INTERVIEW WITH SERGEANT KEITH BOHN

CONDUCTED BY
DR. JANET MCDONNELL
DECEMBER 17, 2001
Q: And maybe just if you would begin by explaining what your
position is here, what's your sort of normal duty?
A : My current position with the United States Park Police is
I'm a helicopter pilot . I ' m a pilot sergeant with the
United State s Par k Police and work out of Anacostia station
and fly helicopters basically ful l time. It is my full time
job for them. I've been with the 18 years .
Q: How did you first become aware of the attacks on September
11?
A : On the morning of September 11 , I was leaving work. I'd
worked the previous midnight tour and I was preparing to
leave work, already in civilian clothes. Already had known
about, obviously, the World Trade Center attacks in New
York . They were pretty traumatic and unbelievable. Was
leaving work, walking through the hangar. Most of our crew
was outside in either the hangar or the outside area when
crew members, (b )(6)
: . . . . : . . ~ - - -
one of the had made
mentioned about hearing some sort of exp l osion or
something. We then received a phone on our drop line. We
have a direct phone l ine to National tower because we're so
close to them.
Q: Is that what a drop l ine is?
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A: Y e s ~ basically it's, we have (b) (?)(E) here because
of our mission, but one of them is from National tovJer
because we work so closely with the airport being onl y a
mile away from Reagan National Airport. And so they called
us reporting that, our first initial report is that an
aircraft had crashed near the northern extreme of the
airport property. So we were prepari ng to launch a response
to an aircraft crash on the northern end of t he airport.
At that point you could see the black plume of smoke from
that area . You couldn't tell it was the Pentagon yet , but
you could tell it was from the northern part of the airport
there was in fact a huge black smoke cloud already coming
up at which point my conunander, Lieutenant Cholak, advised
me to get suited up to prepare to go on the second aircraft
for this mission.
Q: Okay, the second aircraft being Eagle ...
A: Eagle Two . I was in Eagle Two . Eagle One launched out
immediatel y with the duty crew of that day, which was Pilot
Sergeant Galley, Sergeant Marsh, and Officer Dillon. That
three man crew launched in Eagle One i mmediately. The plan
was to form a crew with what was here at the hangar,
myself, Lieutenant Cholak, Sergeant Stasuli. (6)(6)
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~ ~ : . . . . . . . . : . . . . . . . . . ~
was in training.near by with a large group of Park
Police for the upcoming international money fund
demonstrations, the IMF World Bank demonstrations. There
was a group of about 50 people out in front of the hangar
training. Horse mounted, motorcycle slot and personnel. So
we were going to formulate a crew for Eagle Two from that
group of people that were here, utilizing the mass casualty
kit in Eagle Two, in which we have a kit for the aircraft
which allows us to carry four patients versus two patients.
Thinking we have an aircraft crash, we were thinking mass
casual ties. So we launched Eagle One immediately with the
intent of launching Eagle Two right afterwards with the
mass casualty kit in.
Q: Okay. And so compare for me the crew that you went up with,
with what was a typical crew for a mission.
A: We were in a very a typical crew. What transpired was in
fact that I had already come off midnight getting off duty
so I was one pilot. Sergeant Ken Burchell is another pilot,
but he was assigned to this training. I'm still an
intermediate paramedic and Sergeant Burchell is still an
EMT, so we had medical expertise. My thought was that
Sergeant Burchell would fly and I would be his medic and
take care of patients. However, Sergeant Burchell went over
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to the training group while I started the aircraft, so I
basically became the pilot of Eagle Two.
Sergeant Burchell knew that at the training group out here
in front we had support from Department of Defense, which
typically on major events the Un ited States Park Police
uses DOD medical personnel from Bethesda Naval Hospital.
And so he knew there were some paramedics over there from
that operation, who support Park Police regularly, who are
known to us, have trained with us. They've basically been
trained on our aircraft and everything. He knew they were
there and he went to get them to tell them to come on the
aircraft, which was a very good decision.
So he returned with paramedic (b )(6) and physicians
assistant ~ 6 ) ( 6 )
~ ~ ~ ~ - - - - - - ~
Those two medical personnel were
obtained by Sergeant Burchell and joined us, and we also
took Lieutenant Cholak and Sergeant Stasuli with us. I
knew I wanted some extra personnel for landing zone
security, thinking we were going to be going in and out of
this site, whatever it was. And so I wanted those personnel
with me so we had some people on the ground that we could
maintain landing zone security, we could have
communications with them, and I know who I'm talking to
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when it's one of my own to say, ~ Y e s , it's okay to come in
and land now," or "We're not ready," or "Here' s what ' s
going on ."
Q: But for a typical mission it's what, a two person?
A: Our typical crew has been two . Since September 11 , we've
been running with a t hree man crew which we would li ke to
do because of the advantages it gives t he operation. It's
much safer and a much more capable crew to run with a three
man crew. on that day I launched with six, because I
gathered a mixture of people thinking I had a large
incident I needed extra personnel for both medical and for
security things. And also we had assistance on the ground
from our mechanic who was here, and he installed
the mass casualty kit in the aircraft as we formed up this
crew and got ready to launch.
Q: And how easy or difficult was that to do?
A: It ' s probably a 15 minute process, which could be done the
scene, but I said, "Let 's do it here," because--but we
didn't take 15 minutes . I gave him about 5 . And so he was
rushed, but we knew we had something extreme going on and
then later we learned that it was very extreme.
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Q: So how many minutes after Eagle One took off did Eagle Two?
A: We probably launched, I think, 5 minutes after them and
actually that's how I found out what transpired. It was
Sergeant Galley in Eagle One talking to me in Eagle Two on
the air-to-air frequencies, because I was already up and
running in Eagle Two. I got the engines started and
everything was on line. And he told me in disbelief that a
jet had actually hit the Pentagon. That it wasn't at the
end of the runway, it was actually now as we knew identical
to the World Trade Center, which that picture up there as
you think of it with the, our and NYPD's aircraft up there
over the trade centers. And we knew then it was the same
thing, another similar incident. Now we had a jet into the
Pentagon, which as far as our response we could change
nothing, but yet in our mind we knew it wasn't an accident.
It wasn't just a coincidental accident at National Airport.
It was an attack of terrorist nature and we were in a whole
different ballgame at this point.
Q: Were you also getting reports while you were still up in
the air about other unaccounted for aircraft?
A: Yes, a little bit later we had gotten that. After we had
gone over and performed our MEDEVAC, we received
information about the incoming fourth aircraft, which was
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the one that had crashed in Pennsylvania, how that one had
turned its course. It was coming back, believed to be
coming back to D.C. was the intent.
Q: Okay. So let's just sort of continue along somewhat
chronologically. You're landing at the Pentagon.
A: We actually then, because we had air-to-air between Eagle
One, which was already over the scene, with us in Eagle Two
they knew, Eagle One knew that we had the mass casualty
kit. Eagle One was already in a command and control
position over the Pentagon and they were down linking live
time video back to command center, such as the Secret
Service, the FBI, things like that that we attach our
signal to. And so they were already engaged in that, which
was something everyone wanted to see, and so they were
giving it to all of the federal law enforcement entities in
town. They also knew we had the mass casualty kit in. If
there were MEDEVACS to be done we were the best aircraft to
go in first. So they cleared a landing zone for us and
described an area where it was safe and clear for us to
land on the west side of the Pentagon.
Q: Is that what you mean by clearing the zone, flying over it
and?
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A: Seeing it was pretty much empty of people. Now, of course,
the Pentagon, you had an obviously a hectic thing where you
had police and fire units rushing towards the Pentagon.
You have people on foot rushing towards the Pentagon from
the buildings like Navy Annex and Crystal City. You had all
of those people rushing to the Pentagon to try and help.
And you have an equal number of people rushing out of the
Pentagon, because it' s now been attacked and is on fire. So
it was a real mix of people going both directions, but yet
there was some, there was a pocket of open space that Eagle
One had identified for us in the c l overleaf of the highway
there, Route 29 at Army Navy Drive or something at the west
side of the Pentagon, where I initially landed and deployed
my people.
