Great Ape or Not, It May Be Time for Moe to Go

Everybody’s mad about Moe.

West Covina police are angry that the 33-year-old chimpanzee mauled an officer’s hand and chomped off a visitor’s fingertip. Moe’s owners are furious that the police had their pet taken away and they have faced charges of harboring a menace to society.

And city officials are frustrated that constituents consider them heartless pet-haters who have squandered at least $64,000 in taxpayers’ money to discredit and prosecute Moe’s keepers.

On Thursday, officials bowed to that pressure and announced that they would seek to drop the charges against Moe’s owners--provided the chimp stays out of town.

“Our position is that from Day 1, Moe, in his middle age, has become a dangerous animal and we don’t want him back,” said City Manager Dan Hobbs.

The news is sure to please many people around the world who have become mad about Moe in a different, love-struck sort of way.

They don’t care about his long fangs, his Herculean strength or the fact that neighbors fear that he may hop the fence and savage their grandchildren. To them, he’s the charming chimp of Hollywood movies, with delicate feelings and almost human intelligence.

They mostly agree with Moe’s owners, St. James and LaDonna Davis, who call the city’s fears and reaction exaggerated.

Sure, Moe bit off a woman’s fingertip last fall. But who could resist? She stuck it in his cage--and her red nail polish made it look like licorice, they say.

As for those other complaints, well, they insist that Moe simply does not shriek, smell bad, or fondle himself in public.

“They are treating Moe like the Hillside Strangler,” said Gloria Allred, the Davises’ attorney, who often draws publicity for her cases.

The Davises were scheduled to be arraigned next month on 39 charges of harboring a dangerous animal. Allred vowed that the city would have to arrest them--a spectacle the police wanted to avoid.

Police acknowledge that they are already losing the public relations battle, which has leaped into international headlines and even cyberspace. The city and Moe supporters are dueling it out on Web sites that portray very different faces of the great ape that has divided this San Gabriel Valley city.

Moe’s “official” Web site features cute but decades-old pictures of him eating at the dinner table or listening to bedtime stories.

The city’s Web site, on the other hand, features a chilling photo of Moe baring his fangs. “We like to call it the real Moe,” said Police Chief Frank Wills.

West Covina’s site also features “questions and answers” about the chimp’s strength--the 150-pound animal reportedly has the power of three linebackers and can lift 1,200 pounds--and the injuries he has caused over two decades.

“If a pet alligator or pit bull had injured five people, there would be no question about removing it from the neighborhood,” the site says.

To get rid of Moe, officials say, they have paid a public relations firm $15,000 to develop the Web site content and spent an additional $50,000 on legal fees to prosecute Moe’s owners and get a civil injunction to bar Moe from the city. The bill is probably closer to $100,000 with hidden costs, estimated Councilman Steve Herfert.

The campaign has done little to stifle an international outpouring of support for the middle-aged chimp.

“We’ve got Christmas cards from all around the world,” said LaDonna Davis.

There have been bake sales, furniture auctions and raffles for Las Vegas trips--all to support the Moe cause, the Davises said. Allred and attorney Ronald Richards say they have taken the case pro bono. Someone is even reportedly writing a tell-all book.

It didn’t start out this crazy.

After the Davises brought Moe home to West Covina in 1969, the city declared him an honorary citizen who “participated with distinction in the city of West Covina.” He was invited to groundbreakings and once made a cameo appearance at a police chief’s retirement. He appeared in television shows and a movie, according to the Davises.

Trouble arose in 1977, when Moe landed in court for biting a woman, police say. The judge dismissed the case.

In the summer of 1998, Moe escaped. The ape was cornered by animal control officers and police. By the time he was tranquilized, he had so badly gnawed an officer’s hand that it has required $250,000 worth of surgery and rehabilitation so far, police contend.

After the incident, the city began considering Moe’s fate as a citizen. Then in September, an Irwindale woman put her finger near his cage and had the tip bitten off. The next day, at police request, county health officers removed Moe to the Wildlife Waystation, where he remains.

This was a relief for some of Moe’s neighbors. They say they were fed up with the late-night shrieking and the smell of feces being hosed into the back alley.

One of them, Michele Cosner, became fearful after hearing a primatologist say that chimpanzees have been known to steal human infants from African villages.

“I have four grandchildren and want to see them grow up with all their limbs,” said Cosner, who lives across the alley from the Davises. She, her husband and six other families hired a lawyer to pressure the city to enforce an ordinance barring dangerous animals.

Chief Wills said he “danced around” it at first. He knew from experience that tangling with an animal is a public relations nightmare. As a young Pasadena officer, he saw the public wrath when his department was forced to shoot Rodney the Ram, who killed an elderly woman.

“Whenever police get involved with animals, the police don’t come out looking good,” said Wills. But in fact, primate experts and animal activists threw their support to the city. Chimpanzees “reach a point at maturity at which continuing to keep them as pets is dangerous to them, to their owners, and to the community,” Craig B. Stanford, a USC anthropology professor, wrote to the city.

Moe is now living in a large cage in the Angeles National Forest, where the Davises regularly visit him to exchange hand signals and smiles. On a recent visit, Moe clapped, did back-flips and motioned to be hugged.

Now embroiled in two lawsuits by the people Moe bit, the Davises say they still desperately want their pet to come back. Some neighbors, however, say they’ll move if Moe returns.

“It’s such a mess,” said Cosner.