Monkey to Join SWAT Team

MESA, Ariz. (AP) - Police tactical units usually don't engage in a lot of monkey business, but one SWAT team wants to add a capuchin monkey to its staff.

"Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it," said Sean Truelove, an officer with the Mesa Police Department who builds and operates tactical robots for the unit in suburban Phoenix.

Truelove said the department is trying to obtain a capuchin, considered the second smartest primate behind the chimpanzee, with about $100,000 in grant money.

Truelove says the monkey, which alone would cost $15,000, could become the ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool. Capuchins are small, weighing between 3 and 8 pounds, have tiny humanlike hands and puzzle-solving skills. He said the monkey could be trained to unlock doors and search buildings.

Since 1979, capuchin monkeys have been trained as companions for quadriplegics, performing daily tasks such as serving food, opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, and 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.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)