaker 2: NYPD Captain Michael Pollito, he spoke with Anton's brother, Aaron, and,
[12:27] Speaker 2: like I said, brother had already immediately confessed, and then
[12:29] Speaker 2: he immediately confessed to the police captain. He's like, oh yeah,
[12:32] Speaker 2: and I quote, my brother has both a fully grown
[12:35] Speaker 2: tiger and a large alligator living inside his apartment.
[12:38] Speaker 3: Wait, and a large alligator?
[12:41] Speaker 2: Yes? Ow ow the alligator.
[12:44] Speaker 3: Alligator?
[12:45] Speaker 2: Yes, by the way, yes, I guess he has like
[12:47] Speaker 2: run of the bathroom. I don't know how this. Yes,
[12:50] Speaker 2: a full grown alligator, full grown tiger. And oh yes,
[12:56] Speaker 2: you know, smell crazy in there. The brother.
[13:01] Speaker 3: As I said, I should be talking to you today.
[13:05] Speaker 3: In case you haven't noticed, you have a bit of
[13:07] Speaker 3: a I lost my voice. It's coming back, coming back yet,
[13:10] Speaker 3: but it gets bad every time I laugh. And all
[13:13] Speaker 3: I do is laugh around you. We'll take it for
[13:15] Speaker 3: the team.
[13:16] Speaker 2: Well. So, as Aaron is helping the police understand his
[13:19] Speaker 2: brother Antoine Yates and Antoine's in his Harlem hospital and
[13:22] Speaker 2: the men, he has the unenviable task of also being
[13:25] Speaker 2: responsible for feeding his brother's animals, right, which scared the
[13:29] Speaker 2: hell out of him, apparently because Aaron told the NYPD
[13:31] Speaker 2: and I quote he'd opened the door to his brother's apartment,
[13:34] Speaker 2: thrown in several pieces of raw chicken, and watched as
[13:37] Speaker 2: the tiger came toward the food, slammed the door. So yeah,
[13:41] Speaker 2: after he saw the tiger approach the food, his brother
[13:44] Speaker 2: was like yeah, I'm not doing this again. Nah uh, Antoine,
[13:47] Speaker 2: you got to get home from the hospital, or we're
[13:49] Speaker 2: telling the police all about this. He decided, I'm telling
[13:51] Speaker 2: the police all about this. Just went right to plan B.
[13:53] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[13:54] Speaker 2: So the police asked Aaron, well, how long has your
[13:56] Speaker 2: brother been keeping the tiger in his fifth floor Harlem apartment?
[14:00] Speaker 2: Was like, I don't know, man, I don't know when
[14:01] Speaker 2: he got his new roommates or like new roommates what
[14:03] Speaker 2: he means. He's like, well, you know, he lives by himself,
[14:04] Speaker 2: which is them? I don't remember exactly. I know that
[14:07] Speaker 2: he got the Siberian tiger as a cub and then
[14:10] Speaker 2: he raised them in the apartment. That was that was after.
[14:12] Speaker 2: That was after the lions. They're like lions.
[14:15] Speaker 3: Whoa, whoa, whoa whoa lions?
[14:18] Speaker 2: Yes, so those I'm sure this story has praised a
[14:20] Speaker 2: few questions, now, right, did.
[14:21] Speaker 3: The lions die in the apartment? If so, how do
[14:24] Speaker 3: you dispose of a lion? Great questions, Oat, I hope you.
[14:28] Speaker 2: Have a list, because you're gonna probably want to keep
[14:29] Speaker 2: track of the questions you have now. Because I once
[14:31] Speaker 2: interviewed Antoine Yates four story, what about him and his
[14:35] Speaker 2: managery of animals.
[14:36] Speaker 3: Stop it. This is too much for me, my brain.
[14:39] Speaker 2: I've got all sorts of answers for you.
[14:40] Speaker 3: So talk to this man.
[14:42] Speaker 2: I've talked to this man, yes, on the phone, hung out.
[14:44] Speaker 2: I think we talked for a while.
[14:46] Speaker 3: Olime.
[14:47] Speaker 2: So we'll take all your many reasonable questions that you
[14:49] Speaker 2: might have, one at a time. First, we'll take a break,
[14:52] Speaker 2: all right, and then we get back. I will start
[14:54] Speaker 2: with question number one, why did he want a tiger?
[14:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question.
[15:18] Speaker 2: All right, Elizabeth, we're back. Hey, how's your voice? By
[15:21] Speaker 2: the way, we're in there.
[15:22] Speaker 3: I think it's it's I just hope it doesn't annoy people,
[15:24] Speaker 3: but it's. Yeah, Sorry, you got.
[15:26] Speaker 2: A real Kathleen Turner thing going right? How did you
[15:30] Speaker 2: lose your voice?
[15:31] Speaker 3: A protest?
[15:32] Speaker 2: A protest? What are you protesting?
[15:33] Speaker 3: How is it costcore?
[15:35] Speaker 2: Are you protesting? Like a new parking?
[15:37] Speaker 3: They don't have tros at the food court anymore?
[15:39] Speaker 2: You're protesting? The absence is a bunch of us, a
[15:42] Speaker 2: bunch of you. Sorry, you by yourself? By yourself?
[15:45] Speaker 3: So you, guys, did you have any you want to
[15:47] Speaker 3: be by myself? Never?
[15:48] Speaker 2: Did you have a chance that you guys were fond
[15:51] Speaker 2: of is there like, you know, hell no, we won't
[15:53] Speaker 2: go give us back our cheer row.
[15:54] Speaker 3: That's exactly it were you there.
[15:56] Speaker 2: I think I made sign. I was on the group
[15:59] Speaker 2: protest text, but I didn't think you guys would use
[16:02] Speaker 2: that one.
[16:04] Speaker 3: Oh but not for the churros something else. Don't know,
[16:07] Speaker 3: worry about it.
[16:09] Speaker 2: I don't ask about that one. Stick to the churup. Okay,
[16:12] Speaker 2: So Elizabeth Number one question, why did my man Antoine
[16:16] Speaker 2: Yates want a tiger?
[16:18] Speaker 3: Question? Uh, well, you know I could see like if
[16:22] Speaker 3: you're not thinking with logic and reason, you know, it'd
[16:27] Speaker 3: be cool to get a tiger cub and cuddle on
[16:29] Speaker 3: it the tiger.
[16:30] Speaker 2: Good point. Got it as a cub. The tiger when
[16:32] Speaker 2: it grew full, the adult was ten feet long foward
[16:36] Speaker 2: and fifty pounds. It's a big roommate. Yeah. Siberian tiger,
[16:42] Speaker 2: by the way, is the biggest of the tiger breed.
[16:44] Speaker 2: They make other tigers look like big house cats. Like
[16:47] Speaker 2: have you ever seen footage of Siberians basically bullying other times? Yeah,
[16:50] Speaker 2: Bengals were like, come on, man, can I just hang out?
[16:52] Speaker 3: Yeah? They're just the big boss.
[16:53] Speaker 2: You're like, why wouldn't even look at the world's the
[16:55] Speaker 2: biggest tiger and be like, how can I get one
[16:57] Speaker 2: of those in my apartment? It just it makes no sense.
[16:59] Speaker 2: But Antoine yates. You ask him why he wanted to
[17:02] Speaker 2: do it, his answer is just one word. Can you
[17:05] Speaker 2: guess that? One word? I love, Elizabeth. He wanted to
[17:11] Speaker 2: show the world that we could live with wild animals
[17:13] Speaker 2: and thus each other if we did it.
[17:16] Speaker 3: That's not okay.
[17:17] Speaker 2: He didn't tell this to me. He told this to people,
[17:20] Speaker 2: the hosts of the Today Show. And I quote, love
[17:23] Speaker 2: is a key ingredient to owning any animal. Matter of fact,
[17:25] Speaker 2: love is the key ingredient for us all to survive.
[17:28] Speaker 2: So what I did, I took that love, taking time
[17:30] Speaker 2: to educate myself, disciplining myself to learn about what I'm
[17:35] Speaker 2: getting into and the responsibility of what I'm dealing with.
[17:39] Speaker 2: So you know, once again, responsible tiger owner in the apartment.
[17:42] Speaker 2: I want to love.
[17:45] Speaker 3: We take in domesticated animals because they can't find for themselves. Yes,
[17:49] Speaker 3: and that's love, but like take it anyway.
[17:53] Speaker 2: You cannot love a tiger into not being a tiger.
[17:56] Speaker 2: So that's one thing I do know. No matter what
[17:58] Speaker 2: you want to call love. It will not change the tiger.
[18:00] Speaker 3: That way exactly.
[18:02] Speaker 2: So there's not enough love in this planet for to
[18:05] Speaker 2: love the tiger out of a tiger, right, I don't care.
[18:07] Speaker 2: We can all get together and try to love one
[18:10] Speaker 2: tiger exactly, you know. And by the way, I think
[18:14] Speaker 2: that a tiger could love a person and still eat
[18:17] Speaker 2: their face.
