Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is defending police who killed a cougar on the city’s North Side. At a press conference today, he said the police officer’s response was appropriate.

DALEY: Now I just want to tell you that if a cougar attacked a child, they’d sue the city because police officer didn’t do his job. So everybody second guesses. So let the cougar run around and attack children, everybody’d be filing law suits and yelling at the police and all local officials.

Daley said police responded yesterday afternoon to a call from the principal of Audubon School in Roscoe Village. Police found the cougar in an alley and shot it when it charged an officer. The cougar was first sighted in the northern suburbs over the weekend. There’s no word yet how the big cat ended up on city streets.