Q: Just north of the Naval Barracks thing?
A: Right, exactly. There's a cloverleaf there where the two
highways intersect and we landed in the northwest
cloverleaf . And i t actually worked out well then because
Lieutenant Cholak escorted (b )(6) so we had a Park
Policeman with a medical provider going toget her . And then
~ 5 ) ( 6 )
took (6)(6) to another medical team. So
two- by- two they went out and Sergeant Stasuli stayed with
me to safeguard the landing zone.
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I think a lot of people thought we were there to save t hem.
There were people coming towards the aircraft and I would
point out to Sergeant Stasuli, stop her." stop him."
People obviously in various stages of disarray because they
were. . .
Q: You thought you were going to evacuate ...
A: Them, I think, some of them.
Q: As opposed to a medical.
A: Yes, obviously the confusion was pretty great. And so when
we deployed our people, (b)(6)
~ ~ ~ - - - - - - - - ~
has a long history
of fire, EMS experience, got to what was apparently the
triage center and found out there were eleven patients at
that point who were reported to be transported by air,
eleven priority one patients. And then I relayed that up
to, both Sergeant Burchell who was telling them by radio
and I was telling Eagle One by radio both, and then Eagle
One started calling in other aircraft to assist, such as
they called for the Maryland State Police. They called for
MEDSTAR Hospital Center aircraft. They called for I NOVA
Fairfax Hospital's aircraft, Fairfax Police aircraft, all
of these other local MEDEVAC.
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Q: Because they knew there were eleven and that you could
only.
A: Eleven at that point.
Q: Right.
A: And we could take presumably four, although we initially
launched out of there with only two.
Q: Tell me about that. How did that come about?
A: As soon as we got there, there were patients that were
ready to go and the patients we got were worthy to go.
They were quite extremely burned. Most of the patients who
were transported, at least that I saw, were burn patients.
I guess presumably if you were in the aircraft or in the
zone of the Pentagon that got actually struck your odds of
survival were pretty limited. But if you were in those
adjoining offices that burned, it was very--but it was a
small number. I think there were thoughts on our side there
would be lots of patients. There really weren't, I don't
think, large numbers of patients.
We ended up getting two. Both were very large patients. In
the stacking litter configuration, the litters fall down on
one another. So when they brought us the first patient, who
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was very large, I told them to put that one on the primary
side where one goes. The second patient we thought was
equal in size, so then that didn't allow the second litter
to lie flat, so the second just became unusable to
accommodate the first. The third position is actually up
top pretty high, hard to put a big patient up that high and
also a tighter position. The third patient actually wasn't
ready to go, yet packaged in a format to go.
Q: What does that mean?
A: They weren't properly secured.
Q: Is there paperwork?
A: No, there was no paperwork done. They weren't even on a
backboard ready to get in the aircraft, so we made the
decision just let's go. We had to let's launch and so,
because these were very critical, those two patients.
Q: And where did you take them?
A: We took them to the Washington Hospital Center, which is
the closest trauma center. It's also the local burn unit
and these were straight up burn patients. I don't know
what other injuries they had, but we knew they had burns.
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Q: Who makes that call typical ly about where you take
patients?
A: We do. Our medics onboard, and between myself and Sergeant
Burchell, who came through the process here of being
paramedics first before we were pilots here, and then
who are very known to us, we
knew we were going to the Washington Hospital Center. We
had burn patients. We knew we were going. It was a very
short , probably a three-minute flight up there.
But at that point, we left half of our crew there . When I
launched off of the scene, I was flying, Sergeant Burchell
was tending to one patient, and paramedic
to the other patient. And the physician
Lieutenant Cholak and Sergeant Stasuli stayed on
the scene to assist on the ground with further patients,
patient care, landing zone security, because right after us
MEDSTAR came in. The MEDSTAR helicopter came in and landed.
And they took one. And actually of those eleven initial
patients, only three were f l own that I know of. There were
no other MEDEVACS by air that I know of. There may have
been some by the military later, but of that initial
strike, early on, the first half hour, there were only
three patients flown . And I don't know if that meant the
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other eight deteriorated that they were not treatable or
salvageable or if they went by ground.
I think there was some confusion on the scene whether are
these patients the ones to fly, because there are more over
there? I don't know if those over there ever became the big
numbers that were anticipated, because I think there was, I
don't know what the final numbers for this incident really
were. The numbers of dead are pretty well known in the
180' s I think, 185 or so on. But I don't know what the
number injured was. I know some went by ground to the local
hospitals over there, like Arlington Hospital and National
Orthopedic.
Q: But that's the triage center's function?
A: Right. That is their function. And that was probably a
mixture of Arlington County Fire Department. The Pentagon
had their own EMS service. They were involved. I know they
helped load patients. I know people in Army uniforms were
treating and helped load patients. You probably had
elements of Alexandria Fire, D.C. Fire, a whole mixed
community of police, fire and EMS personnel were there, and
we saw them all.
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So we launched with our first two and then we cleared the
hospital to come back for more.
Q: Before you go on there, can you just describe, you did sort
of very quickly when you talked about people sort of
rushing from the building and rushing toward the building.
But can you tell me anything else about the scene when you
arrived or you know what your impressions?
A: It was crazy. Actually we launched, we landed into this
circle, this traffic grass area in this cloverleaf. And we
sent our people out. And we were there, having people
rushing over the hill and up over the hill, the scene there
wasn't as visible. I could see the building and see it
burning. But then Sergeant Burchell said, "We're ready to
go. We have eleven. I want you to hop up here." So our plan
was to make the cloverleaf, which it became pretty much for
the whole day the staging area, and the roadway, a part of
northbound Route 29 there, Arlington Boulevard I guess it's
called or Memorial Boulevard, the loading area for
patients. So stage here, load here. So basically I put
Sergeant Stasuli back on board and the two of us we
launched, we picked up and went back over and landed again
on the highway closer to the Pentagon and closer to where
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the patients were, because it would require a not so long
carry of these patients from triage to the aircraft.
And then when I got there it was amazing, because now you
could, I could see the Pentagon right next to me burning.
People were coming out of the building with clothing on
fire, ripping off burning clothes as the extricated
themselves. You had firemen rushing in. You had people
rushing out. You had people trying to secure areas for
whatever they needed, whether it be FBI putting up crime
tape for crime scene preservation versus the military. It
was a real mismatch of people.
But at that point the building had this diagonally slash in
it like a big 45 degree angle slit where the plane had gone
in at that angle. And it was still pretty intact. And then
while we sat there the building collapsed quite loudly and
quite dramatically. The building caved in and that was
pretty traumatic. And then until we get these two people
onboard, we made the decision not to wait anymore. It's
time to go. These patients were very critical. My belief as
of today some three months later is that I think one has
died, I think the other one survived. But they were both
very, very bad. I've been in EMS for over 20 years and
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these patients were very critical. So, and they weren't
pretty. Burn patients are really not pretty. So they were
pretty severe patients. So seeing them and taking them was
a start of a crazy. I mean ..
Q: So you went and you took them to the hospital and you came
back and then?
A: Actually from the hospital we came back here.
Q: Oh, you did?
A: We came back here to pick up a Secret Service agent, which
part of our role in town is that we do a lot of missions
with the U.S. Secret Service, and we take what's called the
role oC what's called the Huntman Aircraft which is for
Presidential security.
airborne in the city.
Secret Service wanted an agent
Q: So it's the same aircraft it just goes under a different
designation?
A: A different name. And it indicates the Secret Service is
onboard and doing that mission. Secret Service wanted
people onboard. And so we came back here and picked up
that Secret Service agent to go with us. And then we
returned to the Pentagon to assist with what we thought
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were those remaining patients. However, this time it
brings you back to what you said earlier. We had this
other problem of a fourth aircraft coming inbound. And
National tower, right after we had launched, was abandoned.
Q: So we're talking about a span of what maybe 15 minutes, the
scenario that we're talking about?
