So, what is it about this story that speaks to us so about our own, supposed, humanity?

[Ghost Dog]

As described, in this case, by (fine, imho, journalist writing) The Guardian?:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/17/chimpanzee-attack-usa

For years, Travis had been a local celebrity in his hometown. He featured often on TV adverts, and would pose for photographs performing his favourite tricks: tucking into a filet mignon, dressing himself or using a computer.

...

Aged 14, and weighing a formidable 200 pounds, Travis had been brought up to all intents and purposes a human. His owner, Sandra Herold, aged 70, who had raised him since he was an infant, trained him to water the flowers, drink wine, brush his teeth and watch baseball. "He loves baseball. He likes anything with action," Herold once told an interviewer.

He also appeared in adverts for Coca-Cola and retailer Old Navy.

...

Yesterday, though, there was no joviality. Police reported that the animal had been behaving oddly at home, and Herold had tried to calm him with tea laced with a sedative. But he grabbed her keys and let himself out of the back door, then started banging on local cars as though signalling he wanted to go for a drive.

Worried, Herold called her friend Charla Nash for help. As soon as the neighbour arrived, Travis turned on her, maulling her and biting her face, causing serious injuries.

Herold tried to save her friend by attacking her beloved pet with a kitchen knife, but Travis then went on to attack a police officer in his car. The officer, fearing for his own life, shot several times. Travis limped away.

By then about a dozen police cars had descended on the scene. Officers traced the animals steps by a trail of blood, and found him back in his cage where he had already died.

(a little emphasis added by my poor self :cry: ).

Anyone investigating the "Owner" (not to mention the perhaps dumb "police"), and/or her "culture", in this "case"??????

[Bluebear]

1. It certainly makes me very, very sad.

'Officers traced the animals steps by a trail of blood, and found him back in his cage where he had already died.'

:(

[Howardx]

2. i hate this story

i dont even know where to start with whats fucked up about it.

[Ghost Dog]

3. Apart from the (apparently contagious) bad grammar, you mean?

(I know what you mean).

One of those stories that will remain with you, once you've thought about it, forever.

BTW, I don't watch any TV, and I'm in Europe, in case this was already, twistedly, mindlessly, "saturated" for you...

[Howardx]

5. not saturated yet

im pretty good at filtering stuff so i dont get overwhelmed. i guess mostly im enraged at the chimps owner.

[dustbunnie]

4. Why were the actions of the police dumb?

The 911 call and police dispatch are available and seems they did a great job in responding and getting the victim to safety.

[Ghost Dog]

7. The "victim" being

who, exactly?

(not criticising "first responders", necessarily, here).

[dustbunnie]

9. Don't follow, I'm afraid.

Is it LE's fault there was no law in place to take this chimpanzee away from the woman? What do they have to do with a silly woman keeping a 200-lb, sexually mature male, sick chimpanzee as her only family? They can only work with what they got.

Why not blame the vet? The chimp was being medicated for Lyme's disease and it seems no one was alerted to the fact that this might have adverse effects.

[Howardx]

10. i wonder why...

animal control wasnt called in instead of umpteen cops.

[dustbunnie]

11. They absolutely were.

I stupidly listened to the 911 call, wherein the woman graphically describes what's happening to her friend, and begs the cops to come and shoot the chimp.

I also listened to the police dispatch... and you can hear how first one or two cars are dispatched, then as the seriousness of the incident becomes apparent, more cars are ordered to the scene. Animal control was called right at the beginning. The reason the cop used his firearm was because the chimp tried to get into the car with him. I'm certain that after seeing a human (they couldn't even tell anymore that it was a woman) lying there with her face and hands ripped off, the cop felt justified in applying deadly force. Perhaps you would have been more brave?

[Howardx]

14. im at least as brave

as a coward who makes big talk from behind a keyboard.

[dustbunnie]

16. Well that's not saying a lot, is it?

But I'm sure you rise to the occasion when required.

[Raven]

6. Well, my dogs' refuge is their cage. It is a safe place. This story

tells me how wrong it is to keep a creature who does not take to keeping. It is such a sad, sad story for this poor animal who was trying to fit in as well as the person who was mauled. All of this, I think, to satisfy someone's strange urge to have an exotic pet who did not belong..a square peg in a round hole. Some attention to the owner at the expense of the animal?

[Ghost Dog]

8. "Pets".

I think I'd like to see this thread run, see what folks really think,

(It's well after midnight, over here).

Reckon I know what 'domsticated' creatures, like all the cats hanging around here, including the 'special' one, think/feel...

... No... I'll comment again, maybe in the morning..., slavemasters/mistresses (one edit: knew about "keys").

[Orangeone]

12. Selfish Humans

The humans tried to make Travis be something that he's not, a human. I feel it's disrespectful to animals to try to make them our children. You have to accept creatures as they are, and not put our expectations on them.

[Berry Cool]

13. It's a sad story, which is all the more reason why basing a political cartoon on it was dumb

if "funny" was what the artist was going for.

If he'd drawn a picture of a commuter plane labeled "Stimulus Bill" crashed into a house and on fire, with a sign on the house reading "Mr. and Mrs. America" and two cops looking on and one saying to the other "Sadly, there are no survivors...and the biggest casualties are on the ground," would that be funny?

It's no funnier to depict the "writer of the stimulus bill" (whoever you want to say THAT was) as a chimpanzee who was shot dead for "going rogue." All racism aside (and, of course, it IS racist).

Except in Rupert World, of course, where anything is funny, so long as it makes fun of liberals, and nobody ever apologizes.

[Ghost Dog]

15. Jeesus. You have a link for that?

For the sakes of us out here in the Rest of the World?

(Free speech zone here..., mods permitting...), Seriously.

[Berry Cool]

17. This is a joke, right?

You haven't read any of the other 3,000 threads on the topic?

[Ghost Dog]

18. Of course not.

n/t.

[Karenina]

19. We're SIX HOURS ahead of you.

Things sometimes get lost in the shuffle. :rofl:

[Karenina]

20. Schon gut.

:crazy: