{"id":64655,"date":"2021-09-01T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/?p=64655"},"modified":"2021-09-09T10:54:05","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T14:54:05","slug":"light-pierces-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/light-pierces-through\/","title":{"rendered":"Light Pierces Through"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Esposito, the New York, New York, Police Department\u2019s (NYPD\u2019s) chief of department, was arriving at work on the morning of September 11, 2001, and about to drive through the entrance gate of One Police Plaza when the sound of the first hijacked plane hitting the World Trade Center\u2019s North Tower reached him.<\/p>\n<p>He looked up, saw the smoking hole in the building a few blocks away, and immediately started driving toward the complex.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64664\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64664\" style=\"width: 447px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-64664\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-10-ESU-on-Scene-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"447\" height=\"297\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-10-ESU-on-Scene-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-10-ESU-on-Scene-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-10-ESU-on-Scene-768x509.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-10-ESU-on-Scene-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-10-ESU-on-Scene-2048x1358.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-10-ESU-on-Scene-272x182.jpg 272w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 447px) 100vw, 447px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64664\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">First responders for the NYPD, FDNY, and other area agencies were greeted by a scene of absolute devastation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>By the time he reached the Battery Park underpass, where the FDR Drive bends around the southern tip of Manhattan, traffic had snarled to a stop. He ran the rest of the way to the World Trade Center. As he arrived at the site moments later, United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. He took out his department radio and issued a Level 4 mobilization\u2014the single largest emergency deployment of police officers in New York City\u2019s history\u2014broadcasting to NYPD officers citywide, \u201cThis looks like a planned attack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chief Esposito ordered the evacuation of NYPD\u2019s headquarters, City Hall, the United Nations, the Empire State Building, and iconic signature buildings citywide, telling borough commanders across the city that they were on their own and trusting the leadership, training, and experience that he had helped inculcate in them to guide them as they put their respective emergency plans into effect. \u201cI was on the job over 30 years at the time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>What are you going to do? A lot of it is common sense, but a lot is the result of training over the years, mobilizations responding to riots, blackouts, etc. For the police department, it is second nature.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Twenty years later, he is still quick to praise the actions of his colleagues that day. \u201cEverybody who responded, they did a phenomenal job, and it was automatic\u2026There wasn\u2019t a lot of communication. But I knew that the people on the scene there knew what they were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After linking up with first responders from the NYPD Emergency Service Unit (ESU) when he arrived, he took shelter under an overpass across West Street, in the shadow of the Twin Towers.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64663\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64663\" style=\"width: 488px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-64663\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-6-First-Responders-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"488\" height=\"324\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-6-First-Responders-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-6-First-Responders-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-6-First-Responders-768x509.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-6-First-Responders-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-6-First-Responders-2048x1358.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-6-First-Responders-272x182.jpg 272w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 488px) 100vw, 488px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64663\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Smoke filled the sky of Manhattan as first responders watched in helpless horror as the Twin Towers collapsed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>I looked up and debris was coming down from over 100 stories up, bouncing all around us. When it stopped, I got out and threw my baseball hat on. The officers gave me a helmet, and I remember jokingly saying, \u201dDon\u2019t lose my hat.\u201d I went one way. They went another.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>I watched the second tower melt. It was like a big candle, melting in fast motion\u2026 It was like Pearl Harbor, the civilian equivalent of that sneak attack.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The difference between Chief Esposito going one way and his colleagues from ESU going another turned out to be life versus death. He recalls,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Later that day, when I was with ESU again, I said to them, \u201cYou tell Vinnie Danz and Joe Vigiano I want my hat back!\u201d\u2026 and their faces dropped. They knew both of them didn\u2019t make it, and I hadn\u2019t found out yet.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Thomas P. Galati, Chief of Intelligence, NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I could just feel the earth move. The tower came down. The smoke just ripped through the buildings. I was probably somewhere around City Hall. You could see the smoke, and everything was hazy from the first tower. But when the second building went down, it was just this thick smoke that moved quickly through the whole canyon of buildings. I jumped inside a building as it passed and waited there a few minutes, but then ended up going outside. There were no masks. I had no facemask, nothing. It was summertime, and it wasn\u2019t even like you had a handkerchief or anything. I remember taking in a lot of dust and debris to the point where my eyes were just filled with it. I had to just push water into my eyes. Later that night, when I left the scene, I went right to Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, because I couldn\u2019t see anymore. My eyes were almost sealed. I remember coughing up stuff I ingested that night and for weeks after. That night I didn\u2019t go home; I slept in the precinct.<\/p>\n<p>I came across a lieutenant who I actually knew\u2026 he was having difficulty breathing. I grabbed him with the other uniformed cops who were there, and we dragged him into a Roy Rogers. We got him up on the table, opened up his shirt, got him water. I knew that he was experiencing something, didn\u2019t know what, but at that point, I thought it was better to try and get him out. I took a couple of those cops and said, \u201cTake him down to Broadway to the Ferry Terminal,\u201d because we heard they were transporting people to Staten Island Hospital. So they put him on the ferry. He came back to see me several months later and said he had a heart attack.<\/p>\n<p>I remember a lot of discussion and rumors among cops because nobody knew what happened. We heard things like the entire First Precinct was killed, or that the chief of the department had died. Then somebody would say, \u201cNo, I just saw him\u2014he\u2019s alive.\u201d But as the days went on, you would learn who still hadn\u2019t been found. I remember saying, \u201cNo, they\u2019re gonna show up,\u201d but the names for whom that was true just started to dwindle.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Police Officer Stephen Patrick Driscoll \u2013 NYPD ESU<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>Salvatore Carcaterra, a retired NYPD deputy chief who managed the implementation of the department\u2019s counterterrorism response to 9\/11, recounts,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>The South Tower is collapsing, and somebody grabs my arm and says, \u201cChief, the building is coming down.\u201d We were under the overpass on West and Liberty\u2014it was the only thing that saved my life. At first, we were getting hit like somebody throwing dirt on you, and then it just all came down hard, like a train. Things just went silent.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The emotion that he remembers is less fear than anger:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>We were kind of buried, and I remember, personally, I was so angry at myself, thinking how the hell did I put myself in this position that I can\u2019t get out of here, thinking I would die, that I couldn\u2019t breathe\u2026 When the tower went down, it was just black\u2026 You were basically on your own figuring out how to survive.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Some of the officers, they were able to shoot the glass out [of the building they were backed up against], and we escaped to the other side near Battery Park. We started doing evacuations of people off Manhattan to New Jersey, back and forth via the harbor launch.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Thomas Galati, the NYPD\u2019s longstanding chief of intelligence, describes running into a high-ranking official he knew that morning near City Hall after rushing to the scene from the 47th Precinct. He was told, \u201cGet as many cops as you can find, go toward the towers, and try to help as many people as you can.\u201d He remembers,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>There were some cops around who were covered from head to toe in just ash, and I knew I couldn\u2019t take them with me. They were there when the first tower went down. I gathered some other clean uniform[ed officers] and started making my way to the towers.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Terri Tobin, Chief of Interagency Operations, NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Everywhere I looked, there was an officer. For people coming out of the towers, there was absolutely no thinking. They didn\u2019t come down and have to wonder, \u201cWhere do I go?\u201d It wasn\u2019t mass confusion. Every five feet, there was an officer saying, very calmly, \u201cPlease exit to your left. Exit to your left.\u201d So there was this very obvious route. Just follow the blue. At the same time, firefighters were coming in and going up. The response by emergency personnel was just phenomenal.