A:
Q:
You're probably talking 15 minutes and so much is
happening, it's unbelievable. It's just like the more you
think back the more you remember. Now it's three months
later, and I remember more as we talk about it today. But
this happened so quick because, you know, the World Trade
Center brought your life to reality, boom. They're watching
the first one, and then here comes the second one, and
pretty much everyone saw that and then wow, and then we
have something happening in D.C., and now we find out it's
the same, it was just like this is way out there on the
extremes of reality that even in law enforcement for 20
years you don't prepare for this.
Right. [tape off]
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TAPE ONE SIDE B
A: So we, and probably in a span of 15 minutes later we now
had a Secret Service agent on board and we're returning to
the Pentagon.
Q: That's not a mission you can talk about I imagine.
No, and actually, yes, we actually did some of that and we
didn't do some of that. But they just wanted someone
airborne over the city, because they didn't know what was
next. And again, they timed it well, because when we got
him airborne, more and more reports were filtering out
about aircraft number four and it was still airborne.
National tower soon after we had launched was abandoned.
And the reason they were abandoned is because they were in
the smoke trail of the Pentagon. We had northwesterly
winds that day. The smoke trail pretty much ran through
the high tower of National Airport. Got in their air
intakes and they had to abandon the structure. Not only
was the air traffic shut down, but they had to abandon
because of the smoke. So now they were gone. So they gave
control of the air space to us, primarily Eagle One, and
Eagle One and Eagle Two would discuss things about what we
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were doing, and then we actually involved, the next
aircraft involved was probably the Metropolitan City Police
aircraft. And then the MEDEVAC aircraft came in. And Eagle
One handled that mission while we were doing the MEDEVAC
stuff.
But upon return with the Secret Service agent onboard,
thinking we were doing more MEDEVACS because we knew we had
more patients, the underground operation of National
Airport and the tower were reporting to us locations on
this number four aircraft. That it had in fact turned back
from Cleveland, was coming back towards D.C., had passed
Pittsburgh.
Q: And you're getting this over the radio?
A: Over the air radio, our aircraft radio, right. And we were
then giving that to some of our local people in town,
telling the police that there is another aircraft in bound.
And so what are the targets in this town? Well, people,
there's not much you can do anyway to protect the Monument,
the Capital, or the White House. But they did what they
could do, which was minutes after the first attack hit in
D.C., they evacuated the White House. I don't know what
they did to the Capital but, and the Monument, I think, was
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still shut down for renovations so there was no one in the
Monument, I don't think.
But, so we were giving that information to our ground
troops so that they knew. And actually the tower
recommended that we evacuate by air the area of the
Pentagon because it was thought maybe it would be another
second attack on the Pentagon. Since the first two in New
York hit the World Trade Center, maybe the next two were
going to hit the Pentagon, and who knows where five, six
and so on were going to go.
So they advised us to leave the Pentagon. So we found,
already during this day when I was passed at about 500 feet
by a fighter jet, I knew it wasn't a normal day in the
city. A fighter was down very low over the city, heading
north to intercept the aircraft number four, actually. Me
and Sergeant Burchell talked about, the good idea today
would be to stay low. You don't want to be up high and be a
hot target for anyone who may attempt to shoot down some of
these things. So being low would be a much safer operation.
But then they told us to evacuate the Pentagon area. We
found refuge; we had to find someplace to hide, so we
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Q:
actually chose Memorial Circle, which is on the G.W.
Parkway on the west end of Memorial Bridge.
Now give me a sense of the timeframe for this. I mean you
know you've been there, you've come back here, you've taken
Secret Service up, to the Pentagon?
A: We went around a few times. I think we circled the Pentagon
anticipating landing when they said, "Evacuate.
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Boom, we
cleared out. I'm thinking find a field, whether it be a
high school football field, an empty church lot. I'd like
it to be something I knew. Well, the George Washington
Parkway was shut down. They shut down all of the bridges in
town. I remember there was like an abandoned car on
Memorial Bridge which caused a lot of concern thinking this
was part of the package. But Memorial Circle was pretty
much empty. We had some officers on the west end I could
see, but they were no where near the circle. So it was a
big, safe, empty field. We just landed it. We said, "Let's
get down.
11
And the odds of this plane if it's coming
inbound, if it's going to be piloted into something, it
wasn't going to be piloted to the open expanse of Memorial
Circle, so being there would be safe.
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So we landed there and then we were just waiting it out, so
to say, until we knew the threat had passed. And it wasn't
that much longer until number four crashed in Pennsylvania.
But we were getting calls then for additional patients. So
we left and came out from Memorial Circle. We went back
in to the . Pe11te1gon. And ....
Q: Calls for additional patients being MEDEVAC'ed.
A: Patients MEDEVAC' ed out. At this time there were other
aircraft there. Fairfax Hospital's aircraft was there.
Eagle One had given up, I think, air control to the city
police in Condor One, so they had landed for MEDEVAC. When
we landed again, again I deployed my medics. There were no
patients. When we got to triage there were none. And I
don't know what that means per se. I just know we didn't do
any more MEDEVACS that day. But we went airborne and did
some stuff. I know Eagle One flew the fire chief for a,
and they'll tell you more about that, about checking the
fire, and fighting the fire, and getting some, how big of a
fire it was at the Pentagon.
And then we came back here, refueled, and then we got
involved in an FBI mission, where we picked up FBI
personnel at the National Mall downtown, flew them to
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Dulles Airport to start the investigation. And at this
point, the town was full of military aircraft. And it
wasn't a real comfortable feeling, because communications
was not as good as it is between civilian operators here.
We work together all of the time. And there was some
concern over what these aircraft were intending to do. You
had everything from a1rborne refuelers up high, jets,
military helicopters coming in in droves now. So we made
the decision to come back here and sort of plan our day
from here versus from airborne in the mix. So that' s what
we pretty much did.
Q: And what about the following couple of weeks? What were
some of the tasks that Eagle Two performed?
continue to fly on Eagle Two those next weeks?
Did you
A: We did a mixture. What we did is after that we set up duel
staffing on both aircraft 24-hours-a-day using 12-hour
shifts. We had three people on each aircraft. Two three
man crews on day work for Eagle One and Two, and two
aircrews on midnight for Eagle One and Two. And I stayed
on midnights and I'm still on midnights. For awhile there
we were working 12-hour days, no days off for the first two
or three weeks after. And then we tried to work in one day
off a week per person by using some sort of rotation. And
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then now we're back into where we work primarily 4-5 days a
week, 12-hour shifts and you get maybe two days off a week.
In a threat level sense this event has been on a roller
coaster, highs and lows. I think to keep threat levels
high and have maximum staffing, whether it be in our ground
troops at memorials and monuments or us in the aircraft,
requires extra funding. And the question is where is the
money coming from, this big terrorism money now? That's all
well and good if it's there. So, and then you also get to a
point of how much can you work people before you start
losing some payback? You can go a week or two of high
intensity. But when you go a month or two of high
intensity, then you mix in the holiday season, you start
losing some things. People need some time off.
Q: And you don't want tired pilots.
A: You don't want tired pilots. And we don't want tired
aircrew of any type, because they are so critical to our
operation to make it safe, to see out the left window, to
run the things. And because there are so many things going
on in this town now, such as other aircraft, you want to be
more attentive to the air space, and so we got into a
little mix now where people are getting time off. If
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people want a day off they can get it. And we're still
trying to maintain a higher level of readiness than we did
before September 11, and I think we do. We're still
maintaining a one three-man crew per day 24/7. And
sometimes we have more people, like on day work we
. typically have some administrative personnel who- t:an
assist. On nights we may be down to three.
And we're still doing, you know, now it's like this roller
coaster of intelligence coming in where we've all heard it,
where publicly they' 11 say, there's a new threat that's
supposed to hit Wednesday. A threat of a truck bomb coming
to D.C., or the threat of bridges being blown up, or.
And then you have periods of like high travel, like the
Wednesday before Thanksgiving would be a very good time to
disrupt this town. We're here a week before Christmas Eve,
another good time to disrupt this town. There's lots of
discussion, loose discussion, that since in Afghanistan we
didn't really pay much attention to their religious
holiday, beware on our religious holiday which is coming.
And we're in the middle of Hanukah now, Christmas next
week, New Years; we have all of these things coming up that
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would make a very public statement to take some sort of
action, unfortunately, on those days. So who knows?
