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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0416swatmonkey16-ON.html#

Mesa police want to add monkey to SWAT team

Associated Press
Apr. 16, 2005 03:10 PM

MESA, Ariz. - The Mesa Police Department is looking to add some primal 
instinct to its SWAT team. And to do that, it's looking to a monkey.

"Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it," 
said Mesa Officer Sean Truelove, who builds and operates tactical 
robots for the suburban Phoenix SWAT team. "It would change the way we 
do business."

Truelove is spearheading the department's request to purchase and train 
a capuchin monkey, considered the second smartest primate to the 
chimpanzee. The department is seeking about $100,000 in federal grant 
money to put the idea to use in Mesa SWAT operations.

 The monkey, which costs $15,000, is what Truelove envisions as the 
ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool.

Since 1979, capuchin monkeys have been trained to be companions for 
people who are quadriplegics by performing daily tasks, such as serving 
food, opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, retrieving 
objects and brushing hair.

Truelove hopes the same training could prepare a monkey for special-ops 
intelligence.

Weighing only 3 to 8 pounds with tiny humanlike hands and 
puzzle-solving skills, Truelove said it could unlock doors, search 
buildings and find suicide victims on command. Dressed in a Kevlar 
vest, video camera and two-way radio, the small monkey would be able to 
get into places no officer or robot could go.

It has been a little over a year since Truelove filed a grant proposal 
with the U.S. Department of Defense under the Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency, and he is still waiting for word.

If the grant goes through, Truelove plans on learning how to train the 
monkey himself and keeping the sociable monkey at home, just like a K-9 
officer would. He projects that $85,000 in grant money would outfit the 
monkey with gear and pay for veterinarian care, food and habitat for 
three years.