Oct. 29 (UPI) — A pet monkey got loose from its owner at a Spirit Halloween store in Texas and spent more than 30 minutes swinging from rafters and poles.
Arlene Pinkston said she and her daughters were shopping at the Halloween store in Plano when they spotted the monkey.
“My daughter looked up and she said, ‘What in the world?’ and she’s like, ‘Is that a real monkey?’ and I looked up and said, ‘Well, it’s got a diaper on so I guess it is real,'” Pinkston told NBC 5 DFW.
Pinkston recorded video of the monkey running — and swinging — loose through the store.
Spirit Halloween employee Jimmy Harris said the monkey was apparently spooked by an animatronic display and fled from its owner.
“It was entertaining,” Harris said. “A lot of people just stood and watched it for like 30 minutes, the whole time, they were like, ‘monkey,’ and we had kids trying to catch it.”
A Plano police officer responded to the store toward the end of the monkey’s time on the loose.
“He observed the monkey swinging from the rafters wearing a diaper,” police said in a statement. “Eventually, a cookie was offered to the monkey by the owner, and was able to gain control of it.”
Police said the monkey was not injured and did not pose any danger to the store’s human customers.
The Jasper County Sheriff’s Department in Missouri said Tuesday that three monkeys are on the loose after a truck carrying Rhesus monkeys from Tulane University was involved in a crash on Interstate 59, outside of Heidelberg.