<\/p>\n<p>I do not understand how I am here now, but am grateful I am. I can\u2019t explain why I survived September 11\u2014having been blown a good distance and clearing a concrete barrier that separated northbound and southbound traffic, I landed on a patch of grass outside the World Financial Center, which if you are familiar with the landscape of Manhattan, is a pretty remarkable feat. At the direction of First Deputy Commissioner Joe Dunne, I had put on a heavy ballistic helmet, so that when the mass of concrete split it in half, I only had a chunk embedded in my skull. I fully believe that I would have been decapitated if I had not had that helmet on. Although I was struck with glass between my shoulder blades and the glass went in rather deep, it hit no major artery nor any major organ. I don\u2019t know why when some people made a left and others a right, one made it and the other didn\u2019t. One of the lessons I have learned as a result of September 11 is that we are all connected. Not one of us suffers without all of us suffering.<\/p>\n<p>I was close to retirement; I was just over a year away from retiring\u2014and I think that 9\/11 really made me recommit. To be honest with you, there was no place else that I wanted to be but there and doing what I was doing on that day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Robert Thomas Linnane \u2013 FDNY, Ladder 20<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>As Chief Galati and the officers approached, instead of the thicker and thicker crowds of people that they expected to see, they found empty streets:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>The closer we came to the site, the less people there were. I was on Liberty and Church Street, and the ground was littered with all kinds of debris from the first tower\u2014I vividly remember seeing a whole lot of shoes. Either people were blown out of their shoes, or ran out of them\u2014they were everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\">\u201cThe sheer scale and unprecedented nature of the attack created insurmountable odds.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Along with the shoes, Chief Galati vividly remembers the heat: \u201cIt was so hot where the building was that you couldn\u2019t get close to it. You could literally walk over there and feel like you were walking into a fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Carcaterra now serves as the executive vice president for Security Fire &amp; Life Safety at the 9\/11 Memorial and Museum, a job he feels called to do given his relationship to the site and to the events of the day. He emphasizes,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>What we went through was nothing compared to the people hanging on the outside of those towers and knowing there was nowhere to go. That terror. Those people did not choose to jump. Open a 400-degree oven and feel yourself get burned\u2014these fires were burning with jet fuel at 2,000 degrees. There was no choice.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64718\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64718\" style=\"width: 517px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-64718 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-30-Sea-of-Service-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"517\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-30-Sea-of-Service-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-30-Sea-of-Service-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-30-Sea-of-Service-768x509.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-30-Sea-of-Service-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-30-Sea-of-Service-2048x1358.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 517px) 100vw, 517px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64718\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">First responders from all disciplines flocked to the scene on 9\/11 and for many days after, seeking to help.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Chief Esposito credits his colleagues with making many lifesaving decisions that day, such as a critical recommendation by the executive officer of Manhattan South to stage the NYPD\u2019s incident command post farther from Ground Zero than initially proposed. But the sheer scale and unprecedented nature of the attack created insurmountable odds for first responders. The frustration and helplessness that many officers remember experiencing that day would form the basis of the counterterrorism program that the NYPD created, in order to never be in that position again. \u201cAs law enforcement officers, we know we are supposed to respond to this, but these people just went to work in the office,\u201d Carcaterra explains.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64665\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64665\" style=\"width: 509px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-64665\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"509\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-768x509.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-2048x1358.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-8-Overpass-Debris-272x182.jpg 272w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 509px) 100vw, 509px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64665\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u201cThe sheer scale and unprecedented nature of the attack created insurmountable odds.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>On our side, just looking and knowing that we cannot help them, we just cannot get there\u2014it was a horrible and helpless feeling. That\u2019s a sound I will never forget in my entire life\u2014those poor people coming down and hitting the floor, the ground\u2026 it was terrible.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>He remembers, \u201cLater that night, I don\u2019t know what time it was, maybe two in the morning, I looked up at the helicopters and everything burning, and I just thought, \u2018Where are we?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Making Sense of Our Despair: From Rescue and Recovery to Restructuring<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Of course, 9\/11 was not the NYPD\u2019s first encounter with terrorism. The department had over a century\u2019s experience dealing with politically motivated acts of violence, from investigating violent anarchist and communist entities with the NYPD\u2019s Red Hand Squad to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that presaged 9\/11. The department had long dedicated resources to countering terrorism through its partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a consequence largely born out of violent extremist bombings in the 1970s and 80s carried out by groups like the Weathermen Underground Organization, the Puerto Rican Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, Omega-7, and the Jewish Defense League, among others. The highly effective Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) was the first dedicated federal\/local partnership of its kind in the United States when it was established in New York City in 1980. But 9\/11 left no doubt that the department couldn\u2019t rely solely on its federal counterparts or existing partnerships and needed to fundamentally reimagine itself in order to protect the city. Even as the rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero was ongoing, the NYPD, under the leadership of former Commissioner Ray Kelly, began to design within the United States\u2019 largest municipal police force an intelligence-led, counterterrorism-focused capability that leveraged its specialized understanding of the local threat environment.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout alignleft\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Among the 2,977 lives taken on 9\/11 <\/strong>were 343 New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firefighters, 37 Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) officers, and 23 NYPD officers. In the two decades that have passed, at least 526 additional NYPD and FDNY officers have succumbed to 9\/11 related illnesses, a toll that considerably eclipses even the staggering toll of those who were lost on the day of the incident itself. It is difficult to find a single piece of the NYPD that has been unchanged by 9\/11. With the passage of time comes a measure of healing and renewal. The youngest of this year\u2019s NYPD recruits and cadets were not even born on September 11, 2001. It is therefore all the more vital that they come to personally understand that day\u2019s horror and heroism from the 4,297 remaining members of the department who worked at the NYPD during the attacks. These men and women are identifiable by the WTC memorial bar worn on their uniform\u2014a simple acknowledgment of that selfless service. With the 20th anniversary of 9\/11, we honor the legacy of those who were lost with recollections from those who were there, and we reflect on the unprecedented effort undertaken to protect the city in the two challenging decades that followed.<\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>The immediate transformation within the department was equal parts evolution and creation. Commissioner Kelly appointed the new NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence David Cohen, who had recently retired from over 30 years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where he served in senior positions in both its Directorate of Intelligence and its Directorate of Operations. Deputy Commissioner Cohen fundamentally transformed the NYPD\u2019s Intelligence Bureau\u2014which until that time had largely focused on protecting local officials and foreign dignitaries\u2014into an entirely unique, counterterrorism-focused agency-within-an-agency that could anticipate, identify, and mitigate threats, wherever and whatever the origin. The bureau was reoriented toward intelligence gathering and bolstered with new investigative resources. Staffing was expanded and reimagined with the addition and redirection of seasoned investigators with years of experience fighting crime, as well as a new contingent of officers from international backgrounds, who brought with them critical language skills as well as deep cultural knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>Commissioner Kelly also created the Counterterrorism Bureau (CTB) to complement the Intelligence Bureau\u2019s ability to independently investigate and mitigate terrorism threats. After he was named as police commissioner by incoming Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but before taking office, Kelly met with some of his key advisors and sketched out the structure of the CTB on a sheet of butcher paper. The CTB would focus on hardening the myriad targets in and around the city, as well as responding to events ranging from a chemical or biological weapons attack to a radioactive dispersal device to a complex, coordinated active-shooter event taking place in the city.<\/p>\n<p>These two bureaus, totaling some 1,000 men and women strong, formed the twin pillars of a counterterrorism strategy that would ably equip the NYPD to meet the threats that would confront it in the first two decades of the new millennium. Deputy Commissioner Cohen recalls a seminal conversation with Commissioner Kelly during one of the daily morning meetings in the early days of the program. \u201cSomeone asked him, what was the NYPD\u2019s guiding strategy? He said, \u2018Our strategy is to move the odds in our favor a little bit, every single day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Eddie Maldonado, Lieutenant (Ret.), NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On 9\/11, I was a new lieutenant in the Bronx. I was listening to the radio on the way to work, dropping my wife off, and the broadcast was interrupted to say a plane hit the World Trade Center. I was a rookie during the 1993 bombing, and I remember vividly having my first experience as part of a mobilization where they take cops for big incidents and send them to respond. That moment in my career was burned into my head. When I pulled into the station house, we had a van of officers and I told them to stand by because we\u2019re going. The mobilization hadn\u2019t been called yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time.<\/p>\n<p>We entered the South Tower with a bunch of firefighters, and I told the cops to go down and start evacuating the mall area. We went down the stairs to the first sub-level and saw two guys carrying a woman burned almost beyond all recognition on a chair. As we were going to help take her out, a Port Authority worker yelled \u201cHit the deck!\u201d Everybody got down on the floor. We heard a huge rumbling\u2026 like a jet engine revving up, the sudden sounds of crashing, and then a huge push of air. It was so strong, it pushed people into these storefront windows, and then it was just pure darkness. In hindsight, this was the building pancaking and coming down. You could hear people running full speed and hitting walls, people moaning on the floor all over. We got up and started to look for a way out. As crazy as it sounds, like light at the end of the tunnel, there was a glow at the end of the corridor that we were following, and it turned out to be the entrance point to the train station underneath the World Trade Center. One of the cops I had been outside with earlier was down there. I asked what happened. He said, \u201cI think a bomb went off.\u201d We went toward the stairway, and it was covered in books; there was a bookstore nearby and the books were just littering the street. Once outside, all the smoke was caking up in my eyes, I couldn\u2019t breathe too well. I asked an ESU guy if he had anything I could use to cover my face. He pulled out a sling, then immediately dropped the bag, and said \u201cRun!\u201d With that, I heard the rumbling of the second building. The smoke was like a freight train, coming right behind you.<\/p>\n<p>I had been to those buildings many times in the past, and there used to be a restaurant on the top floor\u2014Windows on the World. I remember being on the pile all day on September 14. We had the bucket brigade, and near the end of the day, someone said, \u201cHey I\u2019ve got some noise. I have an air pocket!\u201d Everyone got excited; we started digging faster and faster. A miner went in and started passing us things, and one of them was a rack from there. I just thought to myself, \u201cWe have been here all day, digging in this spot, and we only got to the Windows on the World.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Police Officer Stephen Driscoll \u2013 NYPD ESU; Sergeant Rodney Gillis \u2013 NYPD ESU<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Tapping the Talent to Tackle the Threat: Leveraging the Diversity of Personnel<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>One of the earliest and best lessons that the NYPD learned was how to access the untapped resources that already existed throughout the department to leverage those law enforcement strengths established in nearly two centuries of policing. Key among these resources were officers from more than 160 countries who spoke 168 distinct languages. The diversity of the NYPD\u2014whose personnel mirror the cultural melting pot of New York City and that became majority minority in 2006\u2014differentiates it from even its federal intelligence and law enforcement peers. In the post-9\/11 environment of growing transnational terrorism threats, diversity has become a defining strength.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Eugene Fasano, Sergeant (Ret.), PAPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was a PAPD officer teaching EMT classes and working directly with Captain Kathy Mazza and Lieutenant Robert Cirri. We were in Jersey City at the time, talking about how beautiful the weather was and how we were going to get lunch in Hoboken. Someone came out of the office and said, \u201cA plane hit the World Trade Center.\u201d We changed into our tactical uniforms, and Kathy said, \u201cYou\u2019re coming with me.\u201d I looked at the Twin Towers, and they were burning.<\/p>\n<p>We entered the building through the loading dock entrance and saw a man with a bad compound fracture to the leg. Kathy turned back to me and said, \u201cGo get the first aid kit out of the car; take care of him.\u201d She had a mind like a steel trap, she wouldn\u2019t forget anything\u2014if it was important to her, she remembered. I went back, opened the trunk, and nothing was there. Back in the loading dock there was water coming down, alarms blaring\u2014I yelled Kathy and Bobby\u2019s names, and they were not hearing me. They went through a door ahead, and I turned around to help the wounded man. That was the last time I saw Kathy and Bobby. I\u2019ve had survivor\u2019s guilt for a very long time because I didn\u2019t go with them. I spoke to Kathy\u2019s husband after, and I told him you know she never forgets anything\u2014she sent me to the car for the first aid kits and they weren\u2019t there\u2014Do you know where they were?\u2014Were they in her personal car? He said yes.<\/p>\n<p>I was in and out of that building three or four times evacuating people before it came down, but I just had this feeling I never experienced before. I was in emergency services, volunteering for ambulances, in buildings that were on fire or collapsed, for a long time but I never had this overwhelming feeling of something telling me to \u201cget out of this building now\u201d more than I did that day. A group of three officers and I helped more people out, getting further away from the building to clear the area and transport victims to ambulances. When the South Tower came down, we didn\u2019t believe it. I turned around again and looked up at the North Tower and at the antenna\u2014it was bobbling back and forth, left to right. Once the cloud cleared, we just looked at this big hole in the sky. How could this happen? It\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n<p>We heard the White House was gone, the Pentagon was gone, the Capitol was gone, and that all air traffic had been stopped. The sky was eerily quiet, people walking around in a daze. We started hearing planes and everyone got quiet, nobody knew what they were. After a minute they were overhead, and it was two low-flying Air Force jets. It was almost like they were up there saying, \u201cWe\u2019re here guys, we\u2019ve got your back.\u201d I\u2019ll never forget that moment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Captain Kathy Mazza \u2013 PAPD; Lieutenant Robert D. Cirri \u2013 PAPD<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>Recognizing the urgent need to build subject matter expertise in the counterterrorism and intelligence space\u2014institutional knowledge that federal agencies had the benefit of building over more than half a century\u2014the Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureaus recruited officers and analysts with critical language skill sets, overseas regional experiences, and backgrounds in international affairs. Commissioner Kelly worked with City Hall to establish new classifications and hiring authorities for civilian positions like intelligence research specialists, professional analyst roles based on those that existed for decades throughout the U.S. intelligence community. These men and women were recruited from established national security and foreign affairs graduate schools at institutes of higher education throughout the United States, as well as from agencies like the CIA, FBI, and National Security Administration and across the private sector. The teamed-up civilian analysts and uniformed investigators were charged with bringing their vastly different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills together to counter the terrorism threat. It has proved a formidable and enduring model.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64671\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64671\" style=\"width: 519px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-64671\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-24-Base-of-Tower-cropped-300x202.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"519\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-24-Base-of-Tower-cropped-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-24-Base-of-Tower-cropped-1024x690.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-24-Base-of-Tower-cropped-768x518.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-24-Base-of-Tower-cropped-1536x1036.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-24-Base-of-Tower-cropped-2048x1381.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-24-Base-of-Tower-cropped-272x182.jpg 272w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 519px) 100vw, 519px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64671\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The destruction of the WTC towers left its mark in the irrevocably changed NYC skyline.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The second key insight the department had was that no one knows the streets of New York City better than the officers who patrol them. The eyes and ears of roughly 36,000 officers, whether working in uniform, plainclothes, or in specialized undercover capacities, provided unparalleled domain knowledge and insight, which have become invaluable as the terrorism threat has shifted from external to homegrown. Conventional policing tactics and techniques\u2014ranging from investigative experience with complex narcotics cases, to covert work in plainclothes street crime and anti-crime units, to comfortable familiarity talking to, recruiting, and running sources\u2014formed the backbone of the human intelligence\u2013based work that the Intelligence Bureau soon became defined by. Given NYPD\u2019s decades of experience working with sources of information from different communities to combat crime, it was natural for the Intelligence Bureau to create units to apply the same techniques and expertise to combating terrorism. The cornerstone of the bureau\u2019s human intelligence capabilities was a deep undercover program that had already existed for nearly a hundred years.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Dermot Shea, Police Commissioner, NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was a lieutenant in Narcotics at the time. I drove down, as many other officers did, on 9\/11. We didn\u2019t know what we were driving into. People didn\u2019t hesitate. I always think about the tragedy that there wasn\u2019t really a lot to do that day. As much as everyone wanted to help, and as hard as everyone did work, it was pretty apparent that, once the dust settled, there were not going to be a lot of survivors. The world changed, and it really has never been the same since. As I look back now at 20 years, I think of that sacrifice\u2014the lives lost.<\/p>\n<p>I remember standing at a church in the Bronx for a firefighter\u2019s funeral and just thinking, how are they going to conduct all these services? A funeral for a firefighter or a cop is something that no one would ever miss\u2026 and there was no way you could be at them all\u2014it was that many.