Malloy was mayor of Stamford three years ago when Sandra Herold’s pet chimpanzee Travis mauled and nearly killed Charla Nash at Herold’s Rockrimmon Road property. He said today he remembers speaking with the late Herold during “Mayor’s Night In” events, but not about the animal, which was killed by police after the February, 2009 attack. He also remembered an occasion when Travis got out of a vehicle in the city. Nash last week told the Hartford Courant that Malloy was aware the chimp was dangerous. Answering questions on the allegation that he knew the chimp was dangerous, Malloy said:
“I don’t know who’s implying that. I saw a story in the Courant that has been repeated not in context… I knew what lots of people knew in Stamford, that this family had a chimpanzee and like everybody else in Stamford, assumed they were fully compliant with the law with respect thereto. I certainly did not know that the chimp offered any special danger other than its existence and again, like alot of people thought they were compliant with the law. And I think just to clarify, so it doesn’t then come back, there was one incident where the chimp got out of a car and took a while to get back into the car. And I was aware of that as everyone who’s read the Stamford Advocate would have been aware…I used to do something called Mayor’s Night In, Mayor’s Night Out and over the course of 12 or 14 years she came a few times, never to talk about the chimpanzee. She was a service provider to the city of Stamford, a towing business that was the family business. And from time to time the city would express its frustration with how that service was being offered and from time to time she would come to Mayor’s Night to defend her operation.”