Disney faces PR crisis, risk of legal action after alligator attack

New York

JUNE was supposed to have been a triumphant month for Walt Disney Co theme parks, with the flashy opening of a long-planned resort in Shanghai and a new Florida attraction based on its wildly popular animated movie Frozen. Instead, the company is facing a public relations crisis and the possibility of legal action after an alligator snatched and killed a toddler at the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando, Florida, legal and communications specialists said.

"When people think of Disney they think of magic, the unbelievable, and everything is going to be fun. This incident flies in the face of that," said Sam Singer, a crisis communications manager who represented the San Francisco Zoo after a tiger escaped and kil…