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[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Monkey bites boy in store
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-monk0803,0,7297541.story?coll=ny-nynews-headlines

August 2, 2004, 9:03 PM EDT

See URL for photo:
Steven Seidler with Darla (Photo by Arthur DeGaeta)

BY LINDSAY FABER
Staff Writer

It was primate vs. primate at a Brooklyn grocery store when a 
10-pound monkey bit a 2-year-old boy being wheeled by his 
grandparents in a shopping cart, authorities said yesterday.

Darla, a 5-year-old Macaque service monkey who retrieves items for 
his paraplegic owner, bit Thomas Romano on the arm Sunday after the 
toddler grabbed her fur three times, the monkey's owner said.

 Steven Seidler, 45, of Mill Basin, said he uses a laser pointer to 
indicate what he needs the monkey to retrieve. At Key Food, Seidler 
said, Darla was getting items for him off the shelves.

"Darla is my life," Seidler said yesterday. "The kid just reached 
over and grabbed her. I was shocked she took so much abuse before 
biting him."

The boy's grandmother, Helene Romano, 47, said the monkey went ape on 
young Thomas, who did not even notice the animal until he was bitten 
in the vegetable aisle.

"I'm walking into the Key Food, and the next thing I know, my 
grandson is like, 'Grandma, Grandma it hurts!' And I'm looking around 
and I see blood coming out of his arm," Helene Romano said.

Police arrived at the scene after the 4 p.m. incident and did not 
issue any summonses to Seidler, who had all the proper paperwork for 
Darla.

"I'm telling the lady, 'Get your kid away from my monkey!'" Seidler recalled.

Helene Romano believes the monkey is violent and should be in a zoo. 
She claims Seidler tried to leave the scene and had to be stopped by 
several people in the store, and that his monkey has attacked before, 
according to his neighbors.

"I'm an animal lover myself, but this monkey does not belong with 
this man," she said.

Seidler, who lives alone and depends on the monkey to groom and bathe 
him, claims he has never seen Darla get angry before, and he said he 
typically doesn't frequent the Key Food store on Avenue U.

"I almost never go there. It was Sunday. I needed a quart of milk," 
he said. "Usually, things get delivered to me. Next thing I know, my 
monkey is getting ripped apart by some kid."

Romano was treated and released from Maimonedes Hospital.

--
Carrie McLaren
WEB & GRAPHIC DESIGN
http://www.carriemclaren.com
ph: 718.398.9324
fax: 207.221.9349