<\/p>\n<p>I remember sending undercover officers to the debris landfill in the early stages. It was well intentioned. It was important work that had to be done. These were officers who were available, but as undercovers, clearly could not do enforcement; it wouldn\u2019t be right. The first time I went to the landfill they handed me a rake and just said, \u201cSift that field.\u201d Nine months later, you were doing that in HAZMAT suits with hot and cold decontamination washes, so you wonder what people went through in those early days.<\/p>\n<p>There are events like 9\/11, Hurricane Sandy, and the pandemic where some people step back and some people step forward. When it is all written\u2014I think it is those in service, whether it is in the military, those who wear some uniform, be it police, sanitation, or fire\u2014they shine in crisis and pull the city through with a lot of help.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: All the victims and survivors of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Every loss is tragic; each one is important for their families and loved ones. We remember them all at this solemn anniversary.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\">\u201cNo one knows the streets of New York City better than the officers who patrol them.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This approach served equally useful in addressing crime. The Field Intelligence Officer (FIO) program, comprising uniformed members of service serving in each of the city\u2019s 77 precincts, housing police service areas, transit boroughs, and other specialty locations throughout New York City, is a key example of this approach. FIOs track down hundreds of illegal guns each year, develop leads online, and debrief individuals who may have valuable information about terrorism-related or criminal activity. They seek to prevent gang and crew violence as well as terrorism. They provide a mechanism for the Intelligence Bureau to understand the crime trends afflicting the city as well as communicate information related to terrorism down to the precinct level.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>New Threats Meet New Tech: Leveraging the Power of Data<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The devastation of 9\/11 didn\u2019t just result from a failure of imagination; it laid bare multiple failures of technology. The list of things that went wrong was long and varied, compounding the sheer enormity of the destruction. Interoperable gear, equipment, and technology\u2014from radios, repeaters, and mobile telecommunications kits to respirator masks and other personal protective equipment\u2014were minimally available and hardly functional. The 911 call systems, according to the findings of the <em>9\/11 Commission Report<\/em>, struggled to manage the volume of calls and were limited by dispatching operational procedures.<sup>1<\/sup> Mobile phone networks were heavily impacted from the damaging combination of a destroyed cell tower infrastructure and surges in wireless communications traffic. Twenty years later, the technological infrastructure is much stronger. The NYPD, FDNY, PAPD, and other partners rely on far more resilient and interoperable communications platforms with a greater number of cross-band UHF radio communication channels that can be accessed by shared-mission responders in an emergency. Inter-connected operating protocols like the Department of Homeland Security\u2013guided National Incident Management System, innovative joint operations centers, and interagency tabletop exercises, ensure that incident plans are coordinated and enacted with partnerships at the center of crisis response.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Matthew Pontillo, Chief of Risk Management, NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was in early, maybe 6:30 a.m., for the opening of the mayoral primary polls. I was supposed to have a meeting that morning. When the first plane struck, I was in the administrative office of operations speaking to my lieutenant about the mayoral primary election and the police security plan for the day. We were standing there, and we hear this loud crash. We both instinctively walked to the window and looked down at the Brooklyn Bridge roadway because that\u2019s where we thought it was coming from. It sounded like a large truck colliding with something. It was that metallic crunching noise. We looked down, and we didn\u2019t see anything, but we saw people looking up at the World Trade Center\u2026 There was the initial shock and uncertainty and that quickly became this laser-like focus on what had just happened, what this meant, getting a handle on all of our resources with thousands of cops at polling places. How do we stop this election, get all those cops mobilized to where we need them?<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Sergeant Rodney Gillis \u2013 NYPD ESU<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>The 9\/11 attacks also transformed the way the NYPD used the vast amount of data that it generated. The NYPD has considered itself data driven since the 1990s, when Commissioner William Bratton drastically reduced citywide crime with the CompStat program. At that time, the technology involved wasn\u2019t much more sophisticated than pushpins on a map. After 9\/11, the department invested heavily in the creation of centralized data repositories and powerful engines to search them, bringing the philosophy of CompStat into the information age. The goal of these efforts wasn\u2019t just to centralize data, it was to democratize it\u2014the latter being nonobvious in a paramilitary institution.<\/p>\n<p>Multiple streams of data, which had previously existed in silos that were not even always electronic (forms in triplicate being a signature of the department well into the 2000s), were fed into broadly accessible lakes of information and made available not only to executive-level decision makers in police headquarters, but also to patrol cops on the street. Department-wide data collection and analysis programs such as the Domain Awareness System (DAS), the license plate reader expansion, and the vast camera network of the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI) have, in recent years, transformed the work of uniformed members of service throughout New York, allowing them to access torrents of valuable information for situational awareness, incident response, and investigative purposes. All of this information, moreover, is accessible via their department-issued smartphones and tablets.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>David Cohen, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence (Ret.), NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was out of the country on 9\/11 in Turkey when we saw the image of the Twin Towers on the news. I was stunned. I wanted to be in New York. It was painful to see, but also painful not to be there to share the anguish that you knew the city and its people were going through. When I returned, I remember the acrid smell of burning wire and burning rubber. It looked like what portions of Dresden must have looked like during the firebombing. I didn\u2019t need to wait to know that this was al-Qa\u2019ida. The group had been deeply embedded in me from my experience as deputy director of operations at CIA. In 1996, I had authorized the establishment of a unique station, the first of its kind, solely dedicated to the gaining of intelligence and the pursuit of an individual\u2014Usama Bin Laden. The attacks on 9\/11 made a deep, deep impact on those who had been watching Bin Laden for the better part of half a decade. Not being part of the intelligence community any longer at that time, I had a certain lost feeling after the attacks. That feeling disappeared when I received a call from Commissioner Kelly, who asked me to participate in the effort to remake the NYPD in light of the attacks. There was only one serious thought in my mind\u2014I either say yes, or I leave New York City. It was not possible for me to walk away from his request to help in any way I could and still stay in the city.<\/p>\n<p>The Intelligence Division had a lot of extraordinarily talented people who got there for many different reasons. But what they didn\u2019t originally come there for, pre-9\/11, was the mission of protecting the city from another terrorist attack. That was not in their initial mental or cultural job description. The cultural change was far more important to me than the architecture that we ended up with. There was never any fixed structure, no playbook, no consultants to seek out for advice, because this had never been done before. My meetings with Commissioner Kelly served as an incubator for ideas, plans, and actions. Within the Intelligence Division, there was continuous adaptation as our capabilities changed and the culture migrated to the new nontraditional missions that these amazing detectives, officers, analysts, and support staff undertook. We delivered an organization that made sense for the mission; people who were professional and understood what they were doing, why they were there, and how to do it; and the knowledge that it would continue to grow and get better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: The men and women of the CIA who died protecting New York City and the United States from another terrorist attack. There have been many who will remain unknown to the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>Many of the NYPD\u2019s most advanced technological platforms, initially developed and funded for a post-9\/11 counterterrorism need, also demonstrated value and applicability in combating crime. GPS-derived automatic vehicle location and identification systems that enable the NYPD to monitor the movement of its patrol resources in real time help with large mobilizations as well as identifying, monitoring, and patrolling hot spot areas of crime. The same video camera networks originally established to help identify suspicious activity and unattended packages on the city\u2019s more than 200 miles of mass transit lines also regularly prove essential in identifying suspects of violent crimes throughout the subway system. Even something that seems so simple today\u2014a police officer having access to a department-issued smartphone\u2014allows the department to transmit tactical intelligence products, situational awareness reports, and be-on-the-lookout notices (BOLOs) for real-time officer safety, incident response, and suspect identification and apprehension purposes.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Succeed Together or Fail Alone: Global Networks of Local Law Enforcement<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>When teams of assailants arrived by boat in the city of Mumbai, India, to attack multiple hotels and a religious center over three fraught and deadly days in 2008, some of the first foreign law enforcement agents to arrive on scene were a team of officers from the NYPD. The NYPD\u2019s International Liaison Unit post, stationed in Amman, Jordan, arrived on scene within 72 hours of the attacks, working with local and international law enforcement personnel to understand the scope and impact of what had happened. Within a few days, the NYPD team on site called in from Mumbai to a packed auditorium at NYPD headquarters, briefing NYPD\u2019s leadership cadre and key private sector security directors about what had happened. Before the chaos in Mumbai had subsided, New York City stakeholders were already beginning to prepare to protect their assets from a similar attack.