Police were on the hunt for a tiger in Gary, Indiana after receiving reports from residents that a tiger was on the loose in the city’s Glen Park neighborhood, but as of Friday evening, no tiger has been found.
Police spokeswoman Cpl. Gabrielle King told the Northwest Indiana Times police received a call late Thursday night reporting a tiger on the loose near West 38th Avenue and Broadway.
Patrol units were told to be on the lookout as more calls came in with vague locations of the tiger, the NWI Times reports.
King told the newspaper she believes the later calls may have been “bogus” and were being reported after people listening to scanners heard the initial call.
It is not clear where a tiger could have come from, but reports of a tattoo parlor that once housed tigers in the neighborhood were revisited after the owner of the shop’s son died Monday.
Four tigers were removed from Roy “Boy” Cooper’s ink shop by the USDA in 2010.
When the tigers were taken from Cooper, he said he felt he followed the USDA's requirements for keeping tigers and had been doing so for 50 years.
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Cooper, 64, died nearly two months after the tigers were taken away from him.
His son, Diamond Cody Cooper, reopened the tattoo parlor in July 2013 and at the time said he hoped to bring the tigers back to the location, the NWI Times reports.
The 19-year-old was reportedly killed in a motorcycle crash in Hobart Monday.
