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Minnesota police officer under scrutiny for allegedly feeding Pop-Tarts to gorillas

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At the Como Zoo in St. Paul, Minn., the gorillas have a strict diet -- which doesn’t permit human snack items such as, say, Pop-Tarts.

That’s why a St. Paul police officer is under investigation.

Wait, what?

Yes, you read that correctly: The zoo’s surveillance equipment caught the cop on tape in January, snack food suspiciously resembling Pop-Tarts in hand. The video appears to show him attempting to hand the breakfast pastries to one of the zoo’s three western lowland gorillas -- either Schroeder, Gordy or Togo (surveillance video, as anyone who’s watched TV news knows, is a bit grainy) -- through a space in the wire mesh of their enclosure.

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It seems that two security guards took the police officer and other unauthorized visitors on a late-night tour of the zoo. Both guards have since left the zoo’s employ, MyFoxTwinCities reports, and the officer, who denies feeding the gorillas, is the focus of an internal affairs investigation. According to the zoo, it’s unclear whether the gorillas ate any of the Pop-Tarts in question, and all three are in fine health today.

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: MyFoxTwinCities.com

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