[18:18] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, totally okay, you know, but a person can
[18:20] Speaker 3: still love a person and eat a person's Does that work?
[18:23] Speaker 2: No, well maybe not really kind of maybe are we
[18:25] Speaker 2: talking in Florida? Anyway. Tigers like human beings, they have emotions, right,
[18:30] Speaker 2: and they say the tiger gets scared or angry or jealous,
[18:34] Speaker 2: the tiger will fight with who he loves or she loves, right,
[18:37] Speaker 2: And just like how a man might fight when he's
[18:40] Speaker 2: mad or angry or jealous, the tiger, if he's that
[18:42] Speaker 2: mad at you, will eat your face, you know, or
[18:44] Speaker 2: something to tear it off, maybe eat it, you know,
[18:46] Speaker 2: like that's unfortunately if they get mad and go to
[18:48] Speaker 2: take a swipe, you're like, oh my nose. You have
[18:51] Speaker 2: to account for if someone's upset at you. If you
[18:54] Speaker 2: were like, if you're in some bonded relationship and this
[18:56] Speaker 2: person gets upset with you, and they did. They're the
[18:58] Speaker 2: type of person to get vibe. You just have a
[19:01] Speaker 2: violent person. The love part no longer matters.
[19:03] Speaker 3: So tigers can't use their words. They think of it
[19:07] Speaker 3: as like a toddler where it starts screaming. They can't
[19:10] Speaker 3: tell you, like what's wrong. It's because they can't use
[19:12] Speaker 3: their words.
[19:13] Speaker 2: Neither tiger exactly very much like a tiger tantrum a
[19:17] Speaker 2: toddler tantrum.
[19:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, toddler won't rip your face off. Most likely,
[19:21] Speaker 3: sometimes depends.
[19:23] Speaker 2: On the I don't want to poke fun at a
[19:25] Speaker 2: man who wanted to live with the tiger. That's easy, right.
[19:28] Speaker 2: I wanted to know why he did it, beyond love,
[19:32] Speaker 2: beyond what he told the folks on the Today Show,
[19:34] Speaker 2: So you know I asked him, right, So I said,
[19:36] Speaker 2: for the man who loved a tiger, Since I know
[19:38] Speaker 2: you're curious like him, let's get into the real reasons,
[19:41] Speaker 2: the feelings, the fears, the desires that made a man
[19:44] Speaker 2: want to call it tiger his best friend. So also
[19:46] Speaker 2: the lion and the alligator.
[19:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, we need to circle back to.
[19:50] Speaker 2: What's the emotional reality of this amateur Marlon Perkins, Right,
[19:54] Speaker 2: why did he want the wild kingdom in his apartment,
[19:57] Speaker 2: say Antoine Yates. When I spoke to him, he was
[19:58] Speaker 2: about what I expect. He felt like a very sensitive
[20:02] Speaker 2: guy who'd been pushed to the point he decided to
[20:04] Speaker 2: live with a tiger that may not follow. I understand
[20:08] Speaker 2: how that is. Imagine like a very poetic, sensitive guy
[20:11] Speaker 2: who then returns inward, reclusive from the world. Yeah, he
[20:15] Speaker 2: wants something like a.
[20:16] Speaker 3: Pet, but there's a selfishness to it, rather than saying
[20:19] Speaker 3: I'll go live with the tigers.
[20:23] Speaker 2: To me, yeah, it's more like a by byronic love,
[20:26] Speaker 2: like joetic obsession. It's not like, oh I really am
[20:30] Speaker 2: bonded with you, we both connect. It's more like I
[20:32] Speaker 2: love you. Come here, yeah, stay here here, that kind
[20:36] Speaker 2: of love. So anyways, I said, he told me personally
[20:40] Speaker 2: that it was safer for him to lock himself inside
[20:42] Speaker 2: of his apartment than to walk around America as a
[20:44] Speaker 2: black man. Well that's how he felt. I think that
[20:48] Speaker 2: statement really speaks for itself.
[20:49] Speaker 3: But then throw in the tiger. It's safer to lock
[20:52] Speaker 3: myself in an apartment with a wild animal than it
[20:54] Speaker 3: is to walk around.
[20:56] Speaker 2: It's like if James Baldway wrote a children's book right
[21:05] Speaker 2: to quote Antoine Yates, I was sick and tired of it,
[21:08] Speaker 2: so I literally locked myself in the house and I
[21:10] Speaker 2: went and bought the tiger. Now you know how I
[21:12] Speaker 2: am Elizabeth. This goes with my theory that humanity is
[21:15] Speaker 2: by far the most dangerous animal on the planet. So
[21:18] Speaker 2: I asked Antoine if he agreed that human beings are
[21:20] Speaker 2: the most dangerous animal on Earth. He's like, of course
[21:22] Speaker 2: they are the most I know that, and anyone else
[21:25] Speaker 2: should know that human beings are always the most dangerous choice.
[21:28] Speaker 2: Animals are only going to do what they set out
[21:30] Speaker 2: to do, as they were designed by God. But with
[21:32] Speaker 2: a human you never know what to expect, never ever, ever, ever.
[21:36] Speaker 2: I was like, even, right, for real? So but you know,
[21:39] Speaker 2: going by that logic, a tiger would be no higher
[21:42] Speaker 2: than the second most dangerous animal to live with, which
[21:44] Speaker 2: is kind of hard to believe. So this human being
[21:47] Speaker 2: bob over here is more dangerous than ming the merciless
[21:50] Speaker 2: I think you're I would think we're too far into
[21:52] Speaker 2: theory exactly anyway, So Antoine, why would he be cool
[21:56] Speaker 2: living with the tiger? This brings me to a question
[21:58] Speaker 2: number two. Did Antoine friends and neighbors know we had
[22:01] Speaker 2: a tiger, Like, how do you date when you have
[22:03] Speaker 2: a pet tiger? Like how much of it is involved
[22:05] Speaker 2: in his life? Was this tiger he's not dating? I
[22:08] Speaker 2: think it goes without saying that Antoine was single.
[22:10] Speaker 3: Yes, he was not dating. He wants to be by
[22:12] Speaker 3: himself very much.
[22:13] Speaker 2: Fact like, oh, my roommate's a tiger. That's an unmarried
[22:15] Speaker 2: or divorced man. We just know that right over back
[22:20] Speaker 2: when he did choose to lock himself inside, he had
[22:22] Speaker 2: a girl in his life, as Antoine told me, quote,
[22:25] Speaker 2: I was dating a girl, but I never went outside
[22:27] Speaker 2: of her. She already knew about the tiger, and she
[22:29] Speaker 2: already knew about me, And I think she's the ex
[22:32] Speaker 2: But what's that the lion? Now when he says, quote
[22:36] Speaker 2: she already knew about the tiger, what did she know exactly?
[22:39] Speaker 3: Like?
[22:40] Speaker 2: Was she cool with the tiger? And he said and
[22:42] Speaker 2: a quote, nobody was okay with it. I haven't come
[22:45] Speaker 2: across any person who was okay with it. Nobody could
[22:48] Speaker 2: completely understand it, no matter how close they are to you.
[22:51] Speaker 2: So that this makes sense. We're getting to an answer
[22:54] Speaker 2: that makes sense. So he knows that this is nonsense.
[22:56] Speaker 2: He doesn't care because he's he's out there, he's a prophet.
[22:58] Speaker 2: He's like so far he knows he's out of pocket exactly.
[23:02] Speaker 2: But if they weren't cool that, why did people close
[23:05] Speaker 2: to him, Like, what did they say? Did they say, like,
[23:07] Speaker 2: hey man, Antoine, we've got these people we'd like you
[23:09] Speaker 2: to talk to, So courty Antoine, he said, and I
[23:11] Speaker 2: quote things like damn, he must be crazy and he
[23:14] Speaker 2: went and locked himself in with a tiger. Yeah, Twan
[23:17] Speaker 2: bugged out, That's what they said, stuff like that. I
[23:19] Speaker 2: never heard anybody look down on me because I wouldn't
[23:22] Speaker 2: tolerate that. I'm a grown man.
[23:24] Speaker 3: Wait, he's never heard anyone look down on him. He's
[23:26] Speaker 3: bugged out.
[23:26] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a lot of pivots in that. Why
[23:29] Speaker 2: praise it was just a fair assessment. Yeah, that's like
[23:33] Speaker 2: saying it's windy today. Twan's bugged out. These things are
[23:36] Speaker 2: just anyone can see that. Now. I imagine you don't
[23:39] Speaker 2: have to tolerate a lot of insults if you have
[23:41] Speaker 2: a pet tiger, like knock knock me and my tiger
[23:43] Speaker 2: wanted to hear you say that to my face, Like,
[23:45] Speaker 2: that's not gonna happen anyway. So we have a grown
[23:47] Speaker 2: ass man equally grown ass tiger living together. And once again,
[23:50] Speaker 2: don't forget the alligator and the lion.
[23:51] Speaker 3: Uh huh the floors in that apartment.
[23:54] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he beaten talked enough about the lion.