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64713\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64713\" style=\"width: 515px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-64713\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-28-Supplies-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"515\" height=\"342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-28-Supplies-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-28-Supplies-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-28-Supplies-768x509.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-28-Supplies-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-28-Supplies-2048x1358.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-28-Supplies-272x182.jpg 272w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 515px) 100vw, 515px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64713\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The city came together to support first responders and volunteers at the scene after the attack.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While 9\/11 required seismic adaptions of the NYPD, the department drew as much from the experiences of other departments and cities in dealing with terrorism as its own. Among the most valuable lessons of the post-9\/11 era was the imperative for relationship building. Lieutenant John Miedreich, who marks 20 years with the NYPD this year, was part of the \u201c9\/11 Class,\u201d the group of police academy recruits who were put into the field ahead of graduation to support the demanding security needs of the city in the early days after 9\/11. Today, he leads the Intelligence Bureau\u2019s International Liaison Unit (ILU), which includes 14 overseas and 3 domestic liaison posts that are embedded in local law enforcement or international policing agencies. These specialized liaisons, unique among major municipal police agencies in the United States, provide firsthand daily reporting to NYPD decision makers, allowing the department to ask what Commissioner Kelly referred to as \u201cthe New York question\u201d when a high-profile incident takes place elsewhere. Though the liaisons do not independently conduct international investigations, they serve as vital interlocutors\u2014they are able to learn best practices, provide counsel, and share critical information in real time by speaking the language of law enforcement. Forging sustaining relationships with other agencies allows crucial intelligence to be analyzed and targets to be hardened back home in New York City. While the primary remit of ILU is counterterrorism intelligence, the NYPD\u2019s overseas liaisons have supported international partners on a range of criminal matters, from recovering a missing person from the UK to bringing home evidence in a European artifact-smuggling case to greeting a homicide suspect from New York City with an arrest warrant in Bangkok, Thailand.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Raymond W. Kelly, Police Commissioner (Ret.), NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On 9\/11, I was the Global Head of Security for Bear Stearns. We were in midtown Manhattan when someone came in and told us that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center\u2014that got everybody\u2019s attention. Shortly thereafter, it was two planes, and obviously an attack. People were clearly panicked. I went to our new building under construction to try and calm people down\u2014they were running out the door. On the 36th floor, the highest I could go at the time, someone said, \u201cLook out the window.\u201d We could see the top of the World Trade Center coming down slowly. What a tremendous shock.<\/p>\n<p>I had a tremendous feeling of frustration. I was the police commissioner during the first World Trade Center attack; I had been in the federal government and worked with all the agencies, and I thought I could be helpful someplace, but it didn\u2019t materialize until Mayor Bloomberg asked me to serve again. Immediately after that, I started putting plans together for a Counterterrorism Bureau and a much more robust intelligence entity in the department\u2014I wanted to elevate it, reporting directly to me, with top-notch people to run both functions. We had the biggest police department in the country with tremendous diversity\u2014a lot of talented people born abroad who spoke many different languages and dialects\u2014great resources that, in my view, were not being appropriately applied to the terrorist threat, which was huge at the time.<\/p>\n<p>I think, when you look back, it\u2019s been a successful effort as far as counterterrorism is concerned. It\u2019s the combination of good work by law enforcement and luck. (Take the 2009 Times Square car bomber, who didn\u2019t set the device correctly.) But the harder you work, the luckier you get\u2026 and you stay at it, you keep pushing. You have to continue the effort. I don\u2019t think we can take our eye off the ball.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Police Officer Moira Smith \u2013 NYPD, 13th Pct.; Sergeant Michael Sean Curtin \u2013 NYPD ESU; Detective Joseph V. Vigiano \u2013 NYPD ESU; John T. Vigiano, Jr. \u2013- FDNY, Ladder 132<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>Building off the success of the ILU, the Intelligence Bureau created Operation Sentry in 2006\u2014a nationwide domestic network of more than 670 trusted law enforcement partners throughout the United States. This partnership program\u2014which grew from a small network of police allies primarily in the tristate area called the Strategic Intelligence Unit\u2014acts as an intelligence force multiplier that collaborates to produce and disseminate tactical and strategic intelligence products, support domestic partners during major incidents, and mutually assist with investigative efforts across all 50 U.S. states. As with many of the bureau\u2019s programs, its creation was inspired and driven by a specific incident. On July 7, 2005, London, England, experienced its version of 9\/11, when four suicide bombers killed 52 people on the subway and a bus. The 7\/7 attacks, as they were known, were not planned in London, but some 200 kilometers away, in the city of Leeds.<sup>2<\/sup> Similarly, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had been planned across the river in New Jersey. It was clearly necessary to expand the NYPD\u2019s defensive security perimeter beyond the five boroughs and establish clear lines of communication and mutual support among regional law enforcement partners.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64714\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64714\" style=\"width: 660px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-64714\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-13-Lower-Manhattan-Smoke-Cloud-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"439\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-13-Lower-Manhattan-Smoke-Cloud-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-13-Lower-Manhattan-Smoke-Cloud-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-13-Lower-Manhattan-Smoke-Cloud-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-13-Lower-Manhattan-Smoke-Cloud-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-13-Lower-Manhattan-Smoke-Cloud-2048x1362.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-13-Lower-Manhattan-Smoke-Cloud-272x182.jpg 272w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64714\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The smoke from the burning towers could be seen across the river in New Jersey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As the Intelligence Bureau stood up ILU and Operation Sentry, the Counterterrorism Bureau invested considerably in interagency partnerships by bolstering its personnel contributions to the JTTF, moving from only a handful of detectives pre-9\/11 to more than 100 assigned today. The NYPD also enhanced existing partnerships with the New York\/New Jersey High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (NY\/NJ HIDTA), enabling its uniformed and civilian personnel to work in the same spaces as personnel from more than 30 state and federal agencies, which were all becoming increasingly integral to the United States\u2019 new homeland security mission.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Mohammed Karimzada, Sergeant, NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was nine years old and living near the Russian embassy in Kabul during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I could see the rockets flying over my house. My brother knew that, at my age, the Soviets would likely try to forcibly recruit me into the military, so he made a decision and arrangements with the villagers in 1982 so that my brother, my two sisters, and I could flee the country through the mountains. After making it to Pakistan, we traveled to the United States, and landed at JFK [Airport] in 1982. I didn\u2019t speak a word of English. I had zero knowledge of the culture and the ways of life in this country. I went to school, and, as a seventh grader, that was incredibly difficult. In 1991, I was at the City University of New York, and there was an NYPD brochure in the cafeteria looking for recruits in the Cadet Corps. Due to my not fully knowing the language, the recruiter didn\u2019t know if she should give me a chance, but said, \u201c\u2018You know what? Come to the Police Academy and we\u2019ll go from there.\u201d Twenty-two years later, I became the second-in-command of the NYPD\u2019s International Liaison Unit.<\/p>\n<p>On 9\/11, I was an officer in the 109th Precinct in Queens. We were mobilized to protect one of the bridges. I was called back to transport a volunteer doctor to the World Trade Center site. I was in total disbelief. Total shock. I couldn\u2019t believe that in America, this could happen; I\u2019d seen it in other countries, but not here. It brought my memories back to what I went through in Afghanistan. The terrorists were trained in Afghanistan. I thought I could play a major role in the response. I said I have to provide any assistance, whether it be my language skills, my background and interactions, anything that I could bring to the table. Within days I was transferred to Gang Intelligence, helping the JTTF, as a linguist. We lost a great number of people that day and we are still losing\u2026 but we\u2019ve rebuilt ourselves, stronger and more resilient than ever before.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Sergeant Michael Sean Curtin \u2013 NYPD ESU<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>Collectively, these expanded networks of support have allowed the department to learn from incidents elsewhere\u2014such as the deadly 2004 Madrid, Spain, train bombings; the November 2015 Paris, France, attacks; and the May 2017 Manchester Arena suicide bombing in the UK\u2014how to better protect New York City.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>An Informed Public: An Instrumental Partner<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The NYPD realized early on the power of the public to be a force-multiplier and a tripwire. By launching a simple way for members of the public to call in leads via a 24\/7 hotline, the Intelligence Bureau created an early warning system for attack planning and preparation. The post-9\/11 \u201cIf You See Something, Say Something\u201d campaign, originally created by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and later licensed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has become a part of ordinary life in New York City over the past 20 years. The Intelligence Bureau, independently or in coordination with the JTTF, investigates every lead called in, with approximately 900 leads processed every year.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"> <strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>John Miller, Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence &amp; Counterterrorism, NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What Usama Bin Laden succeeded in imagining was how a non-state actor without a standing army or a national budget, but with enough resources and a few people, could bring to a superpower what had the shape and consequences of war\u2014devastating damage, mass casualties, and a threat to the nation\u2019s security\u2014that the nation felt waking up the next day insecure. A country that had felt safe at home no matter what the perils of the world were, since the darkest days of the Cold War, largely didn\u2019t feel safe at home.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty years to me is a set of contrasts. It is bittersweet. Bitter because you remember that day and what it cost and who we lost. To me, that is not a number; those are people I knew. John O\u2019Neill, one of my best friends, who ironically was the point man on the FBI\u2019s quest to get Bin Laden. Danny Richards, a bomb squad detective who I sat at a table with in New Mexico at a bomb squad convention just a few months before 9\/11. Could you think that the guy you were having dinner with twice a week or the guy you presented to about an obscure risk from far away would both die in one day from the same threat? That\u2019s the bitter part. The sweet part is that it is now 20 years later, and we still come back every year\u2014much in the way that we still come back to Pearl Harbor. There are some things you do not forget. We tell our people that when they make the ultimate sacrifice, when they pay that ultimate debt, that we will never forget. Twenty years is a marker, and we have not forgotten.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Detective Claude \u201cDanny\u201d Richards \u2013 NYPD Bomb Squad and John O\u2019Neill, FBI<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>In addition to being informed by the public, the NYPD takes seriously its mandate to help inform the public. Through specially tailored public-private partnerships like Operation Nexus, the Intelligence Bureau engages with private sector stakeholders in tactically significant industries\u2014such as purveyors of potential explosives precursors, pyrotechnics, or commercial chemical and infrastructure companies\u2014to help them better understand how to detect anomalous activity. In the aftermath of the deadly vehicle-ramming attacks in Nice, France, and along the West Side Highway\u2019s Hudson River Greenway in Manhattan, members of Operation Nexus visited dozens of truck rental businesses to give them information about what had happened and make sure they knew who to call if they saw something themselves. Through CTB\u2019s SHIELD program, the Intelligence Bureau disseminates intelligence products to more than 20,000 public and private sector entities, providing them with training, briefings, and a network through which they can become better able to protect themselves and each other. SHIELD\u2019s commitment to this work helped lead to the creation of similar local intelligence sharing programs by more than a dozen law enforcement agencies throughout the United States and Western Europe.<\/p>\n<p>NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller maintains, \u201cBuying equipment, developing LMSI, the Domain Awareness System, the license plate readers, the network of cameras, all of the things that became our concentric rings, our layers of counterterrorism protection, was an enormous investment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Equally important was the department\u2019s investment in relationships. Miller underlines,<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Part of what we learned from 9\/11 was that we have to share information and that comes with trust. That trust comes with relationship building that cannot be done on the day of the attack.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Relationships are built under non-stressful circumstances so that during stressful circumstances you have a lot of friends around who are ready to help\u2026 The return value of the surrounding security that comes with those partnerships and those layers and levels of trust cannot be calculated or estimated\u2026 it\u2019s extraordinary.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The dividends of those regional relationships were paid in September 2016, when Ahmad Khan Rahimi, a Salafi-jihadist extremist, detonated pipe bombs and pressure cooker IEDs in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and Manhattan\u2019s Chelsea neighborhood. Within 50 hours of the first explosion, Rahimi was identified as the sole suspect, made the focus of a BOLO alert that was widely disseminated to law enforcement partners, and ultimately discovered and taken into custody after a firefight with officers of the Linden, New Jersey, Police Department.<sup>3<\/sup> This partnership triumphed across multiple local, federal, and state agencies and across state lines.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Thomas J. Currao, Assistant Chief of Counterterrorism &amp; Emergency Preparedness, FDNY<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I left the house on a Tuesday and didn\u2019t come back until the following Saturday. I was a fire marshal working as a fire investigator in the Bronx. The first indication that things were as bad as it seemed\u2014we got a fax listing members we thought were unaccounted for at the time. One of the members in our command, as we were looking at this, realized that his brother was on it. That\u2019s where it instantly became intensely personal.<\/p>\n<p>As fire investigators, we were detailed to the morgues. We were tasked with ensuring the collection and safeguarding of personal effects and supporting the identification of firefighter remains via our knowledge of markings on personal protective gear. I think we were the right people to ask to do that by the nature of our work, but it was overwhelming. It feels like it happened yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Joe Pfeifer took the personal loss of his brother Kevin on September 11 as the driver to chart a new path forward with the creation of the FDNY\u2019s Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness in 2004. As it developed, there was an awareness and a reckoning that the fire service should have a role in risk analysis and threat assessment.<\/p>\n<p>Whenever there is any connection to 9\/11 and we lose a member of the FDNY family, it is a line-of-duty funeral, recognizing the sacrifice they made on that day, no matter how many years later. In the immediate aftermath of 9\/11, our pipes and drums were taken offline during that time and had to come up with an action plan for how they would be able to attend and lend dignity to so many funerals at one time. It drove our department to develop a full ceremonial unit that lends support throughout the entire grieving process for the company and the family that lost a member. I don\u2019t think we would have ever really considered this were it not for the impact of 9\/11. The highest compliment we can pay them is to never stop trying to make things better, to be more prepared, to never take our efforts for granted, and to look at our work in this field as an unfinished painting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: The fallen first responders of September 11, 2001. We pay special tribute to first responder families, our loved ones, our rocks who support us in our current work. We could not get through our darkest days without them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Building the Legal Architecture to Support the Mission<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Prior to 9\/11, local law enforcement authorities across the United States were well positioned to respond and investigate criminality <em>after<\/em> an incident took place\u2014responding to crime scenes, collecting evidence, and interviewing witnesses\u2014but they lacked the proper legal foundation for increasingly essential preventative actions that required weeks, months, and even years of complex investigative work. Policing in the post-9\/11 era that seeks to be proactive rather than reactionary hinges on having appropriate legal policy to guide these investigations. Having a defined and understood legal structure ensures the flexibility to act before a terrorist attack occurs and gives guidance for the level of intrusive measures permitted as an investigation progresses, while protecting civil rights and liberties.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Joseph Esposito, Chief of Department (Ret.), NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After 9\/11, because we used to go down there and dig, I would finish work, and we would go at midnight, one o\u2019clock in the morning. People don\u2019t understand what was going on. There were pockets of fire for months after that; the place was burning for months\u2014there were these caverns. There were mountains of debris, and we would find a cave hole and it would be on fire and they would go in and start digging and digging\u201424 hours a day, 7 days a week, people were there with the bucket brigades. I would say to myself, did we need to be there? What are we doing here? What are we trying to accomplish? We were literally getting buckets of debris, and we\u2019re taking them out. It\u2019s because it was therapy, and we needed to be there\u2014there was a connection to it. I remember going down into the train station. It was like a scene out of Escape from New York. Beams went through the sidewalk and into the train station. It was insanity. But with the digging around, I\u2019m at a point now that I\u2019m claustrophobic. I can\u2019t do an MRI or anything like that\u2026 I haven\u2019t slept\u2026 I don\u2019t sleep anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Detective Joseph V. Vigiano \u2013 NYPD ESU; Police Officer Vincent G. Danz \u2013 NYPD ESU; and all of the fallen members of the NYPD family who served on 9\/11\u2014in tribute to those who have passed from Ground Zero-related illnesses and those who carry on.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>In 2003, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York modified a consent decree that the NYPD had been operating under since 1985, which placed certain constraints on the investigation of political and religious activity. The modification, requested by the NYPD to provide the department more latitude to investigate potential terrorism, provided more leeway to focus on <em>preemptive<\/em> investigations and wrote into law a series of guidelines that would govern these investigative activities. Called the <em>Handschu<\/em> Guidelines, these rules are the legal backbone of the Intelligence Bureau\u2019s work.