Who remembers St. James and LaDonna Davis and their son Moe? They were one of West Covinas most famous families. Here is a portion of their story. The unraveling of the Davises near-perfect life began on a hot day in August 1998. Moe was about thirty then, with broad shoulders, thick arms, and long fangs. A welder who was repairing Moes cage accidentally left a piece of equipment turned on and gave the chimp an electrical shock, spooking him so intensely that he bolted out of the house. Moe didnt return immediately. The police were called, and they closed the street. By the time the standoff ended, Moe had dented a police car, injured an officers hand, and scratched an animal-control agent. A year later, on September 2, 1999, a visitor came to meet Moe. The woman was told not to put her hand in his cage, but she did anyway. Moe bit the tip of her finger. Afterward, the Davises argued that Moe mistook her long red-painted fingernails for his favorite candy, licorice. To the city, why Moe bit the woman didnt matter. Now a mature ape and packing the upper-body strength of four or five grown men, Moe was too dangerous to remain at the Davises home, West Covina officials decided. A team of officers arrived at about 2:00 p.m. the following day. Police cars swarmed the street trailed by ambulances and fire trucks. Officers cordoned off the streets surrounding the Davises home. Moe was inside his cage when two cops arrived at the front door. St. James confronted them. Wheres your court order? he demanded. Wheres your warrant? Get out of here! A fiery argument broke out, and St. James was wrestled out of his house while cops and animal-control officers, some armed with dart guns, swarmed inside. Moe screamed as one dart, then a second, pierced his stomach. His shrieking turned into gagging noises as he furiously banged on his cage with his hands and feet. St. James was on his knees on the front lawn, bawling, when Moe, unconscious and bleeding from the stomach, was carried out of the house and tossed into a horse trailer. The Davises were broken. They cried for hours, and they couldnt sleep. The community rescued them. Four days after Moes removal, St. James checked his mailbox and found it filled with notes, cards, and a petition, titled Citizens to Bring Moe Home. Within days, more than eight thousand people had signed, and many put yellow ON BOARD WITH MOE signs in their car windows. Scores of people stopped by the house. Even more honked in support as they drove by. A single phone call punctured the Davises brief optimism. It came nine days after Moe was taken, and it was from the operator of the facility Moe had been taken to — the Wildlife WayStation in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest, a 160-acre refuge for exotic animals. The woman on the line called to ask St. James a brutal question: Have any arrangements been made for when the chimp dies? Moe hadnt eaten since he arrived and wasnt expected to live much longer. The Davises rushed to the facility with a vet in tow. They found Moe splayed on the floor of his tiny cage, covered in his own stool. His eyes were vacant. He was too weak to acknowledge them. The vet injected Moe with a drug that perked him up immediately. Within minutes, he went for a few grapes, drawing tears from the Davises, who resolved to return weekly to monitor their boy. The court battles stretched for years. Gloria Allred, a high-profile civil-rights attorney, took the Davises case pro bono. The couple filed a due-process suit against the city as they fended off criminal charges once again for harboring a wild animal. Animal-rights groups got involved. The petition grew longer. In a span of five months, more than twenty-four thousand people signed it. St. James and LaDonna visited Moe every week, all the while clinging to the hope that they would someday be reunited. The visits sustained them, though they were also heartbreaking. Moe started doing better after the couple installed a new cage complete with a TV three months after he arrived. But the Davises — who were not permitted to come close enough to touch him during their fifteen-minute visits — could see the pain in Moes eyes. Hed signal that he wanted a hug. Hed put his hands up and turn an imaginary steering wheel. He wanted to go home. After extensive negotiations, in 2004 the couple succeeded in getting Moe transferred to Animal Haven Ranch, a private sanctuary near Bakersfield where they could visit him without restriction. The sanctuary, tucked into rolling hills just a few miles south of Lake Isabella, was a home for exotic animals dumped mostly from zoos and circuses. Its owners, Virginia and Ralph Brauer, had seven primates in all, but everyone agreed Moe, now thirty-eight — approaching elderly for a chimp, his flat brown face rimmed with gray — would remain alone in a specially built cage during his first few years there. The arrangement was a dream compared with the Wildlife WayStation. The Davises made the two-and-a-half-hour trip every week, delivering new toys for Moe and food for the other primates as part of the arrangement. Theyd arrive early and spend all day with their boy, playing with him inside his cage. This is the link where I got this portion of the story. It talks about the early days when they went to Africa to bring Moe home. It also talks about the unfortunate events that came much later. esquire/_mobile/features/chimpanzee-attack-0409
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 23:36:45 +0000
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