[23:58] Speaker 3: No, we really have not.
[24:00] Speaker 2: I focused on the tiger because I like tigers. But
[24:03] Speaker 2: Antoine he liked them all. So let's how did the
[24:06] Speaker 2: lions get into the apartment?
[24:07] Speaker 3: Lions?
[24:08] Speaker 2: Plural lions. This brings us to question number three. Were
[24:12] Speaker 2: did you get the tiger and the lions and the alligator?
[24:15] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[24:15] Speaker 2: That is so. Antoine not only had Ming the Merciless,
[24:19] Speaker 2: the Siberian tiger, and Al the alligator. He also had
[24:23] Speaker 2: Jaba and Nemo, his two.
[24:25] Speaker 3: Lions, Javamo male and female. Two males.
[24:29] Speaker 2: They weren't you It'll make sense in a second.
[24:32] Speaker 3: I'm just trying to they weren't. I'm just trying to.
[24:38] Speaker 2: Or not? Yeah, so I think both boys, both mains.
[24:42] Speaker 3: Okay, got it, got it?
[24:43] Speaker 2: Now you may hear he had two lions, a tiger,
[24:45] Speaker 2: an alligator, and think like he's like folks who want
[24:48] Speaker 2: to own a killer animal. That's his thing. But I
[24:51] Speaker 2: asked twan about that, and he said, you'll see people
[24:53] Speaker 2: get tigers like you know who's good for that. People
[24:55] Speaker 2: in Dubai chics and stuff, they get like tigers. And
[24:58] Speaker 2: I pointed out, yes, base on social media, so I've
[25:01] Speaker 2: seen in Dubai they drive around with cheetahs writing and
[25:03] Speaker 2: shot the other than like the hawks. It's the cheetahs, right.
[25:08] Speaker 2: So anyway back to his lions, Twan told me about
[25:11] Speaker 2: Nemo and Jaba and how they came into his life.
[25:13] Speaker 2: He had Nemo first, so I hope this answered some
[25:15] Speaker 2: questions for you, and I quote. I bought Nemo when
[25:18] Speaker 2: he was sick. The lady advised me he wouldn't live
[25:20] Speaker 2: too long, like she would be surprised if he lived
[25:22] Speaker 2: a week. I was like, it doesn't matter. I want
[25:24] Speaker 2: him anyway because he touched me, just one look and
[25:27] Speaker 2: he touched me. It didn't matter. I felt more responsible
[25:30] Speaker 2: in giving him a few days of love and happiness
[25:32] Speaker 2: than not having it at all and leaving here a
[25:34] Speaker 2: week dying. You know you understand what I'm saying. He
[25:37] Speaker 2: managed to live a year. He actually outdid me and
[25:40] Speaker 2: her expectations. He actually got better in the time I
[25:42] Speaker 2: was with him. He passed, not from the illness that
[25:45] Speaker 2: he had from her. Now for her places and I
[25:48] Speaker 2: thank you everybody means she's passing the lion and illness.
[25:51] Speaker 2: I want to be specific there. So you see, Nemo
[25:53] Speaker 2: and Ming they came as a package deal. Antoine drove
[25:56] Speaker 2: from New York City out to Minnesota to buy himself
[25:59] Speaker 2: a tiger lion and a lion. He bought Ming the tiger.
[26:03] Speaker 3: Lady, you got about a week left on this.
[26:06] Speaker 2: Wow, Well, it's it's hard to explain, he he what's
[26:08] Speaker 2: not easy, It's like, it's easy to explain. Actually, he
[26:11] Speaker 2: bought Ming the tiger for about thirty five hundred dollars
[26:14] Speaker 2: as a cub. Now, I don't know if the woman
[26:15] Speaker 2: just threw in the sick lion for free. He didn't
[26:20] Speaker 2: mention how much the lions cost, but he did remember
[26:23] Speaker 2: the trip though pretty well. Twan told me, and I quote,
[26:26] Speaker 2: I remember like it was yesterday. I asked two of
[26:28] Speaker 2: my friends to take the ride with me. And now
[26:30] Speaker 2: you're like, if if I'm a friend of yours, Elizabeth,
[26:32] Speaker 2: and I say, hey, Elizabeth, would you drive with me
[26:34] Speaker 2: to Minnesota so I can buy a tiger cub and
[26:36] Speaker 2: possibly a sick lion and drive them back to New York.
[26:40] Speaker 2: You did like a rental car or maybe a rental van. Yeah,
[26:44] Speaker 2: Now what would be your answer be? No? Yeah? But
[26:48] Speaker 2: like would you like tell me, like we like have
[26:50] Speaker 2: you is the gas on in your apartment? Like would
[26:52] Speaker 2: you be asking question, yeah, do you have a carbon
[26:55] Speaker 2: monoxide filter?
[26:56] Speaker 3: Yea?
[26:56] Speaker 2: So question for how and where does one buy a tiger? Okay? So,
[27:00] Speaker 2: so I told you about this the cost, and he
[27:02] Speaker 2: went to Minnesota. But that doesn't really answer any of
[27:04] Speaker 2: the questions in the state and the cost, right, So
[27:07] Speaker 2: I asked him because I was curious about the exotic
[27:09] Speaker 2: animal underground, so I wanted to the practical questions, right, So,
[27:13] Speaker 2: like if Twan had been saving up for his tiger,
[27:15] Speaker 2: or like, you know, did he have anything like a
[27:17] Speaker 2: picture like a church? Then they got the building fund
[27:19] Speaker 2: he's got like his tiger fund like an empty tiger
[27:21] Speaker 2: he's been filling.
[27:22] Speaker 3: Up with a red marker like a late night impulse
[27:25] Speaker 3: internet bu.
[27:26] Speaker 2: Or exactly did you see the ad? And he's like, yo,
[27:28] Speaker 2: do you still got that car, Bob? You know, because
[27:31] Speaker 2: I want to go out to Minnesota.
[27:32] Speaker 3: But then he had a long time to reconsider between
[27:35] Speaker 3: Harlem and Minnesota.
[27:36] Speaker 2: On that round, he said he would drive. Come on,
[27:39] Speaker 2: let's go. Anyway, Twan told me as to how he
[27:41] Speaker 2: bought his tiger. Quote, I bought him off impulse. I
[27:44] Speaker 2: had the money. I went and bottom, oh, apparently he
[27:47] Speaker 2: did see the ad. And then it's just like, I'm
[27:49] Speaker 2: gonna go make a tiger cub and impulse purchase. But
[27:52] Speaker 2: Twan wanted to kind of correct the use of impulse buy,
[27:55] Speaker 2: as he preferred to say, and a quote. When I
[27:57] Speaker 2: say off of impulse, it wasn't impulse to go I
[28:00] Speaker 2: the tiger. It was more of an impulse to me
[28:02] Speaker 2: reinventing myself and disconnecting myself from the environment I grew
[28:05] Speaker 2: up in. I was second tired of it. So I
[28:07] Speaker 2: literally locked myself in the house and one day I
[28:09] Speaker 2: was just sitting there and I wanted to buy some
[28:11] Speaker 2: property in upstate New York. I accomplished doing that, and
[28:15] Speaker 2: I said, until I leave, I need to fulfill something.
[28:18] Speaker 2: So I went and I bought the tiger, the.
[28:21] Speaker 3: First step to home ownership in upstate New York. Tiger.
[28:25] Speaker 2: He was going to make an animal sanctuary. And then
[28:27] Speaker 2: I think he jumped, you know, he did. He bought
[28:31] Speaker 2: the land he did. He bought the did not develop it,
[28:34] Speaker 2: bought the tiger. He needed to create the enclosure for
[28:37] Speaker 2: the tiger. Then get the tiger. He's like, I have
[28:39] Speaker 2: an apartment that's an enclosure. Go get the tiger out.
[28:43] Speaker 3: He's got land, but he doesn't have it's probably not
[28:46] Speaker 3: there's nothing on it, so there's probably no like utilities connected.
[28:50] Speaker 3: So you can't even start building like an actual struke. Okay, ye,
[28:54] Speaker 3: impulse just out in the middle of the woods with
[28:56] Speaker 3: the impulse by by like buying like baking supply, you
[29:00] Speaker 3: knowty at night being like, you know what I really
[29:03] Speaker 3: need buttermilk powder, you know, stuff like that.
[29:08] Speaker 2: Those are normal impulse purchases from what I understand. Yeah,
[29:10] Speaker 2: I'm a little bit more like twan, but I've never
[29:12] Speaker 2: bought anything like a tiger anyway. So tiger, tiger burning bright.
[29:16] Speaker 2: So he had Bantoine, had Ming the tiger, cub, Nemo
[29:19] Speaker 2: the sick lion, and al the alligator, all living together.
[29:22] Speaker 2: And as he told me.
[29:25] Speaker 3: Quote at one of the worst children, the saddest one.
