He’s coming out of the shadows.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made some rare comments Friday about the tragic day he dropped Staten Island’s beloved groundhog on his head.
“Any event at 7 in the morning with a live animal agitated does not end well,” he says. told Semafor journalist Kadia Goba on Groundhog Day, exactly a decade since the Post saw him lose control and release the rodent, ultimately leading to his untimely death.
He previously described how his motor skills were “not at their best” when he arrived at the Staten Island Zoo to celebrate Groundhog Day on February 2, 2014, and zoo staff presented him with the Staten Island Chuck.
“I put these gloves on and they said, ‘Here’s a groundhog,’ and I said, ‘What the fuck?'” de Blasio said in an interview with New York Magazine, first addressing the scandal last year.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke about removing the Staten Island Chuck in 2014.
“I said, ‘Don’t you have a little more training for this or whatever?’ It was idiotic. Why would you want an elected official to hold a groundhog? He scoffed, adding that he “100% regrets” holding back the animal, which slipped from the 6’5” mayor’s grasp and fell to the ground.
Several months later, in September, The Post broke the news that Staten Island Chuck had died and the zoo attempted to cover it up.
The scandal then deepened when The Post revealed that Staten Island Chuck was actually a female stand-in, named Charlotte.
The real Chuck had been secretly changed after he nibbled on then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s leather-gloved hand at the 2009 Groundhog Day event, sources said.
The animal escaped from the 6’5” mayor’s hands and fell to the ground.
The Staten Island Zoo kept the decoy operation secret to preserve the sacredness of the “groundhog mark,” sources said.
Even Hizzoner himself swore he didn’t know.
“I found out like you all found out; I had no idea before,” de Blasio insisted at the time.
In the wake of the scandal, the Staten Island Zoo announced in January 2015 that it had revised its Groundhog Day policy so that no one (mayor or not) could handle the animals.
Friday’s celebration went off without a hitch as the children sang “Early Spring, Early Spring” before Chuck couldn’t see his shadow, meaning the beginning of spring is on the way. Chad Rachman/NYPost
The following month, de Blasio watched Groundhog Day from behind plexiglass.
Hizzoner then skipped Groundhog Day at the zoo in 2016 because he was campaigning in Iowa for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, the Staten Island Advocate reported.
Since then, no mayor has attended the annual event.
Fortunately, Friday’s celebration went off without a hitch as the kids chanted “Early spring, early spring” before Chuck couldn’t see his shadow, meaning the beginning of spring is on the way.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn