Stamford police officer recounts 2009 chimp attack to state legislators [Connecticut Post, Bridgeport]

Feb. 26--HARTFORD -- The Stamford police officer who shot and killed a raging chimpanzee after its brutal mutilation of a Stamford woman last year was praised Thursday afternoon by state legislators, who professed support for an act that would cover workers' compensation for similar traumatizing situations involving animals.

The 200-pound chimpanzee, named Travis, brutally mauled Charla Nash in North Stamford on Feb. 16, 2009, ripping her face and hands to pieces before veteran Stamford Police Officer Frank Chiafari shot it four times in the chest, eventually killing the animal.

"It wasn't a cute little chimp at the zoo. This thing was a monster with fangs and blood all over it," Chiafari said. "He was saying, 'You're next.' "

Chiafari's testimony to the state Labor and Public Employees Committee supported an act, introduced by state Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, that would amend the state Workers' Compensation Act to make officers eligible for benefits related to police shootings of an animal threatening serious injury or death.

State law only applies to officers facing serious injury or deadly force by another person.

The committee will vote on the act at a later meeting, but its reception was favorable.

"We are just looking at how to word the changes in the law and not the intent of it," said state Rep. Bill Amam, R-South Windsor.

Committee Chairwoman Edith Prague, D-Columbia, added: "This is an issue we need to deal with to help other people."

Committee members were critical of Stamford's actions in the case, disparaging the speed of its rejection of Chiafari's post-traumatic stress claim.

"Five days?" state Rep. Ernest Hewett, D-New London, repeated after Stamford Police Sgt. Joseph Kennedy explained how long it took for the city to reject the claim. "Five days is distressing me. (There should have been) some kind of investigation to see what really happened."

Although the city rejected Chiafari's workers' compensation claim after he shot the chimp, it later came to an agreement with the police association that covered Chiafari's out-of-pocket medical expenses.

The city paid $6,400 to compensate Chiafari through the city's workers' compensation "without prejudice," as well as through the Health Net insurance account, City Risk Manager Anne Marie Mones said. She declined to comment further.

Former Stamford mayor and potential Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dannel Malloy, who was scheduled to visit the Capitol later in the day, said by phone he would happily endorse the workers' compensation legislation if asked.

"If I'm there and somebody asked me 'Do I believe there need to be changes that account for situations that clearly had not been envisioned,' yeah," Malloy said. "I don't think anyone, when they wrote the workers' compensation law, envisioned this. We now know things like this happened and there needs to be more leeway. It's a no-brainer."

The former mayor said he was responsible for the officer receiving some payment from the city.

"I said that, workers' compensation rules aside, we as a city needed to do what was necessary to take care of this officer. That was my directive," Malloy said. "The message that went from me to the benefits people was 'I don't care how it gets done, make sure this officer is taken care of and the rest will take care of itself, whether rules have to be changed or laws modified.' "

The act on Thursday had one critic in the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, which opposed the change as a "new, unfunded mandate," that could create an "enormous liability" for cities and towns, according to the association's testimony.

The present law is "reasonable and should not be changed because of a highly publicized, tragic event," according to the testimony.

Kennedy, president of the city police union, said the act is not intended to qualify officers for workers' compensation when they are "called upon routine duties, such as shooting a deer or a rabid raccoon."

"This law, while well-intended, leaves a significant loophole, which fails to protect our state's first responders in the circumstances they face," Kennedy said.

Chiafari said before the assault last year at Rock Rimmon Road, he didn't even know what post-traumatic stress disorder was and had never visited a therapist.

"It feels like you're cloaked in darkness " a terrible sense of doom," he said, as 10 of his fellow officers sat behind him for support.

Chiafari described debilitating nightmares, seeing faceless women at the mall and flashbacks of the animal's bloody teeth.

He explained he started attending therapy sessions a week after the incident, but stopped two months later when the city said the provider was out-of-network.

The stress came back in July when he was visiting Disney World, he said, and has been occurring on and off in waves ever since.

By adopting this act and amending the current law, the state would show it supports officers when they are faced with terrible things, Chiafari said.

"This should not have to happen to any other officer that has to face a scene of carnage," the 25-year veteran officer said.

To see more of the Connecticut Post, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.connpost.com/.

Copyright (c) 2010, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.