[29:30] Speaker 2: Quote at one time, Yeah, I had one lion, a tiger,
[29:32] Speaker 2: and an alligator. My other lion, Jaba, I had at
[29:35] Speaker 2: a different time. He wasn't at the time of Nemo
[29:37] Speaker 2: and Ming. Nimo and Ming came together, and Al had
[29:40] Speaker 2: already been there. So if you're like me, you're wondering
[29:42] Speaker 2: Al the alligator, he'd already been there.
[29:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not adding up.
[29:46] Speaker 2: I said, well, where did you get Al the alligators?
[29:48] Speaker 2: You got Al first, And then you're like, I need
[29:50] Speaker 2: to get some big cats right right, This tiger needs
[29:53] Speaker 2: to happen because this alligator he ain't loving on me,
[29:56] Speaker 2: and I think a tiger will reptiles. What can I
[29:59] Speaker 2: tell you, man, old blooded creatures.
[30:00] Speaker 3: I thought that Ming was the impetus for the sanctuary,
[30:05] Speaker 3: but then he already had an alligator and a previous lion.
[30:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, and he bought the alligator, as he told me,
[30:10] Speaker 2: I bought him in New Jersey. So you can buy
[30:14] Speaker 2: an alligator in New Jersey, because of course you can't.
[30:17] Speaker 2: They got alligators falling off the backs of trucks in
[30:19] Speaker 2: New Jersey. But I, you know, moving aside that, let's
[30:22] Speaker 2: just go back to more practical questions. Question number five.
[30:25] Speaker 2: If any of Antoine's many killer animals escaped or one
[30:28] Speaker 2: of his neighbors, you know, could have lost their lives,
[30:30] Speaker 2: did that ever worry him, did bother him. I have
[30:33] Speaker 2: like a new small nuclear weapon in my home that
[30:35] Speaker 2: can take out half of my neighbors. And this is
[30:38] Speaker 2: where he kind of loses me, because Antoine said, and
[30:40] Speaker 2: I quote, I'm going to do what I need to
[30:42] Speaker 2: do for me, regardless of your approval or not. As
[30:45] Speaker 2: long as I don't put anyone in harm's way. As
[30:47] Speaker 2: long as I'm not jeopardizing anyone's life or their integrity,
[30:51] Speaker 2: then I don't think I'm doing anything wrong. Now, I
[30:54] Speaker 2: would like to argue with him about what the term
[30:56] Speaker 2: putting anyone and jeopardize anyone's I'm not sure if he
[31:01] Speaker 2: has defined these terms. Now, my man, you have a tiger,
[31:04] Speaker 2: a lion, and an alligator in your apartment.
[31:07] Speaker 3: And where does Jaba fall in this timeline?
[31:11] Speaker 2: Early on? And then dies so it passes away? Certain, yes,
[31:14] Speaker 2: mimos the one.
[31:15] Speaker 3: So he has Jaba and then at some point alf
[31:18] Speaker 3: out first, then job job, then Jaba dies and he
[31:22] Speaker 3: was like, I need a tiger. Oh, ps, here's a
[31:24] Speaker 3: sick line.
[31:25] Speaker 2: Another lion throwing a lion. I've had one of these before.
[31:28] Speaker 3: I've had a lion die in my apartment before.
[31:31] Speaker 2: Is not a problem.
[31:32] Speaker 3: I'm still wondering how you dispose of that?
[31:34] Speaker 2: Got an alligator? Elizabeth? So sorry? So what Nature's garbage
[31:42] Speaker 2: raider just put it in there? So what if the
[31:46] Speaker 2: unexpected occur? What if his brother came over and accidentally
[31:49] Speaker 2: left the front door open. He's like, I got your mail,
[31:51] Speaker 2: and he closes it and doesn't clock it.
[31:53] Speaker 3: Right, I think his brother's paying close attention.
[31:55] Speaker 2: Or what if someone he didn't know broke in it
[31:57] Speaker 2: was like hey, and they left the door open, and
[31:59] Speaker 2: his like tiger went off exploring Manhattan. Right, Oh, that's fine,
[32:03] Speaker 2: Antoine told me in the face of that hypothetical end quote,
[32:06] Speaker 2: that's not my fault, that's his fault. That's no different
[32:08] Speaker 2: than if they break in and I got a gun
[32:10] Speaker 2: and I blow the head off. That's on them. That's
[32:13] Speaker 2: the same thing. You're somewhere you're not supposed to be
[32:15] Speaker 2: doing something you're not supposed to do. How can I
[32:17] Speaker 2: be blamed for someone else's stupidity. He's the one going
[32:21] Speaker 2: around robbing people's apartments. They just happened to run into
[32:23] Speaker 2: somebody whose apartment has a tiger. Somebody's apartment has a tiger.
[32:28] Speaker 3: Part of the castle, Doc.
[32:32] Speaker 2: Yes, it's a loose interpretation of the castle doctrine. So
[32:37] Speaker 2: Antoine agreed that he was something of an outlaw. He
[32:39] Speaker 2: liked it when I called him a full hero outlaw.
[32:41] Speaker 2: He's like, quote, I feel like an outlaw one hundred percent.
[32:44] Speaker 2: He said that with a very bright laugh. Mind you,
[32:46] Speaker 2: I have to add that I definitely felt like an
[32:49] Speaker 2: outlaw because I had to keep everything so quiet. It
[32:51] Speaker 2: was me and him against the world. You know what
[32:53] Speaker 2: I mean? No, I do not know what you mean, Anteline.
[32:56] Speaker 2: I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep this quiet
[32:58] Speaker 2: and protect you. At the same time, we have a
[32:59] Speaker 2: journey that we on, so we have to keep this good.
[33:02] Speaker 2: He's talking to the Tiger, of course, sure or you Well,
[33:05] Speaker 2: the interview wasn't Journeyalizabeth. But so as they tried to
[33:10] Speaker 2: keep this good, he had basically had to convince Ming
[33:13] Speaker 2: and al and Nemo that like, look y'all, we in
[33:15] Speaker 2: this together. We a team.
[33:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, we're a family.
[33:18] Speaker 2: Everything outside that's against us, do it for the club.
[33:20] Speaker 2: We got to be together.
[33:21] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[33:22] Speaker 2: So obviously that didn't play out right. So right, we
[33:25] Speaker 2: did go badly. Well, let's take a break and after
[33:28] Speaker 2: these messages, I will tell you how this all goes
[33:31] Speaker 2: ker pluttery and we're back, Elizabeth, Hello, how did a
[33:54] Speaker 2: human being communicate with a tiger? That's question six?
[33:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, right, telepathically?
[34:00] Speaker 2: He answered that one twan he kind of vacillated between poetic,
[34:03] Speaker 2: philosophical and drunk me talking about an Eddie Murphy movie
[34:07] Speaker 2: I didn't like. So he said, and I quote, if
[34:10] Speaker 2: you only see things only through our eyes, we're limiting ourselves.
[34:14] Speaker 2: And that's where a sense of communication comes in. I'm
[34:17] Speaker 2: not talking some Doctor Doolittle. Where you sit down. Are
[34:20] Speaker 2: you talking animals or talking back to you? Communication is universal.
[34:24] Speaker 2: It goes from verbal to sign language, to motions to
[34:27] Speaker 2: impressions on your face. Whatever. Maing did something wrong, I
[34:31] Speaker 2: only had to look at him, and he knew it
[34:32] Speaker 2: was wrong. I'd turn around and look at him. He'd
[34:35] Speaker 2: look at me, go in the corner and curl up.
[34:37] Speaker 2: I didn't have to scream, I didn't have to hit him,
[34:40] Speaker 2: none of that. I see how others who raise animals
[34:42] Speaker 2: they get in this dominating posture. That's not a relationships.
[34:46] Speaker 2: That's you trying to pose your will on something that's
[34:50] Speaker 2: not a fair relationship. So, Elizabeth, now that we have
[34:53] Speaker 2: pulled back the carpet and reached the brass tacks and yes,
[34:58] Speaker 2: and number seven, how do you live in an apartment
[35:01] Speaker 2: with the tiger? Like? What's the day to day routine?
[35:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really curious about that.
[35:04] Speaker 2: According by Mantoin, he said his relationship with Ming was
[35:07] Speaker 2: far different than anything you might see in some docuseries
[35:09] Speaker 2: about tiger kings and if you're wondering, he hated that
[35:12] Speaker 2: Netflix documentary. Sure he can't stand Joe Exotic, but also
[35:15] Speaker 2: he may be a little hurt that the documentary didn't
[35:17] Speaker 2: try very hard to get to him to participate. Who knows,
[35:20] Speaker 2: I'm not saying yeah, he said, and I'll quote him,
[35:23] Speaker 2: they couldn't find me. I don't think. I'm not saying
[35:26] Speaker 2: they couldn't. But I didn't hear from them. I've been
[35:28] Speaker 2: off the grid and I usually don't get on Facebook
[35:30] Speaker 2: or any social media like that. I don't know if
[35:32] Speaker 2: they reached out or not, but if they did, I
[35:34] Speaker 2: wouldn't have done it. One thing about that Joe Exotic character.
