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Officer Nick Bachman said the suspect with the “Rambo-style” knife rushed police. At that point, it appeared he would either stab an officer or get himself shot, he said in a video released by Metro Police.
Instead, Bachman, a K9 handler, released Kimura, the black Dutch Shepherd. He remembers the helpless feeling when Jeffrey Holland began plunging the blade into the animal’s neck. “It’s probably the hardest thing to see.”
A dog is like “our kids,” Bachman said in the video, but it also felt like a fellow human officer was being injured.
Despite his injuries, Kimura didn’t let go, giving officers space and time to make a safe arrest, he said.
A shooting was averted.
In the ride to the animal hospital, Bachman said tragic scenarios flashed through his mind: What if Kimura has to retire or, worse, be euthanized? What if he dies in the back of the pickup truck?
Kimura was released Wednesday from the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care in the southwest valley. He should be all healed in about four weeks, Bachman said.
The cuts were “clean,” made by the nonserrated portion of the knife, Bachman said. Damage was mostly to the dog’s muscles.
The incident started with a traffic stop near Katie Avenue and Maryland Parkway. Holland pulled over but got out of his car wielding a knife.
He entered an apartment and later came out showing the knife and refusing to drop it, police said. He was hospitalized at University Medical Center and booked in absentia at the Clark County Detention Center on counts of resisting police with a deadly weapon (not a gun), torture/injure/poison/attempt to kill police animal, and operating a vehicle with expired registration, jail logs show.