Kansas City Ape Owners Must Pay for Rampage, Judge Rules

It has been 15 months to the day since I last had an opportunity to use the "monkeys" tag.

After a two-day trial featuring "contentious testimony" by 11 witnesses, a Kansas City judge has ruled that the owners of a chimpanzee that went apeshit last year must pay to fix the police car she damaged.

The defendants, who are over-the-road truckers, apparently kept Suco in a cage inside their truck, and seem to have argued that they were only in town briefly to pick up a few things and so were not "keeping or harboring" the chimp in the city. That is a better legal argument than you might expect from two people who spend their lives driving around the country with an ape, but the judge didn't buy it. He agreed with prosecutors, who argued the law is meant to keep apes out, period.

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10 Responses:

  1. Jim Sweeney says:

    Obviously I see this as just another tie-in to the Gorilla X birthday show on the 20th.

  2. I love how the police department's video is embeddable and commentable, and the news organization's video isn't.

  3. Kevin says:

    As I now know because somebody once called me on it, chimps are apes, not monkeys. So you might need a new tag, although my first impulse would also be to go with "monkey." Usually funnier.

  4. Kevin says:

    Just kidding. Thanks for linking to the LTB post.

  5. Jon Konrath says:

    Over-the-road truckers with a pet chimp? I smell a BJ and the Bear reboot in the works.

  6. Semilog says:

    What's this "driving around the country with an ape" thing? They are driving around the country and they, like us (and the chimp) *are* apes.

  7. smadin says:

    Kansas City Ape's early stuff was pretty good, but "Rampage" just sounds so commercial.

  8. Damn dirty apes.

  9. Bill Paul says:

    Every which way but smart.