[35:37] Speaker 2: He gave you what he was, so I kind of
[35:39] Speaker 2: respect him for that. He's like, if I'm an I'm
[35:41] Speaker 2: gonna be the best. Anyway, What was it like like
[35:46] Speaker 2: I found you, dude, exactly, you can be found. I mean,
[35:50] Speaker 2: you're not that far off the grid, like I'm good,
[35:52] Speaker 2: but like Harlem is not that far from the internet.
[35:57] Speaker 2: Actually have it anyway? So what was for Twana average day?
[36:01] Speaker 2: I promise you living in an apartment with the tiger, Elizabeth,
[36:03] Speaker 2: Let's crack open a huge carton of ice cream and
[36:05] Speaker 2: share it and watch some Animal Planet videos. He merciless Meng. No,
[36:08] Speaker 2: that's not how it works, not exactly. But he did
[36:11] Speaker 2: tell me an average day with his tiger, and I quote,
[36:13] Speaker 2: my relationship with Meng was beautiful. It was so beautiful
[36:15] Speaker 2: you couldn't pay me ten million dollars to erase my memories.
[36:19] Speaker 2: Our bond was unique, it was different. I'm trying to
[36:22] Speaker 2: give you a better understanding of our bond. Let's take
[36:24] Speaker 2: Joe Exotic, Let's take the lady from Tampa. Let's take
[36:27] Speaker 2: a thousand other tiger owners. I'm gonna show you the difference.
[36:31] Speaker 2: Most of those owners only spend a fraction of time
[36:33] Speaker 2: with the animals.
[36:34] Speaker 3: You know why.
[36:35] Speaker 2: They have fences, enclosed backyards so their environment is controlled.
[36:39] Speaker 3: Not him, no control.
[36:41] Speaker 2: In this environment, uncontrolled. He usually would spend twenty three
[36:44] Speaker 2: hours a day living with his tiger like roommates.
[36:47] Speaker 3: But also either in solitary.
[36:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, basically they were in the hole together. Yeah, you're
[36:52] Speaker 2: in the hole with a tiger, he said. And he
[36:55] Speaker 2: told me, and I quote, I just have a natural day.
[36:58] Speaker 2: It's like you having a dog. It's no different. If
[37:00] Speaker 2: I'm laying down, he's laying down right next to me.
[37:02] Speaker 2: And if I'm getting up to go to the bathroom,
[37:03] Speaker 2: he's gonna follow me to the bathroom. If I said, hey, yo,
[37:06] Speaker 2: man sit down to chill out, he'd sit down and
[37:08] Speaker 2: chill out. If I said, man, go lay down and
[37:10] Speaker 2: go to sleep, he go lay down and go to sleep.
[37:12] Speaker 2: So just natural, you know, natural. There was no extra
[37:14] Speaker 2: stuff I needed to do to take control of me
[37:17] Speaker 2: and his relationship. Everything was natural. Now. For daily routines,
[37:21] Speaker 2: he would cut out each morning for about an hour.
[37:23] Speaker 2: He goes shopping for the day's food.
[37:26] Speaker 3: Day, he's got to go to a butcher twenty.
[37:28] Speaker 2: Pounds of meat. He usually went with chunks of chicken,
[37:32] Speaker 2: cuts of beef, liver, and some bones for tooth. Heelf. Yeah,
[37:35] Speaker 2: And once his errands were done, then he'd pop back
[37:37] Speaker 2: to his place for the next twenty three hours inside.
[37:40] Speaker 3: God. Yeah, and the butcher is just like, I don't even.
[37:43] Speaker 2: Want to know. Don't tell me what's where this is going,
[37:46] Speaker 2: what you're feeding this to. Just tell me you're a
[37:48] Speaker 2: fisherman and keep it moving. It's all for fait. So
[37:51] Speaker 2: if Twan told me, and I quote, Okay, I'm gonna
[37:54] Speaker 2: feed my tigers, then I'm gonna go be about my
[37:56] Speaker 2: business and do what I gotta do for the rest
[37:58] Speaker 2: of the day. So if I choose to go in
[37:59] Speaker 2: the afternoon play with them a little bit, then I'm
[38:01] Speaker 2: gonna play with them a little bit. So no, let's
[38:03] Speaker 2: skip that and jump over to New York to Antoine
[38:05] Speaker 2: and his apartment in Harlem. I don't have a backyard,
[38:08] Speaker 2: which means I'm confined to be around you twenty three
[38:11] Speaker 2: hours of the day. I'm locked down in a house
[38:13] Speaker 2: with a tiger in a small environment. I have no
[38:16] Speaker 2: other choice but to bond with being on a level
[38:18] Speaker 2: that people can never understand. There's no choice. It's like
[38:22] Speaker 2: playing a game of Russian Roulette. Put a bullet in it,
[38:24] Speaker 2: spin it and clicking.
[38:26] Speaker 3: No, did he have a job. I don't know how
[38:29] Speaker 3: this works because he has to be able to buy
[38:31] Speaker 3: twenty pounds of.
[38:32] Speaker 2: Meeting to day exactly. I'm figuring maybe he's like doing
[38:35] Speaker 2: like drop shipping. I had no idea he's a center guy.
[38:41] Speaker 2: I ain't gonna tell you about that. I'm like, okay, cool,
[38:42] Speaker 2: I don't need to know that answer, because there could
[38:44] Speaker 2: be so many answers. I don't want to hear it.
[38:45] Speaker 2: So I was like, you know what, let's just pretend
[38:47] Speaker 2: you are you've inherited money and you've been hiding that
[38:52] Speaker 2: from the public housing. Anyway, when he would be telling
[38:56] Speaker 2: me about all this, right, I can always hear him
[38:58] Speaker 2: rationalizing something that just didn't sit right with me, and
[39:00] Speaker 2: I was hoping not with him either. But he would
[39:03] Speaker 2: talk about how he and the tiger were both evolving,
[39:05] Speaker 2: and you know nature evolves, you know, as the environment
[39:08] Speaker 2: changes and in response. But he wasn't breeding tigers, so
[39:11] Speaker 2: I don't know where the evolution was coming. He was
[39:13] Speaker 2: domesticating one.
[39:14] Speaker 3: Tigers personal evolution.
[39:16] Speaker 2: He was getting very confused about what evolution and domestication are.
[39:20] Speaker 2: Thank you, as he told me, and I quote, my
[39:22] Speaker 2: whole strategy was coexisting with him like one of those
[39:25] Speaker 2: bumper cigars, but at the same time evolving with him
[39:28] Speaker 2: as well, and not only me evolving, but watching him evolve.
[39:32] Speaker 2: It was real unique for me to be studying tigers
[39:34] Speaker 2: and understanding tigers all these years to now sit down
[39:38] Speaker 2: and to really have one in the flesh in front
[39:40] Speaker 2: of you, and you watching him evolve from what you
[39:42] Speaker 2: already know how tigers are naturally, and I'm sitting here
[39:45] Speaker 2: watching him evolve into something else. My brother in Christ,
[39:49] Speaker 2: you are deluding yourself that tiger is tiger on day
[39:52] Speaker 2: one and on day seven hundred is still a tiger
[39:55] Speaker 2: burning bright?
[39:56] Speaker 3: Did you think you ever put t shirts on the tiger?
[39:58] Speaker 2: Oh? My god, A little like like maybe like tear
[40:00] Speaker 2: away ties, you know, like clip on tires. Yeah, I
[40:04] Speaker 2: got a wig.
[40:05] Speaker 3: I got thinking because when you mentioned the co Exist
[40:08] Speaker 3: bumper sticker, I was like, what if you put it
[40:10] Speaker 3: co Exist bumper sticker on the tiger? But then I
[40:13] Speaker 3: was a shirt or you feel like a Dale Earnhardt shirt.
[40:15] Speaker 2: On this anyway, Goo intimidator. So question eight, Elizabeth, why
[40:22] Speaker 2: did it all go wrong? Why did ming the tiger
[40:24] Speaker 2: attack him? In other words, if their relationship was so
[40:27] Speaker 2: unique and they were evolving, if Antoine was successfully living
[40:30] Speaker 2: in harmony with a tiger, a lion, and an alligator.
[40:33] Speaker 2: What disrupted their routine? What change that made Ming want
[40:36] Speaker 2: to attack him? And maybe not you know the lion
[40:39] Speaker 2: he attacked others. Yeah, turns out it was the introduction
[40:41] Speaker 2: of the unexpected. It's always the unexpected. In this case,
[40:45] Speaker 2: it was a tiny sick cat. As Antoine recalled, Shadow
[40:49] Speaker 2: showed up to at my door a week or two before.
[40:52] Speaker 2: I took Shadow in and kept him in a separate room.
[40:54] Speaker 2: That day was the first time they seen each other.
[40:57] Speaker 1: So the.
[41:00] Speaker 2: Day of the attack, Antoine heard his Siberian tiger crying. Crying,
[41:04] Speaker 2: that's his word. Antoine assumed his big cat was feeling lonely.