I think it's just, obviously, the events of September 11
have changed our life individually to us in certain ways,
but also as a country_ .in _ m a j o : ~ : : ways. Things are going_ to
change and should change.
Some may not be so good.
to be painful.
Some of the changes are good.
Some are painless. Some are going
Q: So were there more increased, I guess, patrol missions?
A: Yes and also there were not only patrol missions, but
responses to anything. Any verbalized concern was checked
out, from a citizen saying, "I saw a box on Wilson Bridge,"
to "I saw a kid on Douglas Bridge," now became something
that not only aircraft, but ground units would scramble to.
And we did a lot of chasing of our tail that day looking
for.
Q: But also in the weeks after?
A: Yes, even still, I think, there is still that higher. We
did a lot of patrol times. Checking out things of,
thinking of terrorists, us watching the White House, the
Monument, the Capital, the Lincoln and the Jefferson
26
Q:
Memorials, all of those high visibly, publicly known
structures. There's not much we can do by monitoring the
Washington Monument. But if you want to disrupt this city
and the Nation's Capital, well, you have bridges. Take out
a few bridges and this town is locked up. You take out a
few train_ yards maybe, or metro sites, or airports,-- which
are still. National Airport was the last one to open and
people don't understand why. Well, if you live here you
understand why, because it's right there.
And so, yes, we did a lot of patrol of all of those
intertwined operations, from public transportation to, you
know, visitation where visitation was probably down. We're
trying to protect visitors in D.C. It wasn't probably a
popular time to come to town, although if you had plans of
your trip, it's hard to break.
That's right. So is there something about the unit's
response or your response, personally, if you want to take
that approach, something about the response that you know
that you're particularly proud of?
A: Oh, I'm proud to have done the most I could using the
training I received from the government, primarily, to do
everything I could. I've been involved like I said in EMS
27
since the '70's, and I've been involved with the U.S. Park
Police for 18 years. I've been with the Park Service even
longer. I've been involved with this aviation operation
here for roughly I guess 12 years now. But when it
happened, I was here and I did everything I could.
Everything . I was trained to do I did. We did what we were
supposed to. We're supposed to respond to those things.
Some people would look at it later, was it stupid? Well,
yes, but I know that at least one of the patients I flew is
still living, so I had some impact. We helped maybe in
whatever, getting, like Eagle One did some of this fire
fighting stuff from above or coordinating police responses.
And we helped in the way we were capable of helping by
being above, by shooting back that down link, by directing
police and fire and EMS units, by landing and helping, by
providing not only personnel but taking patients. And I
felt really good that after it ended there was nothing else
I could have done.
I didn't want to have done anything when that night or that
day sort of wound down. At 4:00, 5:00 in the afternoon was
probably when it really wound down for us. I flew about
just over three hours that day, airborne, which is a pretty
28
Q:
substantial day for us. And I felt when the day ended that
there was nothing else I could have done. I did what we're
supposed to do. This is what the government puts not only
the equipment here for but us here for and I did everything
I could.
Was there anything particularly challenging? As you
pointed out, you've got quite a bit of experience with
other types of responses. Was there anything particularly
challenging about this one?
was, but .
I mean it sounds like there
A: Well, there was a concern, and we talked about Eagle One
and Two, we had this air conversation about not flying in
the smoke. We've flown in smoke before, whether it be
woodland fires, or car fires, or building fires. But in
this case we knew it was a terrorist induced fire, so we
didn't know what was in that smoke. And that may be part of
the reason National Airport's tower was so quickly
abandoned, because smoke is smoke, but smoke from a
terrorist laden aircraft is questionable. So we didn't fly
into the smoke. So you had to be very cautious of that.
Then you had fighter aircraft at 500 feet over the city
traveling at high speeds. I mean that was a little bit
29
concerning. And then you involve a large number of
aircraft, period. When we fly with the city police, or
MEDSTAR, or Fairfax Hospital, or Maryland State Police, we
fly scenes with them all of the time. Those--but we don't
particularly fly with military aircraft all of the time.
And everybody has their _ OVJ_n . miss_ion. We have our mission
and they have their mission, and we just wanted to make
sure everything went safely. We don't want to have an air
to air crash, or we didn't have on the ground. The ground.
Q: So did radio communications, I mean civilian, I'm going to
display some ignorance here about air traffic and
communications, but are both the civilian side and the
military on the same radio frequency?
A: Sometimes.
Q: I mean how does that communication go?
A: For air-to-air, for air traffic control, yes, you all have
to use the same frequency when National tower is
operational. But now you take National tower out of the
operation and they pass control to us. Now we have aircraft
coming in. There was a little bit of a lag between when
National tower shut down to when National approach, as it's
30
called, took over, and from underground. And they could
see radar scopes of when you have an aircraft coming up the
Potomac River, what is it? Who is it? And you start getting
reports like that. There was a little bit of a lag in that.
So until then it was visual.
And when this jet passed me at 500 feet, Sergeant Burchell
was in the left seat, he told me, oon't come left. There's
a jet coming right at us. And he went screaming by us,
and as typical when you, in aircraft you try to keep him in
sight, so I tried to turn left to keep him in sight and he
just, boom, was gone. I mean he was heading out somewhere
quickly. So now you get aircraft flying at a few hundred
miles an hour in this city, where aircraft are traveling
anywhere from 60-160 miles per hour. But slower traffic
and--the air traffic got so maddening that actually Eagle
One and Two sort of agreed it was time to pull back a
little. There was nothing more we could do at this point.
The patients were all gone. The scene was secure. The fire
fighting was ongoing. We had responded to every little
threat we possibly could, this bridge, that building,
anything. People on top of a roof that day weren't really
a comfortable position for people like the Secret Service
to have.
31
Then there was all of this stuff, "Well, where is
everybody?" There was this big thrust to get some people
out of town, as far as high ranking government officials.
The President was obviously not in town, luckily. So there
were all of these things going on. It was just, even on the
you had -all of people running around, such a
mish mash of people. If I landed on a MEDEVAC scene today,
there's landing zone security. I'm landing with trained
fire and EMS personnel, and police that know how to utilize
us. There's not a lot of citizen interaction with that. But
on that day there were photographers, media, concerned
people running to find out about family members, concerned
people getting out of the Pentagon. There was all of this
stuff going on. And I think it made for a--I was probably
much more intent about having Sergeant Stasuli my only
ground support because everyone else was doing things,
trying to coordinate the safety of that scene.
Q: Because as you pointed out earlier they were actually
approaching the aircraft, some of them.
A: Yes, some of them seemed to be coming to us. And I think
that, you know, some people were probably well intentioned,
maybe coming to the aircraft for medical equipment or to
help. Some were thinking it was their ticket out.
32
Q: Sure.
A: If this town is going to be devastated, getting on an
aircraft and getting out is probably a good idea to some
people. Whereas we, fools rush in, we certainly did. We
went over quickly and did what we could. And I think we
were helpful. I think we helped a variet_y of people from
police, fire, EMS, and patients, etc.
Q: So it sounds like the decision to have this few extra
bodies on the helicopter was really a smart decision then?
A: Yes, we were very fortunate. We were very fortunate that it
was 9:00 on a weekday and that we had people like myself,
who were still here and going somewhere that morning, from
midnights hanging over. We had administrative personnel
here. We had a trained group up. All of those 50 other
officers were sent there, too. They immediately went over
and secured all of the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
Shut down, some people who were out there actually went
into the Pentagon, some of our motorcycle officers. The
motorcycle officers had the bend for getting through
traffic, which it was locked down in this city right after
it happened. They were able to get through traffic and they
were actually pulling fire hose in the Pentagon with fire
fighters, unprotected police officers.
33
It was really, I think, the New York operation gets a lot
more publicity than the Pentagon operation, because it was
so much larger, such a larger extent, and such a larger
operation from the Pentagon. But it was just the same here.
You had everyone from police, fire, and EMS, to Joe Citizen
-helping out doing whatever he could. And it was pretty,
like I said, pretty traumatic, and dramatic, and
everything, you know, that it's going to have an impact
long term for anybody who was.
Q: Who isn't.
A: Whatever you were doing on September 11, that morning you
probably know.
Q: Yes, all right. I appreciate you taking the time to talk
about it.
A: Oh, my pleasure
34
INTERVIEW WITH LIEUTENANT DAVE BUCKLEY
CONDUCTED BY
DR. JANET MCDONNELL
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
MAY 7, 2002
SIDE A
Q: Maybe to start if you would just briefly explain what your
position is here with the Park Police?
A: I'm Lieutenant David Buckley and I'm the station commander
of --the- S-t-at-en -Isl-and- Unit-- of- the- New York Field_Office.
I'm also the, at the time of last September I was also the
commander of the SWAT team for the New York Field Office,
which is now the Emergency Service Unit.
Q: I wondered if there was a SWAT team up here. Actually maybe
you could speak, before we talk about September 11, could
you give me a little background on, you said it's now
called the Emergency Services Unit?
A: Yes, it's now called the Emergency Service Unit. Actually
at the moment, it for all intents and purposes doesn't
exist. Since September 11 of the six people in the unit,
five officers and the sergeant, four of the officers have
quit to become federal air marshals. So with the low
staffing right now the sergeant and the remaining officer
have gone back to patrol, and I've taken back to doing my
station commander stuff full time. When we get more people,
we'll select the people and reestablish the unit.
1
Q: What impact has that had? I mean have there been instances
since September 11 where you needed this team and it's not
there?
A: It's not that we've needed it and it hasn't been there.
It's kind of an integral part of the overall protection
- - --plan-.--AnEI- we-'-re --looking. to_. build. it_ back_ __ up _ again__t_o_f_i 11
in whatever gaps there are.
Q: Was this SWAT team in operation on September 11?
A: Yes.
'
Q: Okay. So maybe that's one area that we can talk to about
A:
it. To start if you would just begin by telling me how you
first learned about the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center, what you were doing, how you found out.
On the
Lauro,
morning of the 11th we were in the office of Captain Dvt<! j
fl bh.' fa,, o ,. o
Sergeant Al3ercafl.tno (?) and I were in the office
here. And I think someone called up. I'm not sure whether
someone came in or someone called up and told us that a
plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center.
So we got in a car and drove to the overlook by the
Verrazano Bridge, because there's a good view of the towers
from there. Major Wilkins and his wife were already up
there along with a couple of other people. I don't
2
remember who . And you could see the tower smoking and
burning. You could see the flames a little bit.
And we were there a couple of minutes, maybe five minutes
or so, when somebody said, "Look at that." And you could
out -frem beh-i-nd. Staten Island __ ano_the.L __ air_lin_er,
or not another airliner, an airliner. And it was very low,
just not very far above the horizon. And it flew from,
well, from our perspective behind the island, right up the
harbor, and looked like it was, looked almost like it would
go up the East River. And the last minute it banked to the
left and went right into the south tower. So it was kind
of like watching a bad science fiction movie, you know,
where you think, gee, I wonder if I'm really asleep and
dreaming all of this or if it's really happening. You
could see the flames. You could see the flame when the
plane went in and you could see the flames coming out the
other side of the tower from where we were. So and.
Q: So what were you thinking at that point?
A: At that point just really the only thought that went
through my head besides that it was very obviously a
terrorist attack, that it was very unreal. Then somebody,
I think Captain Lauro said, "Let's get going." And at that
3

point he, Sergeant AheLCantno and I went to get back in the
car to drive out to Ellis Island. I called the dispatcher
on my cell phone . .
Q: And that was, tell me how that decision was made, that that
--wou-ld -be-the-- f-irst- action-,--- to- dri v:e- tO- .Ellis __ Island] _What
sort of discussions surrounded that?
A: It wasn't much discussion. We kind of all came to the same
conclusion, I think, that Ellis Island, if anything was
going to happen further that the Statue of Liberty would be
the logical target. If there was going to be another plane
or it was going to be another attack of any sort, that the
Statue of Liberty would be the logical target.
Q: And at Ellis Island you would be better positioned to
respond?
A: To respond to anything, yes.
Q: Okay.
A: I got on the telephone, called the dispatcher and told the
dispatcher to start calling in the people from the SWAT
team. Captain Lauro, I remember, being on the radio and on
the telephone giving instructions to other people, Sergeant
A bb6.1 .. o r1 c
also. I guess right before we got back in the
4
car, maybe a minute or so after the plane hit the tower,
the sound of the explosion reached us. And then we drove
to Ellis Island, the three of us, passing on very obviously
everywhere we went there were cars pulled over in New
Jersey on the side of the highway and people watching what
-w a s - g o ~ n g - on-.
At the point we got to Ellis I guess they had already
decided to shut the place down and it was starting to be
set up as a triage site for Manhattan. And I just, my
people hadn't gotten there yet.
Q: When you contacted them and directed them to come in, you
had indicated that they would, to convene at Ellis Island,
is that?
A: Yes, that they should get to Ellis Island. Most of them
couldn't go right to Ellis Island because they had to pick
up equipment first, but the idea was they would eventually
get there. Most of them couldn't be contacted right away.
Most of them saw the news and came in anyway. The one
person who couldn't come in was the sergeant who was at
Disney World at the time. So he got trapped in Florida for
a few days.
5
Q: What role were you envisioning for you SWAT team at that
point?
A: Just as a protection and counter any threat. Obviously,
there's nothing to counter if it's an airplane. But
there's so many other ways to get to the island and to get
Q:
to the- peop.le on --the island from both __ islands, actually.
It's just extra armed people with better armament to
prevent anything from happening.
Did you have difficulty? I understand the landlines were
down and communications were somewhat difficult. What was
your experience?
A: Actually the best communication seemed to be the cell
phones. The telephone lines from here were down. The
telephone lines at Ellis Island worked. And the ones at
Brooklyn, I think, were kind of iffy. The cell phones
worked. We usually had to dial a few times to get through
the busy signals. The radio was not the best. I mean a lot
of people on the radio. And even, we don't have that many
people up here, but a lot of them were on the radio giving
instructions. For me it was easier to use my cell phone,
because until the SWAT team assembled I didn't have that
many people to give instructions to. I was going there.
6
Lieutenant Waite took over operations here in Staten
Island.
Q: I imagine your SWAT team is very well-trained to respond to
a variety of emergencies, but nothing like this had every
occurred-. -
A: Nothing like this ever occurred, and I don't know if
anybody could have envisioned responding to this. Two of
the guys got caught in Manhattan and ended up helping
people off of Manhattan Island, helping them get on the
boats to escape Manhattan Island. Two of them were coming
in from Staten Island. They stopped and picked up equipment
and got to Ellis fairly easily, if not quickly. So it was
actually probably several hours afterwards, after the
incident, before we could really get together.
Q: To get them all together.
A: As a cohesive unit.
Q: And then what kind of assignments were you giving them
there?
A: They were really, they really at that point, perimeter
patrol. Perimeter patrol and we had one or two of them out
on perimeter patrol and the rest centrally located to
7
respond to anything that happened. And at that point we
kept them on Ellis Island, too. Liberty Island was totally
evacuated. And since Ellis was set up as the triage site
and Ellis was the place where there were people, we kept
them on Ellis Island for that day.
Q: You know, it would be real helpful to me if you could just
sort of walk me through those hours a little bit and just
describe to me, you know, some of the things that you did
and how you got information, and how you, there were a lot
of people to take care of and I don't really, other than
your role in giving directions to your SWAT team, I don't
really know anything else about the role you performed
there that day.
A: Other than that while I was waiting, basically I did what
everybody else did. I helped carry litters off of the
boats, and helped direct people off of the boats to the
spots on the island where we had set up for people to be
screened for triage.
Q: Did it go smoothly? Was it a pretty calm scene there that
day?
A: Surprisingly, yes. We didn't get, I mean everybody was
surprised. There weren't than many injured. It seems like
8
for the most part, either I guess you were dead or you were
alive, and there weren't that many people in between. We
had maybe 3 or 4 police officers, and 2 or 3 firemen, and
perhaps 1 or 2 business people who came through that
required medical attention of one sort or another. I think
- one --o-f- the f-iremen- who came through- was pretty badly --hurt.
Most everybody else was suffering from smoke and dust
inhalation. The--but for the first couple of hours after
the towers collapsed, it was, you know, it was a fairly
steady stream of boats bringing people in. We just helped
them get off of the boats. People still covered in dust
and still really, you know, they didn't know where they
were or what they were doing.
Q: Yes, well how long did this process go on, of people
arriving there? By that evening were things winding down
and people were being sent on home or to the hospital?
A: I don't even think it was that long. I mean I was probably
there for an hour and a half to two hours. And the bulk of
the people probably arrived in that time, if not all of
them.
After that I mean as the boats started slowing down,
Captain Lauro asked me to try to figure out who of our
9
people was there, because we had a captain in Brooklyn and
a lieutenant out here who obviously, once they had, guys
were coming in from everywhere, coming in to work whether
they were contacted or not. They heard on the radio that
this happened, they drove to work. When the captain in
Brooklyn_ and _the _ li.eutenant _here_ had enough people for
these areas, they just started putting people in police
cars and sending them to Ellis Island figuring that that's
where we could really use them. So we didn't know really
who was there. So it was a matter, I went inside and
started making phone calls, you know, who did you send us?
Who's working in Brooklyn? Who's working in Staten Island?
Who did you send to us, and compiling a list so we could
keep track of it.
Q: W e l l , - ~ well we'll sort crf go beyond September 11 to the
days and weeks after. And I'm wondering how the September
11 response has affected your other missions. I mean one
big effect seems to be that you don't have your SWAT team
anymore. But how has it affected some of the other more
routine operations that, whatever those are, other law
enforcement missions and day-to-day operations?
A: Well, it's made everything harder. Just to back up a little
bit, after the initial job of getting everybody triaged and
10
moved from Ellis Island, what we did with the SWAT team is
we went on the boats with the marine unit to be actually
off of Ellis Island and off of Liberty Island, but able to
respond quickly to anything that happened in either place.
So that we were kind of like between the two.
But as for afterwards, it's just made everything more
difficult. Our people are working 12 hours a day, 5-6 days
a week, and they have been since September 11. The
security considerations for what we do here, this fort was
closed for a couple of months after September 11 only
because we have the Coast Guard here and the Defense
Contract Management Agency. And they had their security
concerns which we had to be aware of as well. So we had
this place shut down into December, I think. We opened up
shortly before the Statue of Liberty opened.
the fort to the public.
We reopened
And in the meantime we had the New York Marathon starts
here. So that was instead of the twenty some odd people
that would normally be assigned to the marathon for
security, we had 46 officers, plus the New York State
Police gave us two canine, two explosive protection dogs,
to work the marathon. They came down for three days. They
11
were a big help. They came down for three days and we
checked the entire fort, spent two days checking the entire
fort along with our canine. And then on the day of the
marathon, worked with our canine to screen all of the
trucks, and busses, and cars that came to the fort.
Q: You said this, the route comes through here for the
marathon?
A: This is where the marathon starts.
Q: I didn't realize that.
A: Fort Wadsworth. Fort Wadsworth is where everybody gathers.
And then at the start of the marathon they take the runners
out into the bridge plaza for the Verrazano Bridge, and
start the race from there. But we have, in the morning we
have 30,000 people, 30,000 plus, because we have the 30,000
runners plus the several thousand staff workers, and food
service workers, and communication workers, and everything
else that goes along with the marathon. [tape off]
Q: How about talking about the effect of the terrorist
response and all that's been required for that over the
past months on some of your other missions? What about
12
resources in terms of equipment, cars, radios, funding?
How have all of those things been affected?
A: I don't know if I should get into that. I've heard a lot
about there's all kinds of money available to purchase the
equipment that we need to operate. So far nothing that I've
~ a s k e d for has come through.- I know it's all been approved
on a local level, but I asked for a lot of equipment for
the SWAT team and it's taken long enough to get it, but now
I don't need it.
Q: You need the people.
A: Now I need people.
Q: So tell me a little bit more about the period when your
team was on the boats? Just patrolling? What were they
encountering? What were they?
-
A: For several days they were encountering a lot of
spectators. Even with the harbor closed there were a lot
of [Interruption. Tape off]
Q: Were there, have there been new security measures? I don't
know how involved this station here is with the Manhattan
sites, but, and so this question may or may not be
something that you can address, but I'm wondering if there
13
were new added security measures at the Manhattan sites
after September 11? I'd be interested in hearing someone
who could talk about those in a very general sense, but I'm
not sure if you're the right person to do that.
A: Probably any of us could talk about it. I mean in general,
yes, there's been increased security at every_ site. Here
at Staten Island we have the guards on the gates all of the
time now. And during the day the park has these visitor
use assistants on the gates whose responsibility is to
guide the public, but it's also to call us and tell us if
anybody comes through the gate that looks like they don't
belong or they don't have a reason or explanation for being
here. You know, they have obviously added screening sites
to the parks in lower Manhattan. And we have pretty,
fairly elaborate security arrangements set up for the
Statue of Liberty.
Q: I heard that ( ~ o h w (?) used, maybe that's not quite the
right term.
A: It includes a lot of things, a lot of things.
Q: Yes, which requires more officers, too, doesn't it?
A: Yes, it's a whole layered approach. You put enough layers
of security around something, it may not be so obvious all
14
of the time, but the more layers that someone has to get
through to get to their target the more difficult it is.
Q: So does the Park Police have a presence in the Manhattan
sites that it didn't have before? I mean what
responsibility? _Before September 11 what _ responsibility
had the Park Police had for providing security at the
Manhattan sites?
A: Before September 11 we had no officers in Manhattan at all.
Now we have officers in Battery Park, Federal Hall, and
patrolling that area.
Q: And do they coordinate with the law enforcement Rangers in
carrying out those missions or how does that work?
A: In Manhattan there is only one law enforcement Ranger and
I'm not sure but I believe his responsibilities have been
moved to other national parks, the Manhattan sites that are
not right down near by ground zero.
Q:
A:
So that's a fairly significant change.
large impact on your staff?
Yes, and we've actually been doing,
That's a pretty
as we get this
additional responsibility, like every place else in the
Park Service we've been losing people.
15
Q: What do you think was the greatest challenge for you and
your officers in responding to September 11?
A: Resisting the impulse to spend all of our time digging down
at where the Trade Towers used to be. There was a lot of--
that's where everybody wanted to be. Everybody wanted to be
there helping, helping rescue people, helping _dig_ people
out, helping find people. There was a decision made that we
have a responsibility to the National Park Service and the
government and the people who work and live and exist in
Q:
the areas that we control. And there is still a little
time balancing that out. And at some point, eventually, we
did go down. We were allowed to go down and help out in
Manhattan, which was probably the best thing for everybody.
But yes, that was probably the most difficult thing, was
being there but not being there.
Is there anything that you would have done differently? I
guess part of my mission is to maybe highlight any lessons
learned from this that I can serve feedback to the policy.
A: That I would have done differently? I think I would, me as
me, or is there anything the Park Service should have done
differently?
16
Q: Both, both either you based on your years of experience,
either you from your personal, professional perspective or
that the Park Police should have done differently, or the
agency. I mean you can take whatever approach.
A: I think the Park Service as a whole could have, what they
could have done differently is they should have listened to
us before September 11, because we've been trying to work
on increasing security out there for years. And probably
the people to talk to about that would be Sergeant Charlie
Gademion (?) and Lieutenant Chris Bathis.
Q: When you say out there, you mean Ellis or the Statue of
Liberty?
A: Ellis and Liberty. It's really kind of an uphill battle
sometimes, but ...
Q: Do you think that the Park Police have greater visibility
within the service now as a result of September 11?
A: I think absolutely and not just inside the service. I think
more visibility all together. I mean I just got a police
magazine today that has an article about our new chief, and
I've seen magazine articles in all kinds of magazines. One
of the superintendents here likes to fly, so he gets a
helicopter magazine. There have been two articles on the
17
Q:
Park Police since September 11. There's been quite a bit of
press, and it's generally been good.
About the way the public views Park Police.
that's changed? [tape ends]
Do you think
SIDE B
A: At least temporarily. I think the whole public image of
police in general has probably changed, where they're happy
to see a little more, I don't want to say presence, more
than presence. They're happy to see extra measures being
taken to protect them.
Q: How about the way you view your job. Has that changed at
all as a result of September 11? Not the way other people
view the job, but the way you view what you do when you
come to work everyday?
A: Yes, because I'm a little less satisfied in the job I'm
doing now, right now. I'm more interested in rebuilding
this Emergency Service Unit and being a little more
proactive. Police work in general tends to be kind of
reactive. And we'd like to be a little more involved in
preventing something from happening. So, yes, my view of
18
the job has changed because I think we need more of this
special unit coverage. I mean I'm very much in favor of the
increase in the marine unit that we've done. We've put more
boats out on the water and put boats at the Statue more
often.
Q: How many boats are there?
A: I don't know how much of that I should talk about.
Q: Okay, that's fine.
A: But to have more people out there and able to respond out
there with tools to handle a wider variety of situations is
more where I want to go.
Q: Who directs the marine units? Are those directed from here?
A:
Q:
Yes, that would be Lieutenant l.auro, Captain Lauro's
brother.
Okay. I just, I was wondering whether there were any
changes in the way those, you know, that they operate, too.
I mean I imagine everybody is looking at what they can
learn from this and how they can maybe organize
differently. Well, is there anything that I haven't asked
that you think is important to get into the record?
19
A: I guess the only thing really is that when we went out
there, several of us and myself included, I mean I was
there for, from September 11 I was at Ellis Island for
three days. And probably worked most of the--how many
hours are there in three days? 24, 48, 72, most of the 72
hours. I know I slept a little bLt and I took_ a little time
to go home for dinner one night, but the rest of the time I
was there and these other guys were there, too. They really
put themselves out to make sure that a job got done, the
job got done.
Q: So even after the people who, the evacuees were all sent
home, you know, an operations center of some sort remained
there at Ellis Island and I guess I'm wondering what went
on there for three days?
A: They had, well first of all, the people who live on Liberty
Island were allowed to go back to their houses, so there
were people on Liberty Island. And there are just, our SWAT
unit is a very small unit. And in order to provide the
protection, they're just, we had to spend long hours.
Q: And you were overseeing operations from there instead of
from here at Fort Wadsworth, I guess that's what I'm trying
to say.
20
A: Yes.
Q: Okay, okay. And the coordination that would occur between
there and between Ellis, and Major Wilkins, is that how
that would work?
A: I don't know. [tape off]
Q: That pretty much covers what I needed and, you know, I
appreciate your taking the time to do this.
A: Not at all.
21
INTERVIEW WITH
SERGEANT KENNETH S. BURCHELL
UNITED STATES PARK POLICE, AVIATION UNIT
CONDUCTED BY
DR. JANET MCDONNELL
DECEMBER 17, 2001
SIDE A
Q: Maybe just to start if you'd identify yourself on the tape
and tell me a little bit about what your role here with the
Aviation Unit is and go from there.
A: - My name is Ken Burchell, Kenneth S. Burchell. I'm a pilot
sergeant with the U.S. Park Police Special Forces Branch
assigned to the Aviation Section here in Washington, D.C.
I've been on the job about sixte.en and a half years, and I
served in patrol in District 2, the Special Weapons and
Tactics Team, and here.
Q:
A:
Well, maybe to just start with September 11 and where you
were, what you were doing, how you first learned about the
attacks on the World Trade Towers.
Well, on the morning of the 11th, we were gearing up
actually for the second round of demonstrations, World
Bank, IMF demonstrations that were scheduled for I guess a
week or so after that. And we had a detail of officers
training, doing riot training in the field next to the
hangar. I was actually assigned to that. I wasn't assigned
to the flight crew that day. And my job was I was
training officers how to extinguish themselves if they were
hit with a burning Molotov cocktail. And we were pretty
1
concerned about the threat of the rioters coming to
Washington. So there was already sort of a little element
of tension to begin with.
The way we first found out was that my wife called and told
John Marsh, one of. the rescue techs, to . turn on the
television. And she'd been watching the "Today Show" and
saw the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center. And one
of the guys ran out into the field and told us what was
happening. And a bunch of us came in and we gathered around
the television. And as we were on our way in they said a
plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. And you
know, I guess like I think probably most pilots thought, oh
well, didn't a plane fly into the Empire State Building
during World War II? And it was a bomber, and the weather
was bad, and they just flew it in, inadvertently flew it
into the building. But as I recall the crew perished, but
there wasn't a great deal of lost life.
And as soon as I came into the TV room and I saw the scene
of New York and the absolutely crystal clear blue sky, I
said, it's obviously not an accident. No pilot would ever
fly his plane deliberately into an occupied structure. He
2
would have put it in the harbor. So we were all
overwhelmed, but had our work to do.
I walked back out into the field. A couple of minutes
later another guy came running out saying, "Hey, a second
plane_ has_ crashed in." Came in, saw _that, thought my god,
this is war. We're under attack. Still in shock and
starting to think, well, I wonder if it's just going to be
New York. Is it going to be, obviously, I guess waiting
for the other shoe to fall would be a good description. So
I remember going back out to the field and I was working
with these mannequins that I was dousing with gasoline for
the guys to train how to put them out and I walked back, I
remember saying to one of the officials, the second plane
has crashed in and they didn't believe it.
"I'll believe it when I see it."
They said,
And a couple of more minutes go by and I hear this thud.
And it really wasn't an explosion. It was like a thud, like
a mortar round. Just a low--and I turned around and I
looked towards Virginia and I could see a little arc of a
fireball and then smoke gently flowing up, but like a
straight column.
3
Q: So you could actually hear it all of the way over here.
A: Oh, yes. And I don't know how much impact that had on the
sound, whether it would have been more like an explosion,
but it was definitely a low thud. And I started running
back towards the aircraft. And as I was running through
door, I'm yelling for the crew. I'm_ not sure my---exact
words, but the effect was let's go. The alarm went off,
which was the crash phone from National.
Q: Is it literally a phone that you pick up?
A: Yes, and I'll show you. We'll ring it, but a horn goes off
at the same time and it's a direct line, a hot line. And
it goes off every morning at 9:00 for a test and
periodically for in flight emergencies. So I heard the horn
go off, but at that point we were already moving towards
it. I was going to tell the crew, point to the smoke and
everybody, I was yelling at everybody, "Hey, let's go.
There' s something going on." Galey apparently took that
call. I don't know what was said on that end, but the duty
crew which was Galey, Marsh, and Dillon came running out.
I yelled something to them about I'll get the second
aircraft, because I thought about jumping on the first
aircraft. So I'd get the second aircraft. They ran out to
start.
4
I saw Keith Bohn, one of the other pilots, coming out of
the back and I said, 'Keith, let's go. We' 11 take the
second aircraft. So now we had two pilots, but no medics.
And in the training, in the field, and I think I might have
mentioned it before, but we have this program with the
mi-litary medics., the DOD medics.- It's been. in_ place __ for
over a decade. We're very proud of this. This was like a
real, we were integrally involved in forming this whole
military medical support and wrote a class around it, teach
the class around the country, something we're very proud
of. Well, two of these medics were over I the field. I told
Keith, I said, "Fire it up and I'm going to go and get the
medics," something to that effect.
grabbed the two medics and ran back.
So I ran over and
At this point, we'd been running around a bit and everybody
was pretty focused. Nobody was out of control, or
screaming, or anything, as you'd expect. This is what we
do for a living, but it still seems like, I mean there was
a tremendous amount going on all at once. We're launching
an aircraft, trying to get the second aircraft out.
Get the medics, we bring them back. I tell them to go throw
on a couple of flight suits, because they were wearing non
5
fire retardant clothes. And they ran in to do that. We
started putting in the mass casualty kit. And Tom Greer,
the maintenance supervisor, is trying to put it in. And of
anybody that you want doing anything mechanical, he's the
guy. There's no question . But unfortunately for him, we
. were all trying- to help -him which . you know-,-- I-'m -sure
prolonged the process tremendously. But Keith started the
aircraft. Tom's getting the mass casualty kit installed.