<sup>4<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>The balance between security and privacy has been tested over the past two decades, and the department has continued to adapt, creating policy and practice that keep up with the threat and the law, while preserving core constitutional norms and democratic values. In 2017, the department settled two federal cases dating from 2013 that sought to change the practice of how terrorism investigations are carried out. The settlement enhanced the <em>Handschu<\/em> Guidelines by enshrining as law certain practices that had been taken voluntarily related to its investigative practices, requiring the consideration of the least intrusive methods for collecting information and, importantly, establishing external civilian oversight.<sup>5<\/sup> The presence of an external, objective, civilian representative on the committee responsible for administration of the <em>Handschu<\/em> Guidelines has been invaluable\u2014providing a multiplicity of views while avoiding groupthink and being a credible bridge between the bureau and the many communities that it serves.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Prevention, Preparedness, and Response: Creating and Growing the Counter-terrorism Bureau<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Since its genesis on butcher paper in the immediate wake of 9\/11, the Counterterrorism Bureau has been responsible for the \u201cdeter\u201d and \u201cdefend\u201d pillars of the NYPD\u2019s response. The CTB has made vigilance against acts of terrorism not merely an add-on consideration for major events like New Year\u2019s Eve and the New York City Marathon, but rather its daily mission. One of the most recognizable units of CTB is the Critical Response Command (CRC), a unit of more than 500 officers who surge to critical infrastructure sites, iconic landmarks, and sensitive locations throughout the five boroughs, guided every day by the most up-to-date threat intelligence. While the development of the CRC was years in the making, it was first deployed citywide in November 2015, in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks that left 130 dead and more than 450 wounded.<sup>6<\/sup> The multiphased suicide bombing, gunfire, and hostage-taking attack was the deadliest act of peacetime violence in France\u2019s history and, for the NYPD, drove home the urgent importance of the NYPD having its own rapidly deployable, heavily equipped, and specially trained capability to respond to a similar complex, multisite, mass casualty attack.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"><strong>Remembrance &amp; Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Barry Driscoll, Sergeant, NYPD<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was 15 on September 11 when I lost my dad. For as long as I can remember, my father was a cop. More than anything, he loved the job; he really loved helping people. Looking back now, it feels like the job was a means for him to do his life\u2019s work, helping people and helping cops. I can\u2019t tell you how many times we would pull over on the side of the road to check and see if a person with a broken-down car needed help. I was struck by how much he loved it. Even now, I don\u2019t think I know anybody who loves their job as much as he did. I don\u2019t remember him ever complaining about a bad day or a busy day or stress. He loved the work, and he believed he could make his city better through that work. He worked in Street Crime and ultimately ESU on 9\/11, where he would have stayed for the rest of his career.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t necessarily want to be a cop when I was growing up. After he passed, I think it just kind of came into focus that he lived a life in service. It struck me as a tremendous way to live your life, and I saw this job as an opportunity to both honor him and find what he found on this job\u2014a sense of purpose, the passion that he had\u2026 I took his police shield number when I first graduated the academy and was proud and happy to do that to continue his legacy. Hopefully, I wore it proudly, and honored it through my work the way he did.<\/p>\n<p>For me, the anniversary is a little bit of what have I done with my time on Earth in those 20 years. I think I\u2019m proud of the work I\u2019ve done to honor him through his job. But I think if I could talk to him now, I think it would take a long time before we got to the topic of this job. He would want to make sure that I was trying to be a good father, a good husband, a good son, and a good friend. I had a great role model for those things. It\u2019s a tough benchmark<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN MEMORIAM: Police Officer Stephen Patrick Driscoll \u2013 NYPD ESU<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/aside>\n<p>Through regular intelligence-led pre-deployment of assets, the NYPD strives to reduce the number of vulnerable \u201csoft targets\u201d throughout the city by hardening key locations of concern, thus achieving deterrence through defense. When the average New Yorker encounters an NYPD transit bag check in a packed station at rush hour, or a STRYKER team of heavily armed CTB officers deployed to an iconic venue, or a Vapor Wake Explosive Trace Detection K9 unit scanning outside a crowded parade, they are seeing firsthand the impact of CTB\u2019s creation. Complex protective counterterrorism overlays that involve detailed pre-event security threat assessments, infrastructure-hardening countermeasures like vehicle barriers, and extensive uniformed and plainclothes force deployment plans are now developed as a matter of course for virtually every major event in New York City, from parades and papal visits to the Super Bowl to the annual United Nations General Assembly. Guided by intelligence obtained from liaison posts overseas, partners across the United States, and assessments from the analytical cadre in New York City, each day, counterterrorism-trained, heavy weapons\u2013equipped CRC teams deploy at locations of potential elevated threat throughout New York City\u2019s five boroughs. They harden vulnerable locations, deter the hostile preoperational surveillance efforts of adversaries, and provide public assurance of rapid response to an incident.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Far Ahead Yet Front of Mind: Anticipating Future Attacks<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>The attacks of 9\/11 were the sum total of a series of systemic and structural shortcomings, but perhaps one of the greatest culprits was the failure of imagination. No one imagined an attack of this scope or scale. As the NYPD and its partners look to the future, they still find themselves grappling with threats from the past that shape the present. Since 9\/11, at least 44 publicly known plots and attacks have targeted New York City. These plots have varied dramatically over the years in terms of complexity, sophistication, and ideological drivers, but the goal of inflicting casualties on the streets of New York has remained constant. Moreover, the pace of the plotting and attacking has increased markedly over the years\u2014half of the incidents took place in the last five years alone. The diversification and acceleration of the plotting against the city have required sustained efforts to defend it.<\/p>\n<p>Despite significant leadership losses, organizational fracturing, and territorial degradation, foreign terrorist groups like al-Qa\u2019ida and ISIS remain a persistent challenge, consistently threatening New York City in extremist recruitment and tactical training propaganda distributed via online channels and encrypted messaging platforms. While low-tech attacks involving edged weapons, vehicle rammings, and small arms may seem like the order of the day, the consistent tactical interest in improvised explosive devices and more sophisticated mass casualty assaults has not dissipated, as the failed suicide bombing in the subway below the Port Authority Bus Terminal on December 11, 2017, makes clear.<sup>7<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>The deadly December 2019 mass shooting at U.S. Naval Air Station Pensacola highlighted the enduring influence of a patient adversary\u2014al-Qa\u2019ida\u2019s affiliate network in Yemen. Just last year, the public disclosure of a disrupted terrorist plot in the Philippines that was orchestrated by the same group\u2019s East African affiliate al-Shabaab, again demonstrated that the fixation on 9\/11-scale attacks remains as real today as two decades ago. Were it not for the persistent effort and swift intervention of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement authorities in that case, the world could have again seen a skyscraper in the United States attacked with a hijacked and weaponized passenger airline.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64716\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64716\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-64716\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-17-NYPD-Car-Destroyed-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"410\" height=\"616\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-17-NYPD-Car-Destroyed-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-17-NYPD-Car-Destroyed-682x1024.jpg 682w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-17-NYPD-Car-Destroyed-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-17-NYPD-Car-Destroyed-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-17-NYPD-Car-Destroyed-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-17-NYPD-Car-Destroyed-scaled.jpg 1706w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 410px) 100vw, 410px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64716\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 9\/11 attacks drastically changed New York\u2019s (and the world\u2019s) approach to counterterrorism.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Separate and apart from these now familiar foreign terrorist organizations and the homegrown Salafi jihadists they inspire is a bourgeoning domestic violent extremism problem composed of racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists and anti-authority anarchists that will add to the challenges faced by U.S. law enforcement. In 2019, with a series of domestic terrorism incidents from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Poway, California, and from Charleston, South Carolina, to Christchurch, New Zealand, demanding greater law enforcement attention and focus, the NYPD established a task force dedicated to racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism (REME), expanding resources within the department and collaborating with other agencies to address this growing threat. In the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol Riot, the perception among some of a permissive environment for targeted violence against political figures not only adds fuel to the fires of stochastic terrorism but also makes the fine line between constitutionally protected speech and dangerous deliberate threats even more challenging to discern.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of the ideological drivers of the threat, the program that the NYPD created in the aftermath of 9\/11 can address it using the same tools and techniques it deploys to combat terrorism that originates overseas. In a post-9\/11 world, the NYPD stands ably equipped to establish new units, move teams, and reallocate resources to match the threat as it shifts.