[41:07] Speaker 2: So personally, based on what had happened, I would say
[41:09] Speaker 2: that the tiger was feeling jealous. That's just me. Anyway,
[41:11] Speaker 2: Antoine tried to do what he would normally do. He
[41:13] Speaker 2: tried to play with his tiger Ming. He ran over
[41:15] Speaker 2: to him. They played a game twan called Buddy Buddy Now.
[41:18] Speaker 2: It's one of Ming's favorite games. Apparently it was a
[41:20] Speaker 2: mock playfight game. So then while they're mock playfighting, the
[41:25] Speaker 2: tiny kitten came onto the scene. So Ming catches one
[41:29] Speaker 2: side of the kitten and his eyes flash right. Oh
[41:32] Speaker 2: my god, So the shadow of the tiny house cat
[41:35] Speaker 2: is disrupted the delicate balance of the ecosystem at this point.
[41:40] Speaker 2: Back to Twan and I quote, I always knew it
[41:42] Speaker 2: was a risk. The thing is, when the two of
[41:45] Speaker 2: them came face to face that day, there wasn't never
[41:47] Speaker 2: supposed to happen. I was thrown off my typical day
[41:50] Speaker 2: to day routine. My thought process was off, he said
[41:53] Speaker 2: to me, coming back upstairs and putting Shadow away in
[41:55] Speaker 2: his room where he typically stayed and spent his whole
[41:58] Speaker 2: day at, and then letting Ming out of his time
[42:01] Speaker 2: out room, so he can't you know, venture the house.
[42:04] Speaker 2: I was thrown off. But when I opened the door,
[42:06] Speaker 2: Shadow followed me into the room where Ming was at,
[42:09] Speaker 2: and that's when they came face to face. So now
[42:11] Speaker 2: he's standing between the two cats. So what do you
[42:14] Speaker 2: think happens when a tiny house cat finds a full
[42:17] Speaker 2: grown Siberian tiger staring down at him? I don't, Well,
[42:20] Speaker 2: you don't need to answer that question, because I'm going
[42:22] Speaker 2: to tell you. So if you will, I'd like you
[42:24] Speaker 2: to close your eyes and picture.
[42:26] Speaker 3: It, and I'll be quoting from my man antoine and
[42:32] Speaker 3: feel like I'm actually there in the room.
[42:34] Speaker 2: He ran towards the kitchen and Ming chased him. So
[42:37] Speaker 2: this leaves the question what was going through Yates's mind,
[42:40] Speaker 2: as if the peaceful apartment turned into a scene of
[42:42] Speaker 2: nature's ruthlessness. Elizabeth, you are there and you are a
[42:47] Speaker 2: dust mode floating in the air. Nothing you can do
[42:51] Speaker 2: watching slow motion, as Yates shouts, I didn't even have
[42:55] Speaker 2: time to think. Everything was just impossible. So and I quote,
[42:59] Speaker 2: I remember everything that happened. Shadow ran, Ming chased him.
[43:02] Speaker 2: I jumped in front of me and took the blot
[43:04] Speaker 2: of the impact of his charge. Fell to the floor.
[43:06] Speaker 2: Ning went to jump over me. I grabbed him. He
[43:09] Speaker 2: bit down on my neck, turned me loose and went
[43:12] Speaker 2: to jump on Shadow. I grabbed him again. He bit
[43:14] Speaker 2: me on my more arm. That hurt a little because
[43:17] Speaker 2: he applied more pressure, and then he went to jump
[43:19] Speaker 2: over me again. I yanked his fur again. That's when
[43:22] Speaker 2: he grabbed my knee, and this is when he held
[43:24] Speaker 2: onto it. You were watching this as you fell, Lily
[43:29] Speaker 2: buffed the scene. There's nothing to so now. It was
[43:36] Speaker 2: about me trying to get my knee out of his mouth.
[43:38] Speaker 2: That took about three minutes. When he had my knee
[43:40] Speaker 2: in his mouth. That had me going through flashes of life.
[43:43] Speaker 2: Everything was like flashes of this picture that picture, and
[43:45] Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, I guess this is
[43:47] Speaker 2: where I die at.
[43:49] Speaker 3: No.
[43:50] Speaker 2: You see him having the thought this is where I
[43:53] Speaker 2: die at as you flowed listlessly towards shadow the cat,
[43:56] Speaker 2: wondering if you will make it. Oh good, I cammip
[44:00] Speaker 2: down and got focused, and I calmly started talking to Ming.
[44:03] Speaker 2: I just ignored everything else that was going on, the pain,
[44:06] Speaker 2: adrenaline flowing everything. I just blanked it out and just
[44:10] Speaker 2: focused on the same way I'm talking to you, being calm.
[44:13] Speaker 2: I had to talk to him like that. Once I
[44:15] Speaker 2: got controlled the situation, I had to get my leg
[44:19] Speaker 2: out of his mouth. I coached him about three times
[44:23] Speaker 2: with the word no.
[44:28] Speaker 3: No.
[44:30] Speaker 2: As you see the word form in the mouth, you
[44:33] Speaker 2: watched once again helplessly. Ming turned and tried to charge
[44:41] Speaker 2: me again and said Ming, no, and then he went
[44:43] Speaker 2: into the bathroom. He closed the door. I held the
[44:45] Speaker 2: door shut until my brothers and them came upstairs. So
[44:48] Speaker 2: he got lucky that Ming jumped for the bathroom because
[44:52] Speaker 2: cats were like, oh I'm gonna come be in my
[44:54] Speaker 2: my Heidi hole, in the Heidi hole for him as
[44:55] Speaker 2: a bathroom shadow. Shadow never got me, Elizabeth, I would
[44:59] Speaker 2: not tell you a story the shadow got eaten.
[45:01] Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Shadows Like, what what was the problem?
[45:05] Speaker 2: What? When I asked Yates, what he thinks that you
[45:07] Speaker 2: know change that day for Ming, he insists nothing changed.
[45:11] Speaker 2: When I jumped in front of him, Ming's head hit
[45:13] Speaker 2: my chest and I fell to the floor. But as
[45:15] Speaker 2: I was yanking on him, that caused him to bite,
[45:17] Speaker 2: that causing effect, that action and reaction. It's no different
[45:21] Speaker 2: than if you're walking down the street and one of
[45:22] Speaker 2: your closest friends sneaks up behind you and pulls on
[45:25] Speaker 2: your jacket. You're gonna turn around a swing. That's basically
[45:28] Speaker 2: what all that was about. It was never an attack,
[45:30] Speaker 2: but that's what they chose to write. And I was like,
[45:32] Speaker 2: that's what people choose to believe, and they could believe that,
[45:35] Speaker 2: but to me it sounds crazy. I mean, to me,
[45:37] Speaker 2: if somebody says that someone got mauled, it means that
[45:39] Speaker 2: person is in a real bad situation. Right, But I'm
[45:42] Speaker 2: walking around, I'm still alive. I haven't even lotted a limb.
[45:45] Speaker 2: You couldn't even tell I got bit by a tiger
[45:47] Speaker 2: unless I told you and I showed you the mark.
[45:51] Speaker 2: But there you go, Lizabeth. That's how I played.
[45:52] Speaker 3: It was kind of not wrong because it's not like
[45:54] Speaker 3: Ming just suddenly flashed on him one day exactly for
[45:57] Speaker 3: no reason. I mean he got in the way of
[45:59] Speaker 3: the cat hunting the cat or Yeah.
[46:02] Speaker 2: I think it was actually a very I think the
[46:04] Speaker 2: cat was jealous, you know, I think he was right.
[46:06] Speaker 2: I think his read of Ming is that bing and
[46:08] Speaker 2: he did have a bond. He sees this shadow and
[46:10] Speaker 2: he's like, what the and then went to like I
[46:12] Speaker 2: think it tearried out territorially or attack it.
[46:14] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's like he's, you know, the tigers
[46:17] Speaker 3: a predator and they see a smaller creature. They're going
[46:21] Speaker 3: to do what they're going to do, especially if it's
[46:22] Speaker 3: skittish and moving quickly. And then but he gets in
[46:25] Speaker 3: the way of the cat, of the big cat tigers,
[46:28] Speaker 3: and the.
[46:28] Speaker 2: Ming didn't like bite his head or his neck other areas.
[46:33] Speaker 2: He was like, move, do something I need to We've
[46:38] Speaker 2: got an interloper.
[46:39] Speaker 3: You can't see there's a little kitten.
[46:41] Speaker 2: Right behind you is something like a rat. I don't know.
[46:44] Speaker 2: So what did the NYPD do once they arrive on
[46:47] Speaker 2: the scene, Elizabeth did they went out firearms and come
[46:49] Speaker 2: into the apartment.
[46:50] Speaker 3: What did Lieutenant?
[46:53] Speaker 2: They did not come in blazing. Instead, they unscrewed the
[46:56] Speaker 2: people to the front door, tried to see if there
[46:58] Speaker 2: was a tiger walking around. That plan failed, and they
[47:01] Speaker 2: tried to lower a camera in from an upstairs apartment
[47:03] Speaker 2: and look through the window. Again no luck. So someone
[47:07] Speaker 2: would have to go into the apartment and bring the tiger.
[47:09] Speaker 3: Out, and the alligator called the zoo and come out.
[47:13] Speaker 2: The NYPD officers on the scene that first night, we're like, no,
[47:17] Speaker 2: they left the tiger in the apartment. Now nobody's like.
[47:20] Speaker 2: NYPD brass were like, you guys, you know we're gonna
[47:22] Speaker 2: kick this one up. Was it one and one pp? Yes,
[47:26] Speaker 2: there you go. So some cop was like, oh, I know,
[47:30] Speaker 2: some cop overt one PP was like I know the
[47:31] Speaker 2: answer the zoo. Yeah. So they were like, you know,
[47:36] Speaker 2: they would know what to do. So the cops are like,
[47:39] Speaker 2: there are people Bobby both and they're like, hey, Bronx zoo.
[47:41] Speaker 2: Bronx was like, yeah, hey, NYPD, what do you all
[47:43] Speaker 2: want the zoo. Keeper's like, is this a prank call?
[47:45] Speaker 2: What do you mean you want to know if we
[47:47] Speaker 2: want a free tiger. Cops are like, yeah, you guys
[47:50] Speaker 2: have tigers. We got one more for him.
[47:53] Speaker 3: Be cool.
[47:53] Speaker 2: You guys need an alligator. They were like, that's not
[47:56] Speaker 2: how a zoo works. This is not how we don't
[47:58] Speaker 2: just have people calls going, hey, I got his.
[48:00] Speaker 3: We had a sick ass lion too, Is it cool?
[48:02] Speaker 2: No, it's like sick you're probably gonna like it may
[48:04] Speaker 2: die in the ride over.
[48:05] Speaker 3: It's not like riding a skateboard.
[48:06] Speaker 2: The cops as I'm like, hey, that guy's sick ass line.
[48:09] Speaker 2: So the cops asked, I'm like, hey, would you guys
[48:11] Speaker 2: send over somebody who's good with tigers? You know, like
[48:13] Speaker 2: that you got somebody maybe got a Thursday off the brox.
[48:17] Speaker 2: It was like, yeah, good luck with that. No, they
[48:20] Speaker 2: wouldn't go would help, So the zoo wouldn't take the tiger.
[48:23] Speaker 2: It wouldn't help someone. NYPD post two officers outside the
[48:26] Speaker 2: apartment door and they tell them don't let anyone into
[48:29] Speaker 2: the apartment. Yeah, more importantly, don't let the tiger out.
[48:34] Speaker 2: The two cops stood in front of the apartment.
[48:36] Speaker 3: Go in there. Just give me a couple of bags
[48:37] Speaker 3: and meat. That's a tranquilizer gun. Then you just you
[48:42] Speaker 3: put tranquilizers in the meat and you throw it in there.
[48:44] Speaker 2: Okay, and then you brother, you just quickly make your move.
[48:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you wait and like I would cut
[48:49] Speaker 3: more like a little bit bigger hole than that's I
[48:52] Speaker 3: could stick my face through the front door.
[48:56] Speaker 2: They'd wait talking to him.
[48:57] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I watched him eat the tranquilizer meat and
[49:00] Speaker 3: then my arm comes through the hole in the door.
[49:03] Speaker 3: Two double tap, Yeah, double tap.
[49:06] Speaker 2: So you got plans?
[49:07] Speaker 3: They did, not, right, I always have one.
[49:09] Speaker 2: Antoine Yates, He's like you, He's like, I need to
[49:11] Speaker 2: get to my tiger. I got planned. So yeah, checked
[49:13] Speaker 2: himself out of Harlem hospital against right, and he went
[49:18] Speaker 2: back to his apartment to check on his tiger. The
[49:20] Speaker 2: two cops standing outside are like, we don't get what
[49:22] Speaker 2: your apartment man, We got orders. No one goes inside,
[49:24] Speaker 2: can't let the tiger out. So sorry.
[49:26] Speaker 3: He's like, but I got that tiger in me, and
[49:28] Speaker 3: then he volved them.
[49:30] Speaker 2: He was still bleeding, so.
[49:31] Speaker 3: Maybe he evolved into a tiger.
[49:33] Speaker 2: Oh good call. No, so at twan he spent the
[49:35] Speaker 2: night at a friend's apartment. The next day he fled
[49:37] Speaker 2: to Philadelphia because he's like he once the drugs wore off,
[49:40] Speaker 2: He's like, oh yeah, it's not gonna be good. I'm
[49:42] Speaker 2: probably gonna lose my public housing. You're probably gonna come
[49:44] Speaker 2: after me for having a tiger in my apartment. And
[49:47] Speaker 2: then there's al MPD meanwhile left holding strategy meetings about
[49:52] Speaker 2: what to do about the tiger and the Harlem apartment.
[49:54] Speaker 2: So the Chief of Police, now John Seymour, he declared
[49:56] Speaker 2: that the tiger was quote an emergency he madeority for NYPD.
[50:01] Speaker 2: So the brass they phone around any of all wild
[50:03] Speaker 2: animal agencies for advice. They so they say, anyone can
[50:06] Speaker 2: help us get a tiger out of the apartment. Are like,
[50:08] Speaker 2: is this a joke? Like no one believed at first.
[50:10] Speaker 2: Finally the police came up to a very cop like conclusion.
[50:13] Speaker 2: They're like, we're gonna have to shoot the tiger ourselves.
[50:15] Speaker 2: We're just gonna have to do this, right, don't worry, Elizabeth,
[50:17] Speaker 2: the tranquilizer gun. They came up with your solution. Now.
[50:20] Speaker 2: The next day, rookie officer Martin Duffy arrives at work
[50:23] Speaker 2: and a veteran cop comes up to him. He's like, hey, rookie,
[50:26] Speaker 2: got a job for you today, Martin. He's like, You're
[50:29] Speaker 2: going to Harlem to shoot a tiger. He's like, come on, Joe,
[50:32] Speaker 2: what am I really doing? You're going to Harlem to
[50:34] Speaker 2: shoot a tiger?
[50:35] Speaker 3: They sent a rookie.
[50:36] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So the cops had located Ming the Merciless
[50:40] Speaker 2: in the apartment as well as Al the alligator. Both
[50:42] Speaker 2: were inside, so the officers were given the green light
[50:45] Speaker 2: for their mission shoot the tiger and Duffy arrives on
[50:48] Speaker 2: the scene. He's handed a rope and a tranquilizer rifle.
[50:52] Speaker 3: A rope.
[50:52] Speaker 2: Yeah. The plan was simple, Elizabeth. He would repel down
[50:54] Speaker 2: the side. It's not a cowboy even. He's gonna repel
[51:01] Speaker 2: down the side of the apartment building, get a visual
[51:03] Speaker 2: of the tiger in the apartment. Once spotted, Rookie Copp
[51:06] Speaker 2: will then have one chance to aim his rifle, fire
[51:09] Speaker 2: the trank dart through the glass. And this is a plan,
[51:12] Speaker 2: of course, which sounds all fine and good when you're
[51:14] Speaker 2: on a rooftop, right, but then when you were like
[51:15] Speaker 2: hanging off the side of the building, faced with.
[51:18] Speaker 3: You know, if I watched television and one of the
[51:20] Speaker 3: shows that I watched was nine one lone star, yeah,
[51:23] Speaker 3: I would say that this is like outrageous out from
[51:27] Speaker 3: that show.
[51:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like when they had the chest compression on
[51:29] Speaker 2: the guy who was frozen, or the the volcano mov
[51:34] Speaker 2: on the guy the pool party. So now they got
[51:37] Speaker 2: a cop hanging up the side of a building, dangling
[51:39] Speaker 2: like fresh bait on a fisherman's line, clutching an air
[51:41] Speaker 2: rifle in his one hand.
[51:43] Speaker 3: I feel like they should have sent the fire department
[51:45] Speaker 3: in instead.
[51:45] Speaker 2: You would hope, right, man. But anyway, rookie Copper called
[51:48] Speaker 2: what he was thinking. This is according Officer Duffy, I
[51:50] Speaker 2: introduced the rifle into the window. I make sure the
[51:53] Speaker 2: barrel isn't blocked by the child's safety gates because they're yeah,
[51:57] Speaker 2: public housing child safety gates. And then he added, you
[52:00] Speaker 2: one dart and I'm successful in hitting him. I hit him,
[52:03] Speaker 2: and he jumps up, he runs away, and he runs
[52:07] Speaker 2: up to the far wall of the bedroom and he
[52:09] Speaker 2: turns around and he comes running back at the window
[52:13] Speaker 2: at me. So now the tiger's pissed and coming right
[52:16] Speaker 2: at him. So the child safety bars on the window.
