Slaying of chimpanzee by Las Vegas police a ‘tragic lesson’

Buddy the chimpanzee was sold as a pet, raised like a child and then housed like a prisoner. It took his death for people to realize what he actually was - a wild animal.

The story of the escaped chimp who was shot and killed by Las Vegas police on Thursday becomes more tragic in the context of his life, said caretaker and co-owner Timmi DeRosa.

"I just really wish and hope that Buddy's life, viewed through his death, that somehow people will realize there's a solution," DeRosa said. "It's not like finding a cure for cancer."

DeRosa and fiance Lee Watkinson - a well-known professional poker player - spoke Friday about the practice of people buying exotic animals as pets.

She recounted numerous times when Buddy and fellow chimp C.J. would shake their cage for hours, screaming in agitation as they tried to break free.

"Chimps have five or six good years running around the house," she said. "Then it has to be in a cage and spends the rest of its life trying to break out of the cage.

"What happens when it gets out and someone gets mauled?"

POUNDED ON WINDOW

June Malichky had a nightmare Thursday night. In it, both chimps from up the road had broken into her house.

That morning, she had watched in real-time as one of them pounded on her living room window and broke its exterior screen. Her husband, Harry, grabbed his gun, just in case.

"I thought I was going to have a heart attack," she said.

DeRosa said Buddy had ripped his cage from the concrete and then broken through a padlocked gate in a rage.

Officers shot Buddy about 10:45 a.m. when the ape attempted to cross Ann Road toward a residential neighborhood, according to police.

A videotape of the incident confirms that account. The video shows the chimp, who does not appear agitated, ambling along. An officer armed with an AR-15 rifle shoots Buddy at least twice as the chimp begins to cross Ann Road.

"Please don't shoot him!" gasps a woman as the officer fires.

The Review-Journal viewed the video but did not purchase it.

The second chimp, C.J., was successfully tranquilized a short time later. She appeared alert inside her cage on Friday morning.

For Malichky, Buddy and C.J.'s escape wasn't a surprise. She and her husband often heard them screaming from their cage two houses up on Rowland Avenue. It was only a matter of time before they got loose, she said.

Now, she doesn't feel safe with C.J. back in a cage just down the road.

"I'm never going to go out and sit on my patio again until they're gone. Never."

SPECIAL PERMIT

Other residents in the neighborhood near Jones Boulevard and Ann Road questioned whether everyday citizens should be allowed to keep exotic animals on private property.

One neighbor who asked not to be named saw the chimp in a field off Ann Road about five minutes before he was shot and killed.
"This is an exotic animal," she said. "It's like a boa constrictor. You don't wanna wake up to that in your front yard."

Nevada is one of just six states that doesn't forbid private ownership of exotic animals. There are 14 properties throughout unincorporated Clark County licensed to keep exotic animals, from lions and wolves to catlike creatures called caracals and civets. The county provided a higher number on Thursday but has since corrected it.

Most recently, Ohio outlawed the practice after a man in Zanesville famously set loose his collection of wolves, bears and wild cats and then killed himself in October 2011.

To keep wild animals in Clark County, you need a special land-use permit from the Planning Commission, and to comply with state and federal regulations. Both Clark County and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are investigating Thursday's incident, officials said.

Buddy and female chimp C.J. entered the public sphere in July 2003 when original owner Nikki Grusenmeyer, formerly Nikki Riddell, battled Clark County commissioners to keep animals at her residence near Vegas Drive and Decatur Boulevard.

The longtime exotic pet owner told commissioners that her young chimps slept in bunk beds in a back room and ate breakfast at the table every morning.

Grusenmeyer failed to receive a special permit for her home, but one was approved four months later for a ranch-style home owned by David and Sheri Potochan at 5720 Rowland Ave. in the northwest valley.

DeRosa first learned of the chimps while living in Los Angeles in 2006, when a fellow poker player told Watkinson about a woman showing chimps at Las Vegas swap meets and selling pictures.

That was right around the time the chimps were getting too old to be kept safely inside a house, said DeRosa, who felt they were being exploited.

"I was horrified," said DeRosa, who had previously aided chimps.

'DYSFUNCTIONAL SITUATION'

Almost immediately, DeRosa and Watkinson approached Grusenmeyer and offered to help, she said. They paid for a $100,000 enclosure to replace the existing cage on the Potochans' property, which DeRosa deemed "flimsy" and unsuitable for a pair of apes entering adulthood.

DeRosa and Watkinson also began paying the Potochans to house the chimps, which Grusenmeyer had previously done. DeRosa said they normally paid $650 each month and increased their payments to $700 in the summer.

Their original plan was to finance the operation from Los Angeles, DeRosa said, but they soon decided to move permanently to Las Vegas. A few years later, Grusenmeyer gave them co-ownership rights to Buddy and C.J.

"This just happened to be such a dysfunctional situation that we had to move next to them to take care of them," she said, noting Grusenmeyer's increasing absence and turmoil between the property owners. "My hope was to be able to pay her (Grusenmeyer) to take care of her own chimps, but that didn't happen."

She admits the situation was never ideal. Chimps prefer larger groups, and those raised as pets often can't adjust to the cage environment.

Although DeRosa and Watkinson would care for the chimps, they couldn't be at the Potochans' house every hour of every day.

"All they (the chimps) think about is getting out, and if there's any weakness in the enclosure or you let guard down ... " Watkinson said, his voice trailing off.

"They live 60 years. There's a good chance in their lifetime something can happen," DeRosa said.

USDA inspectors and Clark County animal control officers had been to the house several times before this week. When animal control conducted an inspection in 2009, it found the chimpanzees' cage was secure. The most recent USDA inspection, in April 2011, found no major violations, but noted that the owners lacked a necessary veterinary plan for the chimps.

County and federal authorities in 2009 investigated reports that the chimps had escaped, but found no evidence of this.

Tony Paolone, who has lived on the block for 14 years, said that six or more years ago, one of the chimpanzees ran away from a handler while getting out of a car. The chimp climbed on top of the neighbor's roof.

Paolone said he ran home to grab a small bushel of bananas and lured the chimp back to its cage, one banana at a time.

He was one of several neighbors that signed off on the chimpanzees' presence before they moved in almost 10 years ago, and his position on them hasn't changed.

'TRAGIC LESSON'

"It's a lesson learned for the people who own the monkeys," he said, questioning whether the cage and its locks were adequate. "It was a sad, tragic lesson."

In hindsight, Watkinson wonders what he and DeRosa could have done differently.

Watkinson said they could have spent the money to build a private enclosure on their own property just for Buddy and C.J., but held off because they wanted enough money to include more chimps and create a real sanctuary.

That idea was put on hold after the recession.

"We could have probably done something that accommodated just these two, but it's kind of a lonely life just for two," he said.

DeRosa said buying exotic animals as pets should be illegal.

Breeders often con ignorant buyers into purchasing exotic pets by convincing them they're saving abandoned animals, she said.

"As a breeder, you know what you're breeding. You can con people into thinking that this little animal can be their baby, but what happens when it grows up?" DeRosa said.

DeRosa said Grusenmeyer rarely visited Buddy or C.J. in the months leading up to the shooting and only appeared about every six months.

Grusenmeyer did not respond to repeated calls seeking comment.

Watkinson said he doesn't know what will happen with C.J., but he doesn't want her to live alone.

"It is heartbreaking, and all we can hope for is, once again, to show the chimps shouldn't be bred and bought and sold as pets because it's almost inevitable something is going to go wrong."

Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283. Contact reporter Kyle Potter at kpotter@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0391.