Chimp Killing Cop Suffers From PTSD

“Travis, the 14-year-old, 200-pound pet of Sandra Herold, 71, mauled a family friend in Ms. Herold’s driveway,” the New York Times recounts. “Officer Chiafari and another officer were the first to respond to Ms. Herold’s 911 call, and after the chimpanzee attacked his vehicle and opened the driver-side door in the driveway, Officer Chiafari fatally shot Travis.” Apparently, Travis and the victim weren’t the only victims. The Gray Lady reports that Officer Chiafari’s encounter with a primate’s primal nature has left the policeman mentally scarred. “He was haunted not just by the frightening encounter with the bloody and enraged chimp who outweighed him by 50 pounds, but also by images of the victim in the driveway. ‘I’d go to the mall and see women and imagine them without faces.'” The policeman who, for some reason, still carries a firearm, had difficulty getting CT taxpayers to fund Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) treatment. “Officer Chiafari required therapy but was denied a worker’s compensation claim. The reason was that harrowing episodes involving a person — shooting a suspect, for example — would be covered but similar encounters with animals were not.” And then he wasn’t! Not covered, I mean. And now there’s new legislation pending that would provide for “compensation for mental or emotional impairment after killing an animal when under threat of deadly force.”