The beast in Tyke

Tragedy

By Ed Rampell

In the 1933 movie King Kong a gigantic gorilla is found near Melanesia, and brought in chains as a show-biz spectacle to Manhattan. A “king” in the primitive world, Kong becomes a “slave” in civilisation, where the monster breaks free and runs amok. Ironically, in the 1976 re-make of King Kong , sequences were shot at Kauai. On

August 20, 1994, a real life “King Kong” tragedy took place in Hawaii a

9500-pound African elephant turned

paradise into hell when she stomped her groom, killed her trainer, and broke out of a circus at Blaisdell Arena (filled with hundreds of terrified onlookers) to stampede for half an hour through the streets of Honolulu.

There, Tyke, the elephant, attacked another man who tried to halt the beast behind a fence. A total of 13 people were injured in the melee. Like the fate that

awaited Kong atop the Empire State

Building, Honolulu Police Department

officers pumped 87 bullets into the

pachyderm. HPD tried killing Tyke with

drugs, but finally a marksman had to use HPD’s most high-powered rifle to kill the rogue elephant, with three shots to her heart. Blood poured out onto the Kakaako streets to the horror of wit- Jesses, as the massive beast crushed a blue Camaro. , Circus International’s mauled groom,

Dallas Beckwith, miraculously escaped

alive with broken bones. Circus Interna tional continued its tour at the Big Island minus its elephant act.

Honolulu eyewitnesses including

HPD officers are being treated for post traumatic stress And the Kakaako garage owner who was storing the

partially crushed blood splattered

Camaro for a client overseas, wondered bow b e break the news to the traveling owner. “I don’t think he’s going to believe me,” mused the garage owner. □