"It has been a little over a year since Travis, the 14-year-old, 200-pound pet of Sandra Herold, 71, mauled a family friend in Ms. Herold’s driveway. 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. The story and its sensational underpinnings — Travis lived like a human, eating steak and drinking wine and, when he became hostile the day of the attack, ingesting Xanax — swept the globe. Travis had appeared in Old Navy and Coca-Cola commercials and television shows; the actress Morgan Fairchild, who had appeared beside him, called his death a “sin.” The victim, Charla Nash, 56, survived. Her recovery from the attack — the chimp bit and clawed off her face and hands — was presented to the world via an “Oprah Winfrey Show” in November. She was blind, her features lost in a bulbous and livid pulp. But no one has heard Officer Chiafari’s story until now." - Christopher Chung

"But Ms. Nash reached out with the stumps of her arms and tried to grab the officer’s leg, a memory that was perhaps the worst for him that day. Ms. Nash was rushed to a hospital. Officer Chiafari was, too, for shock, and then sent home, where he told his wife and children — a 10-year-old girl and a teenage boy and girl — what had happened. “The next morning, I crashed,” he said. “I’d always heard of post-traumatic stress. Tell you the truth, I don’t think I believed in it.”" - Christopher Chung