‘True patriot’: White House pays bizarre tribute to Harambe 10 years after gorilla’s death

Visitors enter the Gorilla World exhibit at the Cincinnati zoo and botanical garden in June 2016. Photograph: John Minchillo/AP

The White House has posted on social media a tribute to mark Thursday’s 10th anniversary of the death of a figure it called “a true patriot”.

The hero was not a human, however; it concerned the infamous case of the 400lb western lowland gorilla that had been named Harambe, which was shot dead at the Cincinnati zoo after a toddler entered his enclosure and interacted with the animal.