Homicide New York Season 3 Episode 5

Reality Insight Hub

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Transcript

00:00:15These are real experiences, actual detailed events that happened.

00:00:26This is the biggest murder that we had ever caught.

00:00:31Thousands of people were killed in this attack.

00:00:35We weren't prepared for that.

00:00:37We weren't prepared as human beings.

00:00:40We're not even talking about professions.

00:00:42I didn't feel too much in control like I was when I was doing an investigation.

00:00:47I felt more like I was just trying to survive the day.

00:00:51You find out what you're really made of.

00:00:54You find out what it is to be a team player.

00:00:57You find out who your partner is.

00:00:59You find out how important life is.

00:01:02I think half the city knew somebody or had a relative who died in the Trade Center.

00:01:08But, you know, time has gone by.

00:01:10Some people now, they haven't experienced something like that.

00:01:13They haven't seen what it's like when tragedy really hits and the whole city came together.

00:01:21Didn't matter what background, what nationality you were, we were all humans that day.

00:01:2925 years later, that will always be the date that divides my life.

00:01:35The world that existed on September 10th, that's gone.

00:01:39It led into 20 years of warfare.

00:01:44My whole world was changed.

00:01:47The whole world was changed.

00:01:55Our job is to make sure you can go home and sleep at night.

00:02:00It's so important for a family to know who murdered their relative.

00:02:05Compassion for the victims, that's the most important thing.

00:02:09I've always liked the peek behind the curtain.

00:02:12What really happened?

00:02:15You want to find out the truth.

00:02:17That's what detectives do.

00:02:20Your instinct is to help people.

00:02:23You want to find out the world in New York City, the NYPD.

00:02:29This is it.

00:02:45It was the most amazing thing looking at the towers from down below.

00:02:49You know, especially as a kid.

00:02:50You just go like this.

00:02:52And it just keeps going and going like a stairway to heaven.

00:02:57My Aunt Joanne, she worked in the World Trade Center.

00:03:01She worked in the North Tower, 103rd floor, and then also the 105th floor.

00:03:06She was working for Canada Fitzgerald, a brokerage firm.

00:03:09She started working there when she was 18.

00:03:12She ended up becoming vice president, partner.

00:03:16So Joanne, she was my aunt, but she was more like my sister.

00:03:20Always took care of me.

00:03:21Made sure I wasn't getting into trouble.

00:03:23She was only 13 years older than me.

00:03:26When she first started working there,

00:03:28she brought me to the Trade Center for the first time.

00:03:32And as a five-year-old, you know,

00:03:34you get excited about things that you've never seen before.

00:03:38And here I am getting on the elevator,

00:03:41and it was like a rocket ship.

00:03:44You're up there within a couple of minutes,

00:03:47a hundred somewhat stories.

00:03:49Your ears are popping.

00:03:50You get out, and once you stepped up near the windows,

00:03:53it was actually kind of like, ooh.

00:03:56It was a long way down.

00:03:58A hundred and ten floors in each tower.

00:04:01It could be upwards of 50,000 people on any given day.

00:04:05The buildings had their own zip code.

00:04:08That's something that, just think that, you know,

00:04:11wherever you live in the United States,

00:04:13there's an area that has a zip code,

00:04:16they had designed it to withstand high winds, storms,

00:04:23lightning strikes, planes hitting it.

00:04:25It was perceived to be somewhat indestructible.

00:04:30A bomb killed five and injured more than 1,000 others

00:04:34in the blast that rocked the World Trade Center

00:04:36and sent lower Manhattan into a state of complete chaos.

00:04:39February of 1993, there was a terrorist attack.

00:04:44International terrorists put explosives into a van

00:04:47and parked it into a, you know, subterranean garage.

00:04:50It blew up, but the damage was so minimal.

00:04:54Someone near me was saying,

00:04:56man, these towers are amazing.

00:04:58They can withstand this huge blast.

00:05:00I can't believe it.

00:05:02I never really thought that the Twin Towers were a target

00:05:06of international terrorists until that day.

00:05:09Then I realized that they were a symbol of strength.

00:05:12They were a symbol of pride.

00:05:15Something that, you know,

00:05:16when you flew across the Atlantic Ocean,

00:05:19you could see the Twin Towers.

00:05:22The following year, they put up cement guards

00:05:27so that nobody could get close with a truck.

00:05:30Or a car filled with any kind of explosive device.

00:05:35Then you felt like, okay, this won't happen again.

00:05:47It was a Tuesday.

00:05:50Beautiful weather.

00:05:53I don't remember seeing a cloud in the sky.

00:05:57And I had to go to court.

00:05:59I was in the anti-crime unit.

00:06:01I was going to trial for a pickpocket case.

00:06:04So I would travel in by ferry.

00:06:08I got off the boat on the Manhattan side.

00:06:12I started walking towards the train station.

00:06:15As I'm walking, only steps away from the ferry,

00:06:19I hear a bunch of explosions.

00:06:23Sounded like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:06:25And I actually said, what the fuck was that?

00:06:29But I continue to walk.

00:06:31And I get onto the subway towards the courthouses.

00:06:34I had to be there at 9 o'clock.

00:06:38I woke up in the detective's dorm in the 13th precinct.

00:06:42In the police department, sometimes you don't go home for a couple of days.

00:06:47I signed in, and I remember it was ABC News was on, and I saw that the Twin Towers had

00:06:55been struck by a plane.

00:06:57It sounded like a missile, not an airplane.

00:07:00Then there was a loud explosion.

00:07:04Dispatcher called me and says, it's a small Cessna that just crashed into the World Trade Center.

00:07:11And I can see from the West Side Highway that that was not a small Cessna.

00:07:17That was a big-ass jet.

00:07:24I went into my police mode.

00:07:27I knew that something like that, it was going to be a mass casualty incident.

00:07:33I had just dropped my kids off at PS 116, my two boys, when I heard it come over the

00:07:39radio.

00:07:40A major disaster is occurring in New York City this morning.

00:07:44Being a detective commander in Manhattan, probably the only one in the NYPD that lived in Manhattan,

00:07:51I knew I would be expected to respond.

00:07:53So I went home and changed, probably one of the few people that put a suit on to go respond

00:07:58to the World Trade Center,

00:07:59because I got in trouble in May responding to a triple homicide, not wearing a suit.

00:08:07I'm in the 19th precinct in the patrol bar over Manhattan North.

00:08:11This one was off the charts.

00:08:13So they will mobilize people across New York City to respond to the Trade Center.

00:08:21I was a police officer in the 19th with Pete Panuccio.

00:08:26The desk is calling for the first one in eight mobilization.

00:08:31Eight officers with a sergeant.

00:08:38Joanne Dowd was with the first group of cops in the 19th precinct that left in a van.

00:08:44All of us were supposed to meet at Church and Vesse.

00:08:47I was there with the lieutenant.

00:08:49I said, let's just grab a car.

00:08:51We'll go down there.

00:08:57I'm on the train.

00:08:59I get off at the municipal building, which you always see, like, on law and order.

00:09:04And as I'm walking towards those iconic pillars, everybody's just, like, looking up.

00:09:12My eyes go to what they're looking at.

00:09:17And I see that big gaping hole in the North Tower.

00:09:20Those towers were huge.

00:09:23Tens of thousands of people in each building every day.

00:09:25I know so many people up there.

00:09:29Immediately, I call 212-938-5029.

00:09:33Joanne's office number.

00:09:35And I hear beep, beep, beep.

00:09:39It wasn't the typical busy sound.

00:09:41It's like an out-of-service type of beep tone.

00:09:45It's 9 o'clock. She should be at work.

00:09:47Now I'm like, oh, shit.

00:09:50We gotta get over that.

00:09:52All of a sudden, that first sound that I thought I heard echo in, I hear it without the echo.

00:10:02It was a big explosion.

00:10:05Boom!

00:10:07Then I literally hit the pavement.

00:10:11It was a second fucking plane.

00:10:18We're on the 78th floor of the South Tower.

00:10:21The only reason I'm sitting here right now is because we were standing on the other side of the building

00:10:26from where the plane came in.

00:10:32I wound up face down on the floor, and I had no idea why.

00:10:37Everything went dark.

00:10:41There's people crying and screaming.

00:10:45There was a woman next to me who I knew pushed her a little bit, and I said, are you

00:10:49okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?

00:10:51And I didn't get any response, so I knew that she was gone.

00:10:54And there's dead people laying all over the place.

00:10:57It was a very ugly, chaotic scene, and nobody knew what was going on.

00:11:03The Homicide Squad, along with everybody else, was involved in an emergency mobilization down to that area.

00:11:11Two of my partners and I, we were driving lights and sirens from the 13th precinct.

00:11:17The next thing we knew, there was smoke billowing out of the South Tower.

00:11:22Then you realize that something hit the other tower.

00:11:28Oh, my goodness.

00:11:29Oh, God.

00:11:30There's another one.

00:11:31Oh, my God.

00:11:32My goodness.

00:11:35We all looked at each other in the car and said, uh, this is no fucking accident.

00:11:44The first thing that popped into my head is my wife.

00:11:48She was working for a company called Solomon Smith Barney.

00:11:51I knew she was in the city.

00:11:53I also knew that she had a client core that was in one of the Trade Center buildings.

00:11:59And I knew that she often spent time there.

00:12:03So I was consumed by that.

00:12:07I had a cell phone, which was, you know, like an old fucking flip phone, like a star attack or

00:12:12whatever they were called.

00:12:12And I remembered trying to call her at work, trying to call her cell phone, and I couldn't get through.

00:12:20It was just dead air.

00:12:22There was just like no signal, no nothing.

00:12:28It was mayhem in the city.

00:12:32People are abandoning their vehicles in the middle of intersections.

00:12:38Forget about the damn car.

00:12:39Let's go.

00:12:40We are now trying to get to where we're supposed to be, which is church in Vesti.

00:12:46And we got to the middle of Maiden Lane, and we couldn't move.

00:12:52We left the van, and we got out, and we start running towards the World Trade Center.

00:13:02And as we're approaching the towers, we look up, and people are hanging out on the girdles.

00:13:13And black smoke is billowing out.

00:13:17People are sending notes down.

00:13:20Help me, I'm on this floor or that floor.

00:13:25It's, you're like, just beyond belief.

00:13:33And your sergeant is going, let's go, keep moving.

00:13:36Let's just keep moving.

00:13:37We have to get to where we have to go.

00:13:39And they will tell us what we have to do.

00:13:45The fire that was happening on the 78th floor was unbelievable.

00:13:51You could hear all this cracking noise, and you really didn't know what was going on,

00:13:54but the fire just kept getting worse and worse.

00:13:57Something from the ceiling came down next to my head.

00:14:01And they were like, you got to, Kimmy, I got to get out of here.

00:14:04I got to get up.

00:14:05Thinking to myself, I'm on the 78th floor of a building that's on fire,

00:14:09and I don't know how to get out of here.

00:14:13Your instinct is to help these people who are running at you.

00:14:18So I went to go, and my sergeant grabbed me by the nape of the neck and pulled me back.

00:14:26And somebody jumped and landed in front of me and killed somebody in front of me.

00:14:38It was brutal.

00:14:40Brutal to watch.

00:14:43And there was nothing we could do.

00:14:47It's not the image as much as it is the sound.

00:14:55I'm sorry.

00:15:05When a body falls from that great height, it sounds like broken glass.

00:15:17And I just brutalized.

00:15:27I'm a New York City homicide detective.

00:15:29So I've seen death, horrific murder scenes, violence, things like that.

00:15:37One of the most disturbing things that always stayed with me, always stuck with me, is just the fact that

00:15:44these poor people would rather jump to their death than burn alive.

00:15:50It's not much of an option.

00:15:57When I was on the 78th floor, I thought to myself, I have two boys who need me.

00:16:03But I don't know how to get out of here.

00:16:05Because there's just too much debris.

00:16:07And you definitely feel the heat.

00:16:09I ran into two women, and these two guys came over, and we found an empty stairwell.

00:16:15We got to about the 75th floor, and there was two New York City firemen who were coming up the

00:16:23stairs.

00:16:23They both had big tanks on their back.

00:16:25They were laden with all this kind of equipment.

00:16:27And we said, you've got to get up to 78 because it's really bad.

00:16:31And I remember these guys saying to us, don't worry about us.

00:16:34Just worry about yourselves.

00:16:36Get out of here.

00:16:36We'll take care of what's going on in 78.

00:16:38And it was really kind of an eye-opener to how people think and how first responders really respond to

00:16:45situations like that.

00:16:49The lower Manhattan precincts were already in the buildings, removing people.

00:16:56All the upper Manhattan precincts were with us.

00:16:59We moved to Park Place about a half a block up from the World Trade Center.

00:17:04And they start to assign four to a floor to assist in the evacuation.

00:17:12Going down, we did encounter some debris that we managed to climb over to get to the 40th floor.

00:17:22And there was a police officer in that elevator saying, get in here, get in here, I'll get you out

00:17:27of here.

00:17:29We got down to the first floor and the first floor was just nothing but dust and stuff all over

00:17:34the place.

00:17:35It was just amazing.

00:17:36You can't see anything in front of you.

00:17:39We walked out the door.

00:17:42I really didn't understand what was going on.

00:17:45The best way to describe any of this was chaotic.

00:17:49From a triage standpoint, I guess I looked as bad as anybody.

00:17:53So an officer came along and grabbed me.

00:17:56And I didn't know her.

00:17:58I didn't know anything about her.

00:17:59All I know is that somebody was helping me out.

00:18:01And then somebody was taking my photograph.

00:18:05The police officer took me over to sit me down over on the sidewalk.

00:18:08And that's when they took me to the ambulance.

00:18:11And then she just went back into the building.

00:18:21I drive down to the World Trade Center.

00:18:25When I first show up at the scene, there's a plane engine in the middle of the street.

00:18:30And I thought I'd try to pull a serial number off it, help identify the airplane.

00:18:36Quite frankly, under the stress, I kind of flipped into detective mode when I should have flipped into boss mode.

00:18:43I kind of had to snap myself out of the situation.

00:18:46And I walk over to a temporary headquarters that is across the street from the South Tower to make a

00:18:54call to my higher headquarters.

00:19:00I'm almost to the World Trade Center.

00:19:02I'm standing there by myself.

00:19:05I'm like, what do I do?

00:19:07We never trained for this in the police academy.

00:19:10I mean, they never taught us this.

00:19:12I'm 27 years old.

00:19:15I'm 28. One of the two.

00:19:17And I'm still relatively a young kid at the time.

00:19:21What do I do?

00:19:22I'm like, how the fuck am I getting up there to get her out of there?

00:19:28Since I was young, Joanne was always there.

00:19:32She was proud of my career. She was there when I graduated the police academy.

00:19:37When I bought my first house, she lent me 3,000 bucks.

00:19:42I could always count on her.

00:19:45Now, how the hell am I going to help her?

00:19:50You know, I was looking for that guidance.

00:19:55Eventually, I run into my lieutenant at the time.

00:19:59I'm walking south, so we're in front of the Verizon building.

00:20:03And I'm hearing this rumble.

00:20:11The cell phones are not working.

00:20:13I'm talking on a landline.

00:20:15The phone starts shaking and going across the table.

00:20:20And I'm thinking it's the subway system.

00:20:24I felt the ground move.

00:20:26The rumble got bigger.

00:20:29We thought it was an explosion.

00:20:30It was that loud.

00:20:32But it was like rolling, like a rolling, loud sound.

00:20:37It was like...

00:20:42And I'll see.

00:20:44I'm like the 30th floor down.

00:20:57A couple blocks from the Trade Center,

00:21:00I just saw white smoke billowing from where the South Tower was.

00:21:08And it was coming right towards my partner and I

00:21:12at a rapid pace.

00:21:16Two of us instinctively just looked at each other

00:21:19and started as, we call it, assholes and elbows.

00:21:22And we were hightailing it to safety inside Sim's department store.

00:21:27And my lieutenant, at that very moment, says,

00:21:31Fuckin' run!

00:21:32Get out of here!

00:21:34Go, go, go!

00:21:36Go, go, go!

00:21:39And then all of the cops who were with me

00:21:43lining up to assist in the evacuation

00:21:46were coming at me like a herd of bulls.

00:21:49And I face-planted into the sidewalk.

00:21:54And they proceeded to run on me.

00:21:59And, I mean, you can't blame them, I guess.

00:22:03Although I was pissed.

00:22:05I heard my knee pop, my back pop.

00:22:09I was in pain immediately.

00:22:14And I was literally crucified to the sidewalk.

00:22:20I couldn't move.

00:22:23And two guys from the 23rd Precinct,

00:22:27who I never got their name.

00:22:29Same thing happened to them.

00:22:31They were like, can you walk?

00:22:33I was like, I can run.

00:22:34Let's go.

00:22:37We tried to get ahead of the debris,

00:22:39but we couldn't.

00:22:41So we just whipped onto Broadway

00:22:45and knelt down and tried to cover as best we could.

00:22:54We're trying to get in to Seven Royal Trade,

00:22:57which is directly north of the actual Twin Towers themselves.

00:23:01That looked like the safest shelter we could find.

00:23:06The doors were locked.

00:23:08I was actually gonna pull my gun out

00:23:10and start shooting the glass.

00:23:12I did not want to be caught on the street.

00:23:16Somebody pushes the door open from inside,

00:23:19screaming, get in here, get in here.

00:23:22We ran in.

00:23:23You're in basically a glass atrium,

00:23:26two, three stories high.

00:23:28The glass is breaking inside, you know,

00:23:31the front lobby and the place just

00:23:34instantly fills with dirt and dust.

00:23:39That really was truly the most terrifying moment

00:23:44of my life.

00:23:45And I've been in some,

00:23:47a couple of hairy things over the course of my career.

00:23:51But all of a sudden you get this realization that

00:23:55I'm gonna die here.

00:24:04It seems like some things slow down

00:24:06while other things speed up.

00:24:08It's amazing what the brain can process.

00:24:11I'm not an overly religious person.

00:24:14But if you think you're gonna die,

00:24:16better square your shit away real fast.

00:24:19And that's what I'm like,

00:24:21I said, God, I was 14 years sober at that time.

00:24:27And the thing that popped in my head was,

00:24:29you know what, God?

00:24:30Thank you for the last 14 years.

00:24:34I take care of my family.

00:24:37And I'm like, this is it.

00:24:39You gotta ride this out.

00:24:42The building I'm in starts filling up

00:24:45with what I think is smoke.

00:24:48And I remember from early on in elementary school

00:24:52that when dealing with smoke,

00:24:53you're supposed to get on your hands and knees and crawl.

00:24:56Except this smoke is loaded

00:24:59on the lower end

00:25:01and thinner on the high end.

00:25:03And it has me very confused

00:25:06and questioning

00:25:08everything I learned from Sister Elizabeth

00:25:10at Our Lady of Snows in 1968.

00:25:15It's gone!

00:25:16It's the whole power!

00:25:17It's gone!

00:25:19Holy God!

00:25:23In several world trade,

00:25:25we didn't get hit with anything,

00:25:27no major debris.

00:25:29You're not dead.

00:25:31Get to work.

00:25:33Be useful.

00:25:36You can barely see inside this building.

00:25:39I have some crappy little flashlight with me.

00:25:42And I hear people yelling up the escalator,

00:25:45so I go up there.

00:25:46And I'm the only guy in uniform there.

00:25:49And this guy is like,

00:25:50he's a building, I don't know if he was a fire marshal,

00:25:53a security guard.

00:25:54He goes, oh, thank God the cops are here.

00:25:58I'm like...

00:26:00Yeah, the cavalry's arrived and it's me,

00:26:02and that's not much.

00:26:07South Tower's collapsed.

00:26:09Now we gotta regroup.

00:26:11We start walking towards the North Tower.

00:26:15I see all the firemen.

00:26:20They're pouring water into their eyes.

00:26:24They're crying.

00:26:28There's regular civilians who happened to escape the building.

00:26:33One guy, I remember, grabbed him, I gave him a big hug.

00:26:36Grown-ass man, much older than me, probably in his 40s.

00:26:40And he's crying and...

00:26:43Again, shock.

00:26:45I'm in it.

00:26:46I said, it's gonna be a ride.

00:26:47It's gonna be a ride.

00:26:51The dust settled.

00:26:54And we went to what is now known as Ground Zero

00:26:57to help expedite any kind of evacuation.

00:27:03And when we got there, it was just not there.

00:27:08There was a shard of the building in the middle of Church and Bessie.

00:27:17The South Tower, even though it's hit second,

00:27:21comes down first because it was hit at a lower level,

00:27:24which compromised the strength of the building more.

00:27:29After the 93 bombing of the World Trade Center,

00:27:33we received training that a plane could not knock down the tower

00:27:37from the sheer force.

00:27:39But now I'm willing to change my thought process.

00:27:42Get out of the area. The second tower is coming down.

00:27:45They tell you the second tower is coming down?

00:27:46Yes, it's about to come down.

00:27:47We lined up a bunch of police officers

00:27:49to keep everybody further away from the building,

00:27:52because it was obvious to me

00:27:53that the second building was gonna come down.

00:27:55Get out! Get out!

00:27:57I see a bunch of EMS.

00:28:00I'm like, dude, what are you doing?

00:28:02He was like, we're gonna go back into the building.

00:28:04I'm like, you're crazy.

00:28:06He goes, no, there's people in there that need to be removed.

00:28:09And I felt like a coward.

00:28:13That I was gonna walk away.

00:28:16So I was like, okay, fuck it, if he's there,

00:28:18I'm not gonna have a fireman embarrass me, so I'm gonna stay.

00:28:21Move it! Come back!

00:28:22The north tower had the antenna on top,

00:28:26and it started to tilt.

00:28:28We started to hear noises.

00:28:30I know I did.

00:28:32It was like creaking.

00:28:36And we're two blocks away.

00:28:40You hear the rumbling.

00:28:43And then that's when the tower starts seeing it fucking drop.

00:28:54The tower's coming down!

00:28:57Away from it!

00:28:58Away from it!

00:29:02When that building was coming down,

00:29:04I remember seeing my two boys...

00:29:12...etching me on...

00:29:15...to run as fast as I could...

00:29:19...and to hit the deck.

00:29:23And I go hide in a curb.

00:29:27All 250 pounds of my fat ass...

00:29:30...squeezed into six inches of sidewalk...

00:29:34...to survive this.

00:29:37Remembering my military training,

00:29:39I put my feet towards the explosion.

00:29:42There was like hurricane winds.

00:29:45I look to my right and there's a truck on its side.

00:29:51And then it becomes very dark.

00:29:56I can't see.

00:29:57And everything's extremely quiet.

00:30:02I'm wondering if I'm dead.

00:30:05I'm not feeling any pain.

00:30:10And then, all of a sudden, I could not breathe at all.

00:30:15And I have to take my hands and physically go in my mouth...

00:30:19...and rake out chunks of cement.

00:30:23And I'm coughing and I'm on my knees.

00:30:26A woman grabbed me.

00:30:29She took me over to a fire hydrant.

00:30:31Cleaned my eyes out.

00:30:32She gives me some water.

00:30:34I could still see her face.

00:30:37Quite frankly, it's one of the more pleasant moments of the day, right?

00:30:40If it's somebody coming to help me when I was in need.

00:30:46I was hopeful that Joanne made it out.

00:30:49I was hopeful that the people that she worked with made it out.

00:30:52I was hoping most people made it out.

00:30:55If you're not in a state of shock like that, you're not going to comprehend the magnitude of what you're

00:31:03witnessing.

00:31:06We were in Sam's department store.

00:31:08The people that had been in there shopping had looks of panic on their faces.

00:31:13All right, we got to get these people out of here.

00:31:14We got to do something.

00:31:16Whatever was in that smoke, like my eyes were burning.

00:31:20So we took men's pocket squares that were on a display rack.

00:31:24We wet them and we started handing them out.

00:31:27Everybody, the employees and the people that had been in there, we told them to cover their faces with the

00:31:32pocket squares and try and avoid like breathing in whatever it was.

00:31:39We got everybody single file to walk south towards the water.

00:31:46There were ferries set up and people with private boats and they were taking people to get them off Manhattan.

00:31:54Myself and my partners had no intention of leaving.

00:31:57We were like, you know, what do we do now?

00:32:00I couldn't help but think about my wife again and whether she was safe and I decided to try her

00:32:06again on my cell phone.

00:32:08And, you know, still it was no luck.

00:32:10I just, I couldn't get through to anybody.

00:32:11I had no signal, just could not make a call.

00:32:17There was no communications.

00:32:19One tower had the antenna that did most of the broadcasting, most for cell phones, TV, radio.

00:32:26So we had no communications with other agencies.

00:32:30We do have a point to point communication with the police department.

00:32:36So you can hear transmissions from each other.

00:32:40The command post is north of Bessie Street.

00:32:43But nothing else.

00:32:46And it is extremely quiet.

00:32:51All you can hear is the fireman's alarms for their oxygen that they wear on their back going off.

00:33:01And it's ever so quiet, but yet deafening in the canyon of what that area of Manhattan is.

00:33:13One of the things I experienced that day that, in looking back on it in retrospect, was loneliness.

00:33:20Being separated from the people I work with.

00:33:24For a cop that stinks.

00:33:26In a scene of such calamity.

00:33:31Really, it became like almost an overpowering sense.

00:33:35Because you're just disconnected.

00:33:38I said, alright, well let me go see if I can find who I'm supposed to be with.

00:33:43I walked past the bar.

00:33:45And it's weird.

00:33:47Thought popped in my head.

00:33:50Nobody would begrudge you if you walked behind the bar and...

00:33:55Grabbed that bottle of Johnny Walker and poured yourself a shot.

00:33:59With the disease of alcoholism.

00:34:03It's just sitting back there saying, hmm.

00:34:06A little toot right here wouldn't bother you.

00:34:09These are the conversations going on, it's like my crazy skull.

00:34:12And I'm like...

00:34:14Not today.

00:34:15I got work to do.

00:34:17And...

00:34:19I'm still sober today.

00:34:20I'm coming up on 38 years.

00:34:24I was a one-star chief in charge of Bronx detectives.

00:34:30We go rushing into the city.

00:34:33We got to Trinity and Liberty when the North Tower collapsed.

00:34:39Now, Trinity and Liberty, I realized there's a Burger King right on the corner.

00:34:43So I just took the opportunity to make the Burger King a temporary headquarters.

00:34:50I just started giving out assignments.

00:34:53And we moved out throughout the day.

00:34:56Cops just ran into the city from Brooklyn, from Upper Manhattan.

00:35:03It was the only time in my entire career where I didn't want to go to work.

00:35:09I wanted to be home for my family.

00:35:12That was my priority, but unfortunately I had to put that aside and rush from Queens into Manhattan.

00:35:23I was coming from the Bronx.

00:35:25My car was not working that day and it was crazy because everything was closed.

00:35:31The trains were stopped.

00:35:32Everybody was walking back from Manhattan.

00:35:35And I tried to hitchhike into the city, but I couldn't get a ride.

00:35:38So I took a bus on Lexington Avenue and it was packed.

00:35:42And I remember getting off on 21st Street and walking to my precinct.

00:35:47So many people that I knew were missing.

00:35:51No one knew where anyone was.

00:35:56NYPD started doing missing person work.

00:35:59Civilians, first responders.

00:36:02Many of us went on a list of every one that's missing.

00:36:11We're listening for people who are stuck in the building.

00:36:16Female officer, where are you? What was your last location?

00:36:19I crawled in and out of caverns, trying to get to whoever it may be,

00:36:26to the point where my shoes were burned and my arms were burned.

00:36:35There was a concern about how do we manage the amount of people that are missing?

00:36:40How do we verify whether they're missing?

00:36:43How do we know that they're still in the building?

00:36:48I leave the 13th precinct and head south to the World Trade Center area.

00:36:54I went to go see if I could find my neighbor, Bill McGinn, and see if he's okay.

00:37:00Before I left my apartment that day, Bill's wife had knocked on my door.

00:37:05She said Bill was working.

00:37:07She was calling him. There was no response.

00:37:09I said, listen, when I get downtown, I'll see if I find him.

00:37:14We looked around a little bit.

00:37:15I kept asking everybody, hey, anybody see Bill McGinn?

00:37:18You know, he worked in the firehouse on 10th Street in Greenwich.

00:37:21Has anybody seen that company?

00:37:25At one point, I asked one fireman, he went, like, that company is gone.

00:37:32I felt so bad.

00:37:35His daughter, Cordelia, was about six years old, and she had come to my house that morning.

00:37:40She was playing with my son, and at some point, she says, oh, my God, I lost my tooth.

00:37:45She lost her first tooth, and she says, I came to my father, comes home, so I can show him.

00:37:51Knowing that she wanted to show her father and knowing that most likely he wasn't going to come home,

00:37:56it really kind of, like, made me feel really sad.

00:38:03We ended up off the FDR drive by the Manhattan Bridge somehow.

00:38:08I remember seeing someone yelling, get back, get back.

00:38:13There's a van on the bridge, they're going to blow the Manhattan Bridge.

00:38:19Panic overcomes everybody, myself, my two partners, and all the people.

00:38:24And I think to myself, I'm like, what the fuck are we running for?

00:38:29Bomb squad went up, and there was no explosives, nothing wrong with the van.

00:38:33It just had been abandoned.

00:38:35But initially, it made sense, because I kept thinking to myself, what next?

00:38:40We were panicked.

00:38:43There were rumors flying left and right.

00:38:46There were something like eight planes missing, still unaccounted for.

00:38:52Rumors, but then some of these weren't rumors.

00:38:55We found out that the Pentagon got hit.

00:38:59We found out that the plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

00:39:04With all of these attacks happening in multiple places, we didn't know what these terrorists had planned.

00:39:11We didn't know if they were going to hit the Empire State Building next.

00:39:14We didn't know if the subways were going to be hit.

00:39:16We just knew that today was the day, and it was happening in multiple places.

00:39:25As we're proceeding and continuing to, you know, help and assist people, I still had not spoken to my wife.

00:39:32I make another attempt to call her, and eventually I'm able to get through to the person who we hired

00:39:39for childcare.

00:39:40I just asked her had she heard from my wife, and she said, yes, she's on her way, she's in

00:39:46New Jersey.

00:39:48She was okay.

00:39:49So that allowed me to focus a little more, to help render aid and hopefully rescue people that had been

00:39:57caught up inside those towers.

00:40:05At this point, I'm in shock.

00:40:09I am dehydrated.

00:40:12And I was wandering around alone.

00:40:17I walk up to the Woolworth Building, and I happened to see Pete Penuccio, my sergeant from the 19th,

00:40:26who I used to work with on the Midnights, and I'm like, somebody I know.

00:40:32And he's like, oh my God, Joanne, where have you been?

00:40:38To be reunited with a cop in the 19th precinct was a huge relief.

00:40:42She's alive.

00:40:43And we were literally maybe just a block or two away almost the entire time.

00:40:48That's how chaotic this scene was.

00:40:52He goes, you look like hell.

00:40:55And I was like, you don't look so hot yourself.

00:40:58Joanne was limping badly.

00:41:00When I saw her knee, I'm like, I probably would have been on the floor howling and crying.

00:41:06And she was like, we're good.

00:41:10Let's do what we need to do.

00:41:12I go to the hospital, and we all go to the hospital.

00:41:16And some boss comes by, and he says, we need people on the street leading down 7 World Trade.

00:41:23This thing was in flames.

00:41:28To me, it gave out a death row.

00:41:34We ran.

00:41:43There was this gigantic cloud of dust that just blew straight out across Broadway.

00:41:52And you're like, when does this day end?

00:42:08When I finally got home, I couldn't believe that I was home.

00:42:15My daughter hugged the stuffing out of me and literally said, I knew you were okay.

00:42:23I knew you were okay.

00:42:26And I literally sat in a bathtub, and my 10-year-old bathed me.

00:42:34She was like, I have you.

00:42:38I'm so lucky you came home.

00:42:44My wife and I were both very emotional, and we were, you know, kissing my daughter.

00:42:48And, you know, she slept in the bed with us that night.

00:42:52Such a, like, you know, feeling of like, almost like a, like dread or something that had just kind of

00:43:00like, I shed it at that time.

00:43:02Just being home, being in bed, being with my family.

00:43:06It was just such a relief.

00:43:10I only slept for about maybe an hour.

00:43:13Took a shower, fresh clothes, turned around, and went back to work.

00:43:18They told us to be back in at 4 a.m.

00:43:24As the department organized, everyone got specific instructions.

00:43:29Every detective was utilized somehow, some way in connection with the World Trade Center.

00:43:39I was working down at the pile.

00:43:44A couple of days in, my commanding officer says to us,

00:43:48all the crime guys, go back to the office, get changed, put on your civilian clothes.

00:43:54You gotta go out there and you're gonna look for looters.

00:43:57And I shook my head no to him.

00:44:00I said, no.

00:44:02I was crying.

00:44:04I was in hysterics.

00:44:05I said, I need to get the fuck back in there.

00:44:08All right? I'm not going out and look for looters.

00:44:10I don't care.

00:44:12I'm going in there, I'm looking for Joanne.

00:44:14I'm going in there.

00:44:17And then I see my commanding officer and it says,

00:44:20Jo, just go back into the pile.

00:44:22Go there for however long you need, however many days.

00:44:26He goes, just keep in touch.

00:44:28You know, let us know that you're a rat.

00:44:32When they tallied and they whittled down that unaccounted for list, we learned that 2,976 civilians, 37 Port Authority

00:44:43police officers, 343 New York City firefighters and 23 NYPD police officers in and around those towers had died.

00:45:00For me, unfortunately, I knew quite a few of them.

00:45:04One being Moira Smith.

00:45:09And I had just saw her in front of the 13th precinct desk that morning.

00:45:16It just hit home because she was a girl from my old neighborhood.

00:45:19And Moira was the only female police officer that had perished inside.

00:45:26She was a police officer that worked in my precinct.

00:45:30I'm like, what?

00:45:31You know, because I know Moira and she had a little girl.

00:45:34At times, I would see her daughter in the locker room, in the police dorm, the female dorm.

00:45:39She was really cute with like little red cheeks.

00:45:43It was very, very hard.

00:45:46We saw a photo in one of the newspapers of Moira rescuing a survivor, bringing him out of the building.

00:45:58I've never seen a time frame of when I got admitted to the hospital and when I got downstairs.

00:46:02But it was, I guess, around the time the tower collapsed.

00:46:05So I don't think I had a whole lot of time before I wouldn't have been around.

00:46:10And Officer Smith, I don't know how many people she helped get out of the Trade Center before she helped

00:46:16me.

00:46:18She was true blue to her task as a police officer.

00:46:22And she went back into the danger and tried to rescue more people.

00:46:29As time went along, my family, you know, they all realized that Joanne wasn't coming home.

00:46:35Pretty much lost hope.

00:46:38Reality started to kick in.

00:46:41So they made arrangements with the funeral home.

00:46:47The day that they made these arrangements, I got home from work.

00:46:52The phone was ringing.

00:46:54Brian, your Uncle Mike's on the phone.

00:46:57And I could hear it in his voice.

00:46:58He's a big burly guy.

00:47:01All choked up.

00:47:03He's like, yeah.

00:47:04He goes, alright, anybody call you?

00:47:06I'm like, no, why?

00:47:09He's like, they found Joanne.

00:47:13Oh, fuck.

00:47:18Now she's found.

00:47:21And I'm...

00:47:32And it still hurts to this day.

00:47:37This was at least...

00:47:40knowing.

00:47:42Knowing for sure.

00:47:45Unfortunately, a lot of people haven't found anybody.

00:47:49And maybe never will.

00:47:51We were lucky enough, if you call it that, to be able to get that in the first couple of

00:47:57weeks.

00:47:58Right through here, near the bucket line.

00:48:00Pass back.

00:48:01The last rescue was 27 hours after the collapse.

00:48:07After that, no one.

00:48:10And the rescue mission quickly turned into a recovery mission.

00:48:16At the medical examiner's office, we continued the process of identifying, of labeling, of doing anything we could to get

00:48:24these people back to their families.

00:48:29The bereavement center was very sad.

00:48:32I remember one particular family, they were, like, asking me all kinds of questions, you know, as I'm doing paperwork

00:48:37and taking the toothbrush or the hairbrush and processing it so we can get DNA off of it.

00:48:43That was very heart-wrenching, to see the fear in their face and the sadness.

00:48:512,976 civilians were murdered that morning.

00:48:5525 years later, 60% have been identified.

00:49:0040% of the families have nothing to bury.

00:49:05And without answers, you go crazy.

00:49:08One thing about 9-11, it helped me get used to the smell of death.

00:49:13Working in the morgue, I saw so much death.

00:49:16In the beginning, I couldn't even take it, I was, like, gagging.

00:49:20But then after a while, the smell didn't bother me anymore.

00:49:25We had 11 or 12 refrigerated trucks lined up in an empty lot.

00:49:32Some women's group came in and started bringing in flowers, major wreaths to put in front of the trucks to

00:49:39honor the people inside.

00:49:42We covered that whole area in a huge white tent, and that became Memorial Park.

00:49:49People wrote things on the wall.

00:49:52They pinned up pictures.

00:49:56In one such picture, it was obviously a kid that sprawled something, and it said at the top,

00:50:03Mommy.

00:50:05And that was a reminder of who we were looking for.

00:50:13A few months after the attack, they did find my neighbor, Bill McGinn.

00:50:17His wife had told me, oh, they recovered him last night.

00:50:21I was at the morgue that day.

00:50:23I remember they brought two firemen, and I didn't know he was one of the people recovered.

00:50:27I found that out later on.

00:50:30One thing I always noticed when it rained, he always left his shoes out of his apartment.

00:50:36It was Bill's shoes, Cordelia's shoes, and Liam's shoes.

00:50:40The kids' shoes were always out.

00:50:43And then one day after 9-11, I came home and it was raining.

00:50:48I see Liam's shoes and Cordelia's shoes, but Bill's shoes aren't there.

00:50:52And then it hit me.

00:50:54I was saying, man, I can't believe that, you know, he's gone.

00:50:58Any time a first responder was found, everything would stop.

00:51:05An American flag would be placed over it, and we would all get up and salute as that person would

00:51:12be brought out of ground zero.

00:51:15It, um, it was bring tears into your eyes.

00:51:29The full recovery effort after 9-11 lasted about nine months, went on till, I believe, May of 2002.

00:51:39I had a tough time.

00:51:41I spend time at work where, like, I can't function.

00:51:45I am, like, crying and, um, like, in the fetal position because I'm trying to recount what I did and

00:51:55different things.

00:51:56And, like, that's truly when I became scared.

00:52:02Finally started thinking about the shit that happened, I guess. I don't know.

00:52:08Murder kept going on, right?

00:52:10People kept dying outside the World Trade Center.

00:52:13So we had to maintain a full investigative staff on the streets.

00:52:18It brought back a little bit of normalcy to your everyday routine, but we were not excused from the recovery

00:52:26efforts.

00:52:27At one tour or another, somebody from our squad was assigned to the medical examiner's office, and sometimes two of

00:52:35us were at the recovery efforts at the landfill in Staten Island.

00:52:41Fresh Kills was a retired New York City dump in Staten Island, and they would remove the debris over to

00:52:48there.

00:52:49So that was the Detectives Bureau responsibility to go through this debris and try to recover body parts or items

00:52:58that belong to individuals.

00:53:00First, they just gave you a rake and said, go through it. If you come up with any idea or

00:53:06what you think is a bone, put it in these buckets.

00:53:10I volunteered to work there, and that was tremendously satisfying because you're hopefully giving some information to some family member

00:53:20somewhere along the line.

00:53:22After a while, they got wise. They started issuing tie-back suits, boots, gloves, and masks as you went through

00:53:31the debris.

00:53:32Unfortunately, that's probably where I get my cancer.

00:53:37I've been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I'm very fortunate. I caught it in the early stages.

00:53:43The majority of the people that work down there end up with some related 9-11 illness.

00:53:52Back in 2021, I got a message on my fucking phone that, you know, I had cancer.

00:53:59It was a urological cancer. Very rare. One in four million men get it.

00:54:03I felt sorry for myself for about, you know, maybe 10 minutes.

00:54:07And I went from feeling a little bit like a victim to feeling like, I'm ready, man. Let's go. Let's

00:54:14do this. Get this shit out of me.

00:54:16And that was it.

00:54:21I got skin cancer in my face.

00:54:24When I found out, I was scared.

00:54:29To date now, more people have died from 9-11 related illnesses than actually died on the day of the

00:54:38attack, which is extremely alarming.

00:54:43I think that the terrorists wanted initially to take out those towers because of what they symbolized.

00:54:51And I think they got more bang for their buck because the tragedy just keeps going on.

00:55:00We're going 25 years.

00:55:04I have buried at least 50 friends.

00:55:10Friends, not even people I don't know.

00:55:14There's more than that.

00:55:16There's more than that.

00:55:22Oh, my God.

00:55:23Oh, it's all the boys.

00:55:24What's going on here?

00:55:25Good to see you, brother.

00:55:27So are you, girl?

00:55:28I'm sure.

00:55:30Every single one of us should just talk.

00:55:35Me and Pete talk.

00:55:37Every year, we would talk about it.

00:55:39Hello, darling.

00:55:42Relive the hurt.

00:55:43How are you?

00:55:46See you. You look so good.

00:55:48And it helped.

00:55:49It helped until it didn't.

00:55:51And I needed to seek counseling.

00:55:55Wow, look at my hat.

00:55:57How are you feeling?

00:55:58Get up here.

00:56:00Yeah.

00:56:00Yeah, I know.

00:56:02The new building is nice, though.

00:56:05The first time I've been in the new buildings.

00:56:07Really?

00:56:09McLeod, that fucking heck.

00:56:12Leave him alone. Leave my brother alone.

00:56:14Calm down, Sam Champion.

00:56:20I would wake up with these horrific dreams.

00:56:28That's the worst part.

00:56:30You go to bed and you feel like you're being buried alive.

00:56:35There isn't a cop out there, I'm sure, that doesn't feel the same thing.

00:56:40I nearly had a breakdown.

00:56:42Then the 9-11 Foundation kicked in and said,

00:56:46we got you.

00:56:48We will help you.

00:56:50I could tell you're a little bit like, um...

00:56:53Shaking?

00:56:54Yeah, shaking.

00:56:55It's all right.

00:56:56I was scared coming.

00:56:59I'm a big advocate now for guys getting mental health check.

00:57:04Just do it. We have the coverage. Do it.

00:57:08It doesn't hurt to talk.

00:57:13I don't enjoy being here at the site.

00:57:20I don't like it up here.

00:57:21I love that I'm with all of you.

00:57:24I feel protected.

00:57:26Because you get it.

00:57:28You know, we know things that no one else on this Earth will ever know.

00:57:32And probably never should.

00:57:34Never dealt with it.

00:57:36Me, personally.

00:57:37My daughter wasn't even two yet.

00:57:38She just wanted to know where Dad was all the days that I came to work

00:57:42to get the fuck away from these memories.

00:57:45Just to actually not have to relive this shit every fucking day in my life.

00:57:53My life was never the same.

00:57:55Just like a lot of other people.

00:57:59I didn't have any way to identify what I was dealing with.

00:58:04Because I didn't see it.

00:58:06I didn't understand it.

00:58:09It was a horrendous attack on our nation.

00:58:12It's a crime scene.

00:58:13For many months afterwards, it was a graveyard.

00:58:17My mind is racing right now and I'm seeing photos of Pete and Joanne that day.

00:58:23I'm seeing photos of Roger in the Pathmark parking lot pouring water over your head.

00:58:27It's all coming back and it's really difficult to think about it.

00:58:32My place to let it out was the shower.

00:58:35I went in the shower and I cried.

00:58:41And I cried.

00:58:44And I cried.

00:58:45And I never told anybody that.

00:58:50That was how I got it out.

00:58:54Yeah.

00:58:57And when I retired, that's when it hit bang.

00:59:00So hard.

00:59:01Suddenly, who am I?

00:59:02It's not relevant to the world.

00:59:04It changes you.

00:59:05That's why I stopped drinking too.

00:59:06When you were tired.

00:59:07How did we deal with it?

00:59:08Yeah, drinking.

00:59:08We went to the bar.

00:59:09Yeah.

00:59:10That's how we dealt with them.

00:59:11We talked about it with each other.

00:59:12100%.

00:59:13But now, these guys that are fucking suffering out there from 9-11 and PTSD that they've never dealt with

00:59:20in their careers.

00:59:21You guys in homicides and everyone seeing all the dead bodies, the dead children and all that shit.

00:59:25And you all have it.

00:59:27All of you have it.

00:59:28You gotta deal with this shit because it will fester and you will change as a person.

00:59:34Honestly, thank God for this little meeting here.

00:59:37And for all those years, I thought I was the only one that was losing my fucking mind.

00:59:43And I wasn't.

00:59:45And I know it.

00:59:48I'm coming here.

00:59:49I'm sorry.

00:59:50I'm not crying.

00:59:51You're crying.

00:59:55I won't do it for the cameras, but I'll make fun of you later.

00:59:59You gotta dry clean your brain like all of us.

01:00:02You can't keep it in.

01:00:04I feel happy right now just looking at Brian's face.

01:00:06From the minute he started to now, it's like a complete different person.

01:00:09This is a therapy group today.

01:00:11It really is.

01:00:11I mean, look at it.

01:00:12Because it's a comfort zone.

01:00:13It is.

01:00:14We feel comfortable talking to each other.

01:00:16We know, you know, we've chewed some of the same dirt.

01:00:20Mental health is just as important as physical health.

01:00:24And now I understand that.

01:00:27But it took me about 19 years until I talked to therapists about it.

01:00:32I had to, because, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a superhero.

01:00:37Part of this is like survivor's remorse.

01:00:39Chief, you were in the Burger King.

01:00:41Tommy, you were there.

01:00:42He was there.

01:00:43Everybody was there.

01:00:43You're saying, why didn't, why didn't it happen to me a little bit?

01:00:47You think about it, you know?

01:00:49We had 23 NYPD officers.

01:00:51We had 37 Port Authority police officers.

01:00:54Yes.

01:00:54And we had 343 firemen killed.

01:01:00God gave us memories for a reason.

01:01:03And it's to remember them.

01:01:05Remember what happened.

01:01:07Never forget.

01:01:09In the place where the Twin Towers once stood, we now have the Freedom Tower.

01:01:16I've never seen it from like this, this level either.

01:01:20It's like so majestic and I'm glad, I'm glad we put it right up their asses.

01:01:26Very happy for that.

01:01:28We're all alive.

01:01:29We're all surviving in one shape or form or another.

01:01:32And I appreciate that they set up the memorial for those memories of the first responders

01:01:38and the civilians and all the citizens from other countries that got killed that day.

01:01:44It is a symbol of strength and resilience that we got knocked down, but we got up as a country,

01:01:52not just a city.

01:01:54The memorial, it's absolutely stunning.

01:01:58The imprint of the buildings with the names and the waterfall.

01:02:03What a beautiful day, right?

01:02:05It is.

01:02:06Not unlike the day.

01:02:15It is.

01:02:15Jimmy Ritchie's right here.

01:02:18He was a cop, too, before he was a fireman.

01:02:20John Chapora.

01:02:21You got so many of them.

01:02:22Yeah, Jesus Christ.

01:02:23Timmy McSweeney.

01:02:25And then we got Moira.

01:02:30Terrorism is not just one attack.

01:02:32It's a constant state of ruining people's lives with fear, with illness, with mental incapacity.

01:02:47Counter to the evil, there's love, and there's people that really, like, care.

01:02:58Through that tragedy, the country, especially here in New York, everyone came together.

01:03:06It shows me what we're capable of.

01:03:19It is a very beautiful thing, who's a beautiful sacrifice.

01:03:19He's the��ť.

01:03:29Let's

01:03:29take a break. Let's

01:03:30take a break. Let's

01:03:30take a break. Get the

01:03:30break. Or else...

01:03:31Let's take

01:03:31a break. Get the break.

01:03:31Let's take a

01:03:32Let's take a

01:03:32break. I got to and

01:03:35It's a big and

01:03:35that's a big game. It's a big story.

01:03:38Let's take a break.

01:04:07Transcription by CastingWords

01:04:37CastingWords

01:05:07CastingWords

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