As Travis the chimp shook the police car, like a dinosaur rocking a jeep in Jurassic Park, officer Frank Chiafari took out his gun. “If he tries to get me out, I have no choice: I have to kill him,” Chiafari recalls. “He pulls around and he comes to my door and I’m looking at him – we’re looking at each other. He pulls the door right off and then he raises his hands up and he growls. All I see is these big teeth with blood dripping. He gave me a second and I tell people – I swear this is true – I didn’t hear it but it was like a connection and he said to me, please do it – like, I can’t take it any more.”
Chiafari did pull the trigger and kill the chimp, a pet of Sandra Herold, who had called 911 in terror after Travis mauled a family friend in Herold’s driveway in Stamford, Connecticut. The victim, Charla Nash, survived but lost her face, eyesight and hands. At first, emergency responders were not sure if she was a man or a woman.