[52:19] Speaker 2: They're the only thing that's going to keep this tiger
[52:21] Speaker 2: from jumping right and grabbing him and then making a
[52:24] Speaker 2: fault five minutes so luckily for the rookie cob as
[52:29] Speaker 2: he's staring into the eyes of the tiger and praying
[52:31] Speaker 2: the big cat didn't jump again the second time, breaking
[52:34] Speaker 2: through the glass. Instead, Ming hits the glass, bounces off again,
[52:38] Speaker 2: runs around the apartment, and then the tranquilizer catches up
[52:41] Speaker 2: to them fifteen minutes later, hun snoozing kitty nice. So
[52:45] Speaker 2: once they're satisfied, tigers down, Emergency Service officers members of
[52:48] Speaker 2: the Wildlife Conservation Society. That's where they finally got to
[52:51] Speaker 2: come out. They enter the apartment, they pull Ming the
[52:53] Speaker 2: ten foot Siberian tiger and Al the six foot long
[52:56] Speaker 2: alligator out. They take them both the animal refuge areas
[52:59] Speaker 2: and YPD officer is also able to catch up to
[53:02] Speaker 2: Antoine Yates, who had been hiding out in the hospital
[53:04] Speaker 2: in Philadelphia.
[53:05] Speaker 3: Oh, he had to go back in the hospital.
[53:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh yeah, that's what I mean. He left, tried
[53:08] Speaker 2: to get his alligator and he's like, I can't get inside.
[53:10] Speaker 2: I need to go back to the hospital. But you
[53:12] Speaker 2: knew he couldn't go to a New York so he
[53:14] Speaker 2: went to Philadelphia. He's like, I can take a train there.
[53:17] Speaker 2: So detective from NYPD he locates Antoine interrogates them while
[53:20] Speaker 2: he's in his hospital bed, all like, you know, met
[53:23] Speaker 2: it up and he finally emits, okay, tiger's buying and
[53:26] Speaker 2: I keep him out right, everything's ruined, and he's like,
[53:29] Speaker 2: how about the alligator. Cant at least keep al and
[53:31] Speaker 2: MIYPD He's like.
[53:32] Speaker 3: You brough, we released them both into Central Park.
[53:35] Speaker 2: You're good. You can visit them in the pond in
[53:37] Speaker 2: Central Park. So dude, the detective arrests Antoine Yates in
[53:42] Speaker 2: his hospital bed. He gets charged with first degree reckless
[53:45] Speaker 2: endangerment of humans, along with two counts of possession of
[53:47] Speaker 2: a wild animal, which in New York is a misdemeanor charge.
[53:50] Speaker 2: So Antoine was facing seven years behind bars. Trial speedy,
[53:54] Speaker 2: just like the constitution, but insistently right right yeah. In
[53:57] Speaker 2: his initial court appearance, Antoine Yates explained to the judge
[54:00] Speaker 2: and to the jury what his personal motivations were for
[54:03] Speaker 2: keeping a tiger. He wanted them to understand, right, this
[54:05] Speaker 2: is not a minianview he told me this is just
[54:07] Speaker 2: right to the judge and jury, and I quote, he
[54:10] Speaker 2: was abandoned. I know how abandonment feels. I feel heartbroken.
[54:13] Speaker 2: I miss him a lot. He's like my brother, my
[54:16] Speaker 2: best friend, my only friend. Really. So the court did
[54:20] Speaker 2: take sympathy on Antoine Yates and they were this friendless
[54:22] Speaker 2: man who we've taken his tire.
[54:25] Speaker 3: With a lot of guys, you're gonna make a whole bunch.
[54:29] Speaker 2: You'll have a lot in common. You'll all be upset
[54:30] Speaker 2: with what we've done. So he gets convicted, found guilty,
[54:33] Speaker 2: and receives a sentence of only five months. He's been
[54:36] Speaker 2: facing seven years five months. Right after he served a sentence,
[54:39] Speaker 2: he tried to get his tiger back. Obviously that did
[54:41] Speaker 2: not happen. They shot my tiger thing down. They threw
[54:44] Speaker 2: it out because they were like, there's a lot of
[54:46] Speaker 2: politics to it. They couldn't let stuff get out because
[54:49] Speaker 2: think about it, right, I raised a tiger in the projects.
[54:52] Speaker 2: When you live in a New York City Housing Authority complex,
[54:54] Speaker 2: it's mandated that people have to come in and do
[54:57] Speaker 2: inspections quarterly, meaning they were supposed to become into my apartment,
[55:01] Speaker 2: and they were putting it down that they've been in
[55:02] Speaker 2: and checked apartment five E my apartment. Now you have
[55:05] Speaker 2: that lie in black and white. You guys are checking
[55:07] Speaker 2: his property all this time. You're telling me you never
[55:09] Speaker 2: noticed this man has a tiger in there. You see
[55:11] Speaker 2: what I'm trying to say. So it felt like I
[55:13] Speaker 2: was going to go against the entire in New York City.
[55:15] Speaker 2: How does a person who's never been in jail or
[55:17] Speaker 2: trouble before get probation in jail time for a non
[55:20] Speaker 2: violent crime. So he was. So that's why another reason
[55:25] Speaker 2: why they kind of like went light on him. Ming
[55:27] Speaker 2: was relocated to Noah's Lost Arc Sanctuary in Upstate New York.
[55:31] Speaker 2: So Ming did make it to upstate and lived a
[55:34] Speaker 2: long time. Eventually passed away in twenty nineteen. Okay, all right,
[55:37] Speaker 2: so sixteen more years of life after this, And as
[55:40] Speaker 2: Antoine Yates said, that's it. I just accepted that he
[55:43] Speaker 2: was gone. It's no different than her brother or sister passed.
[55:45] Speaker 2: I come to the reality that they're gone. I can't
[55:48] Speaker 2: stop worry about that. And you know what, I do
[55:50] Speaker 2: hold on to the memories that I have with them,
[55:53] Speaker 2: sitting around playing buddy buddy. Maybe go get some fresh
[55:57] Speaker 2: meat out of the kitchen. Hall. So, Elizabeth, what a
[56:00] Speaker 2: ridiculous takeaway? Here?
[56:03] Speaker 3: Where did al goo? Did all become shoes? Somewhere?
[56:06] Speaker 2: No sanctuary? He went to the sanctuary at the alligator.
[56:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, he went to an upstate farm.
[56:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, for the upstate farm.
[56:15] Speaker 3: Upstake my takeaway? Let world be wild, right Zaren? Okay,
[56:19] Speaker 3: look at me. What's your ridiculous takeaway? Oh my god,
[56:23] Speaker 3: it's it's the cough medicine talking.
[56:24] Speaker 2: I know I'm going to give you cough medicine all
[56:27] Speaker 2: the time. So mine, Elizabeth, thank you for asking? Is
[56:30] Speaker 2: it this story? I mean legitimate? Thank you for asking?
[56:32] Speaker 2: Is that mine? As I keep repeating myself, is that
[56:35] Speaker 2: this story is the real world version of that poem
[56:39] Speaker 2: The Tiger by the six year old Nol. Do you
[56:42] Speaker 2: remember you've seen it? Probably online? It goes the Tiger
[56:46] Speaker 2: by Nol, aged six, The Tiger he destroyed his cage. Yes, yes,
[56:53] Speaker 2: the Tiger is out.
[56:55] Speaker 3: That's the best poem I've ever don poem.
[56:57] Speaker 2: No oh yeah, it's always you'll see it on social media.
[57:00] Speaker 2: It's it's like a haiku style thing, but it's obviously
[57:02] Speaker 2: not a haiku because it's more than seventeen modern haiku.
[57:05] Speaker 3: Oh you don't do a syllable count.
[57:07] Speaker 2: Oh look at that? Then it is a haikup of
[57:09] Speaker 2: the best kind. The tiger is out. Yes, yes. Anyways,
[57:13] Speaker 2: As always, you can find us online Ridiculous Crime on Twitter,
[57:15] Speaker 2: Instagram and all the other social media's and such and
[57:17] Speaker 2: so forth. We have a website Ridiculous Crime dot com.
[57:20] Speaker 2: Check that one out is worth your trip and you click.
[57:22] Speaker 2: And we also love your talkbacks obviously emails if you
[57:25] Speaker 2: like Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Always type in
[57:28] Speaker 2: Deer Elizabeth and write whatever you want. Once again, thanks
[57:31] Speaker 2: for listening. We'll catch you next crime May. Ridiculous Crime
[57:39] Speaker 2: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, produced and
[57:42] Speaker 2: edited by the Lizard King Dave Kusten. Researches by Marissa
[57:47] Speaker 2: Queen of the Bees Brown and Andrea Prince of the Peas.
[57:53] Speaker 2: Song Sharp our theme song is by coms Don't Call
[58:00] Speaker 2: Me an Animal bro Lea and Travis King of the
[58:04] Speaker 2: Kings Dottet as wardrobe provided Pid Body five hundred. Executive
[58:10] Speaker 2: producers are Ben King of Queen's Bolin and Noel Queen
[58:15] Speaker 2: of King's Brow.
[58:21] Speaker 3: We Cry say It one more time.
[58:27] Speaker 1: Cry Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more
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