...or Monkey 1, Retarded Family 0
August 3, 2004 -- A foul-tempered monkey meant business inside a Brooklyn supermarket attacking a 2-year-old toddler who was there with his grandmother, police said yesterday.
"Grandma, it hurts! It hurts!" Helene Romano quoted her grandson, Tommy, as crying when Darla, a "service" macaque who helps her disabled owner chomped into his arm at a Key Food in Mill Basin on Sunday.
The bizarre incident happened as Romano, 47, was taking her grandson inside the store at East 66 Street and Avenue U and tried to avoid a man whose cart was at the front of the store.
"I saw this thing attached to my grandson's arm," Romano said.
"I said, 'Sir, your dog is biting my grandson!' " Romano recalled, adding that both she and the man then started batting at the creature to get it off the screaming boy.
Romano was stunned when they finally ripped the animal off Tommy's bleeding arm.
"I said, 'Oh, my God what's that tail? It's a monkey! What's a monkey doing in a Key Food?' " she said.
Store officials called police, and Tommy was taken to Maimonides Hospital. He was treated and released, but his arm is still swollen, the family said.
Monkey owner Steve Seidler, 45, angrily defended his "sweetest" 5-year-old monkey, saying the boy had been repeatedly pulling at the animal which was leashed and harnessed before she snapped.
"I think the boy thought my monkey was a stuffed animal, and he just wanted to take it," Seidler said, adding the bite "was just one little mark" on the boy's arm.
Seidler said he is partially confined to a wheelchair and Darla is a service monkey who helps him with everything from cooking and opening drawers, to cheering him up by combing his hair.
Seidler said a relative of the boy "threatened to kill me or the monkey, even if it meant putting him to sleep.
"The guy said, 'I'll open my hand and bitch-slap you and the monkey,' " Seidler said.
"I'm scared they'll do something to me or take away my monkey," he said. "This monkey is my life."
Police said Seidler had the proper paperwork for a service monkey.
The Romano family is hoping animal officials will at least take the monkey for tests to make sure he doesn't have a disease.
Tommy's mother, Tabatha, said the incident left the toddler frightened.
"He hates monkeys now," she said. "He said, 'I scared monkeys.' "
http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/26121.htm
