Tiger recovered in animal cruelty investigation in southeast Oak Cliff, Dallas police say

By Isabella Volmert

Authorities recovered a tiger during an animal-cruelty investigation in southeast Oak Cliff on Friday, Dallas police say.

Officers executed four search warrants in the 5700 block of Johnson Lane, near Bonnie View Road and East Ledbetter Drive, as part of the case.

The tiger — found in an enclosure on the property — was seized as part of the investigation, police said, as were an unspecified number of dogs and chickens.

Authorities said charges are pending, but did not specify who faces charges, what the charges are or who owns the property.

Police said the Dallas Zoo and Dallas Animal Services are assisting with the animals. Kari Streiber, a spokeswoman for the zoo, declined to specify details of the zoo’s involvement, citing the active investigation.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department also are assisting in the investigation, police said.

This isn’t the first time a big cat has been seized in the Dallas area. A tiger was seized from a Red Bird home last 2022 when authorities took Oak Cliff rapper Trapboy Freddy, whose legal name is Devarius Dontez Moore, into custody on a federal gun charge. Court records show Moore pleaded guilty to the charge in May.

That tiger’s recovery led to false social-media speculation that a tiger had escaped from the Dallas Zoo, prompting it to announce on Twitter that its tigers were all “accounted for and safe here.”

In January, a clouded leopard — a species much smaller than a tiger — escaped her enclosure at the zoo after its mesh was cut. The 29-pound cat, Nova, was captured hours later, after a squirrel’s chattering helped employees find her.

In December, the federal Big Cat Public Safety Act was enacted to prohibit the private ownership of big cats as pets. Under the law, it is illegal to possess tigers and other species of big cats; people who privately owned big cats before the law went into effect had to register each animal by June 18.

Previously, keeping a tiger as a pet in Dallas was prohibited by the city code. The circumstances of the tiger’s presence in Oak Cliff were not immediately clear.

This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas- at the bottom.