<\/p>\n<p>In the 20 years to come, these threat actors will likely become increasingly difficult to define, with ideologically untethered, violent, lone individuals drawn to the act of mass bloodshed as a personal means of self-actualization and driven more by a myriad web of personal grievances, conspiracist views, and catalytic events than by a specific political agenda or worldview. Technological advancements will continue to change the nature and course of potential threats, with implications for unattributable hostile nation-state violence via proxy. Threat domains ranging from cyber malware to 3D printed weapons to remotely piloted aircraft, along with advances in machine learning, quantum computing, and encryption will continue to change the environment.<\/p>\n<p>Above all, in a world where the virtual is often indistinguishable from reality, the lag time between concerning rhetoric and violent action can be shorter than ever before. The critical task for law enforcement will be to operate in the now, while never taking an eye off the later\u2014prioritizing strategic threat assessments, intelligence analysis-led national security initiatives, and tabletop exercises that provide opportunities to anticipate and prepare for the next era of threats.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Born from Tragedy: A Legacy of Protective Service<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-family: 'Noto Serif', serif; font-size: 17px;\">Twenty years later, the NYPD continues to learn and grow, but it also continues to suffer from the single deadliest act of terrorism ever perpetrated against the United States. At least 274 NYPD members and 252 FDNY firefighters have died since 9\/11 from cancers, cardiovascular disease, and other severe illnesses contracted as a direct result of their service and sacrifice at Ground Zero\u2014conditions that have left many of them at even greater risk amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Scores more struggle silently with post-traumatic stress disorder. As of this year, there are 110,198 survivors and first responders registered in the World Trade Center Health program, which monitors and treats those at risk and battling diagnosed 9\/11-related illnesses. Those lost are held in the memories of members of the NYPD, FDNY, and PAPD, who can recall attending more funerals in those first few months after 9\/11 than most people endure in a lifetime. The resilience of those who grieved and coped with the loss of coworkers, family, and friends, while spending weeks and months protecting and working at the site of their final moments is still palpable in today\u2019s NYPD. However, the pain of 9\/11 also compounds for many as the years pass and the stacks of funeral prayer cards on desks grow taller with each fallen officer who succumbs to the lingering consequences of that terrible attack and its toxic aftermath.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_64715\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-64715\" style=\"width: 602px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-64715\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-31-Police-At-Memorial-Wall-1024x679.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"602\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-31-Police-At-Memorial-Wall-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-31-Police-At-Memorial-Wall-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-31-Police-At-Memorial-Wall-768x509.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-31-Police-At-Memorial-Wall-1536x1018.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo-31-Police-At-Memorial-Wall-2048x1358.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 602px) 100vw, 602px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-64715\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Memorial Wall is etched with the names of those officers lost on 9\/11 or from 9\/11-related causes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On the 20th anniversary of 9\/11, officials, first responders, victims\u2019 family members, and scores of people from around the world will gather in the fields of Somerset County, Pennsylvania; at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan to once again pay their respects, remember, and reflect on how much has changed in two decades. At the 9\/11 Memorial in New York, there now rests a new addition to the solemn site known as the Memorial Glade, which was dedicated in 2019 to the thousands of emergency first responders, laborers, survivors, and volunteers from across New York City, throughout the United States, and around the world who came to help this city in its hour of greatest need. The Memorial Glade honors these brave men and women\u2014those who, as the dedication inscription reads, \u201crenewed the spirit of a grieving city, gave hope to the nation, and inspired the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After one of the most harrowing years in recent memory, this powerful symbol is needed more than ever, though no stone or steel monument will ever be a fitting enough tribute to those public servants\u2019 lives and the nearly 3,000 souls taken on that clear September morning. May the shared commitment at the NYPD and at countless first responder agencies\u2014to live by their example, to be defined by response and recovery, not by ruin\u2014help to build a living and forever enduring memorial of service to all who were lost.<\/p>\n<table style=\"width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; border-style: none; background-color: #102c4e;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-64994 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gordon-cropped-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><strong>John Tully Gordon<\/strong> is an intelligence research specialist with the NYPD Intelligence Bureau where he serves as the team leader for the Global Trends and Developments unit, responsible for providing timely, accurate, and actionable intelligence analysis on national security issues and terrorism-related threats. He began working for the NYPD in 2010.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%; vertical-align: bottom;\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-64985\" src=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Weiner-272x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"166\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Weiner-272x300.jpg 272w, https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Weiner.jpg 458w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Assistant Commissioner for Intelligence Analysis<\/span> <span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><strong>Rebecca Ulam Weiner<\/strong> manages counterterrorism and cyber intelligence analysis and production for the NYPD\u2019s Intelligence Bureau. She is one of the principal advisors to the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, and she shares responsibility for bureau-wide policy development and program management.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><sup>1<\/sup> National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/GPO-911REPORT\/pdf\/GPO-911REPORT.pdf\"><em>The 9\/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States<\/em><\/a> (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2004).<\/p>\n<p><sup>2 <\/sup>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.history.co.uk\/history-of-london\/77-london-bombings\">7\/7 London Bombings<\/a>,\u201d Sky History.<\/p>\n<p><sup>3 <\/sup>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-england-43052876\">Ahmad Khan Rahimi Sentenced to Life in Prison for NY Bombing<\/a>,\u201d BBC News, February 13, 2018.<\/p>\n<p><sup>4<\/sup><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyclu.org\/sites\/default\/files\/8.6.03_Handschu_Guidelines.pdf\">Handschu v. Special Services Division<\/a>, 288 F.Supp.2d 411 (S.D.N.Y. 2003).<\/p>\n<p><sup>5<\/sup> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyclu.org\/sites\/default\/files\/8.6.03_Handschu_Guidelines.pdf\"><em>Handschu<\/em><\/a>, 288 F.Supp.2d 411; <a href=\"https:\/\/casetext.com\/case\/raza-v-city-of-ny\">Raza v. City of New York<\/a>, 998 F.Supp.2d 70 (E.D.N.Y. 2013).<\/p>\n<p><sup>6<\/sup>\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/12\/08\/europe\/2015-paris-terror-attacks-fast-facts\/index.html\">2015 Paris Terror Attacks Fast Facts<\/a>,\u201d CNN, November 4, 2020.<\/p>\n<p><sup>7<\/sup>Sarah Maslin Nir and William K. Rashbaum, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/11\/nyregion\/explosion-times-square.html\">Bomber Strikes Near Times Square, Disrupting City but Killing None<\/a>,\u201d <em>New York Times<\/em>, December 11, 2017.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Please cite as<\/p>\n<p>John Tully Gordon and Rebecca Ulam Weiner, \u201cLight Pierces Through: An NYPD Reflection on Loss &amp; Lessons Learned 20 Years after 9\/11,\u201d <em>Police Chief<\/em> 88, no. 9 (September 2021): 34\u201353.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joseph Esposito, the New York, New York, Police Department\u2019s (NYPD\u2019s) chief of department, was arriving at work on the morning of September 11, 2001, and about to drive through the entrance gate of One Police Plaza when the sound of the first hijacked plane hitting the World Trade Center\u2019s North Tower reached him.<\/p>\n<p>He looked up, saw the smoking hole in the building a few blocks away, and immediately started driving toward the complex.<\/p>\n<p>By the time he reached the Battery Park underpass, where the FDR Drive bends around the southern tip of Manhattan, traffic had snarled to a stop. He ran the rest of the way to the World Trade Center. As he arrived at the site moments later, United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. He took out his department radio and issued a Level 4 mobilization\u2014the single largest emergency deployment of police officers in New York City\u2019s history\u2014broadcasting to NYPD officers citywide, \u201cThis looks like a planned attack.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4042,"featured_media":64661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,139,147],"tags":[1892,432,428,427,426,1961],"class_list":["post-64655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bonus-online-article","category-mass-casualty-attacks","category-terrorism","tag-9-11","tag-counterterrorism","tag-new-york-city","tag-nypd","tag-terrorism","tag-wtc"],"acf":{"subtitle":"An NYPD Reflection on Loss & Lessons Learned 20 Years after 9\/11","post_author":"John Tully Gordon, Intelligence Research Specialist, and Rebecca Ulam Weiner, Assistant Commissioner for Intelligence Analysis, Intelligence Bureau, New York City Police Department","main_category":"Terrorism","legacy_article_id":"","legacy_issue_id":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.4 (Yoast SEO v24.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Light Pierces Through - Police Chief Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even as the rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero was ongoing, the NYPD began to design an intelligence-led, counterterrorism-focused capability.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/light-pierces-through\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Light Pierces Through\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" 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