We've got the other guys changing up. All of this takes two
minutes, maybe.
We launch. We take the unit commander and the XO [executive
officer] onboard. They're not trained as crew members
particularly, but the thought at the time was who knows
what we're going into and even partially trained people
might, they're certainly police officers so.
Q: And the unit commander is Lieutenant ...
A: Cholak.
Q: And the XO is?
A: Sergeant Bernie Stasulli. So we loaded up so now we have
like the family wagon packed full of people. We launch. As
we launch, Eagle One now given authority on the scene and
6
circling. We launch. Almost as soon as we launch they tell
us there's another aircraft inbound. I don't remember how
we got that information, but we knew right off the bat that
there was another aircraft coming. The Eagle One crew ...
- Q: -An- una-uthorized aircraft-. So you have that- concern.
A: Right. Immediately. And we didn't really need to be told
that after watching the World Trade, but nonetheless
somebody confirmed there was something actually coming.
Eagle One directed us to land to do the MEDEVACS. So we
pretty much launched. As we get closer I mean the-smoke is
just roaring out of there. And at some point.
Q: Did that make flying difficult, the smoke?
A: We weren't actually in the fire. It was such a clear day it
was very easy to keep our distance from it. But if we were
approaching it from the south, we would clearly have had to
avoid it. As we got closer, we were glancing around to see
what else was burning, and frankly kind of anticipating
more stuff going on. As we got close, we pretty much
launched, went straight over and landed immediately without
a whole lot of fanfare. We landed on the west side of the
highway there. Got out, kind of developed a rough plan.
7
You know, the plus from doing this routinely is the fact
we're going on a MEDEVAC wasn't a big drama to us.
Q: And I think you mentioned to me last week that you had
exercised for mass casualty response.
A: we- exeJ;"cise, we respond on I mean do- the---real
deal. You know, when the school bus turns over in PG
County, we're one of the helicopters that goes. So we are
not only trained to do it, but we actually do it. And
there's a huge gap in between people who are trained to do
something and people who actually do it. So there wasn't a
sense of great crises, just that the ballgame was on and
everybody needed to be at the top of their form.
Q: So tell me about some of that initial planning when you
landed there. How the discussion about what needed to be
done?
A: Well, we had, clearly we wanted to keep Keith with the
aircraft and running, because we wanted to be able to get
out of there. And again, we're still thinking you know,
anybody we can get away from here before that second
airplane crashes stands a chance of living. So like half of
this is rescue. It isn't just a MEDEVAC. We're not just
picking up wounded and taking them to the hospital. We need
8
to rescue him from here. We need to get him away from
ground zero.
So we said that, Keith said he wanted to keep Bernie,
Sergeant Stasulli, to maintain the perimeter around the
aircraft _____ Lieutenant_ Cho.lack is .an_ EMT, I am an EM.T __ and
the two medics would then go up to see, basically find out
what's going on. We could be--and I think at this point we
were thinking there'd be 800-900 injured. We' 11 just be
ferrying people all day. So let's go and establish a
procedure. In my mind I'm thinking what we' 11 do is we' 11
probably set up a permanent LZ. We'll leave two of these
guys here. All they' 11 do is coordinate the landing zone
and we'll just start ferrying people back and forth to the
hospitals. This will be an all afternoon deal. We' 11 be
going to Baltimore. We' 11 be going to Richmond with burns
and such, but we'll establish. We're the first aircraft in.
We're going to set up how this is going to work.
Q: The process.
A: We go, we cross the roadway. People were very, I'm still--I
always say how impressed I was with the people from the
Pentagon. They were not panicked. They were alert to what
was going on, but they were in the game. They were moving
9
with a sense of purpose. They had stuff to do. Many of
them didn't, they wanted to help. They weren't sure what to
do, but they knew not to get in the way. They just stood
there ready to go .
. Q.: So. as-.L understood .there was._so.r.t _of _mov:ement. away. fr_om_the
building, people who were evacuating, and also some
movement towards the building, people who wanted to assist.
Is that?
A: Right, but I think they were at different times. I think at
first people were evacuating the building. When we first
got there, there were actually people, one person who came
out on fire. I mean too far away from us to help, but at a
distance, when we were landing somebody was coming out on
fire. So at that point, I think people were mostly getting
away from the building. But in the amount of time we were
there, they were also reforming up and going in to try to
help the others.
We crossed the roadway and walked into the debris field and
actually stepped over small pieces of metal that were
probably from the aircraft. There was a light pole that was
knocked down that later I read it landed on a cab. The
plane hit it, knocked it down, and it crashed into a cab.
lO
The cabbie lived and they interviewed him. We stepped over
that, walked up to the triage officer, which is the fire
department officer who's responsible for sorting the
wounded. And he recognized me and called me by my first
name and I said, "How many patients do you have to fly," in
o-ther -words--to_ be_ MEDEVACKED. And he _ said_ eleven_. __ I _was
very surprised, but I really thought when he said eleven
that was the first wave.
Q: It surprised you because you expected more.
A: Right. I anticipated him either saying hundreds. But I
still took his _eleven even though he was obviously very,
appeared very squared away. But I still took the eleven to
mean on the first load. I called on the portable up to
Eagle One and said, "John, we have, the fire department is
reporting eleven patients to go. You better get hold of
Maryland State for more aircraft." And he said, "Okay." I
said, "We' 11 set up to take the first group." Now remember
we had the ability to carry four patients because we bolted
in the thing that Tom bolted in before we left.
Then at some point in this we split up. One of the military
medics was actually a physician's assistant. He and
11
Lieutenant Cholak went to the triage area to start sorting
things out.
Q: To help out.
A: I went back to get, to move the aircraft, to get Keith to
move the aircraft_ up closer . to us, because. we're.. in_ that
clover leaf still which was fairly far away. Called Keith
on the radio and asked him to move it up onto the highway.
And I'm not sure what went on at the triage station, but we
ended up leaving--that physicians assistant, I think,
became the triage officer, at least the medical triage
officer at the scene. And we have a picture I guess of us
directing the aircraft back in. Keith moved it up,
positioned it as close as we could get. There actually was
a discussion with the fire martial who was concerned about
us destroying the crime scene by moving the aircraft. And
through quick discussion he realized obviously there was
still living that needed to be worried about ahead of the
crime scene. But at a time like that it's understandable
for people to be focused on what they're part of the
mission was.
So we repositioned the aircraft to bring out the first
injured person to the aircraft. We attempted to load, took
12
the loader on the aircraft. And the whole thing with
aircraft is balance of weight. Weight is very critical,
weight in terms of the amount of strength the aircraft has
to take off, balance. If you get too much weight on one
side, it's a very dangerous situation. And we were
concerned---about-,.---we- started---to- load--- her on one . side.... We
were concerned about the weight, so we ended up moving her
to the other side to load her up, horribly burned.
Horribly, horribly burned. She was on her stomach because
her back was so badly burned she couldn't tolerate being on
her back. And she was conscious and speaking. And I tried
to give her a rough idea what was going on, very quickly.
But it really was a case of needing to get her out of there
as much as getting her to a hospital. We needed to get her
away from that scene. We got her loaded up. There was an
Arlington County paramedic that was helping on the inside
to treat her.
They brought the second patient out. We loaded him up. We
were ready to take more, but they didn't have any patients
ready for us. [tape off]
13
SIDE B
Q: When they're not ready, it just means that they're not
physically set up?
A: Not physically or they hadn't triaged the patient yet.
They w_eren'_t_ s_ure __ what the__ injuries_ were, __ but _the- __ w_er_en' t
ready to go then. And we really felt we needed to get
going. The second patient was a guy who was horribly
burned, .including his eye. Tremendously burned. His eye was
burned in the open position.
had the USUHS medic on board.
Very difficult patient. We
Q: You told me what the acronym stands for.
A: Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He
was a Department of Defense civilian medic. And we loaded
up both of those patients, took off for the shock trauma
unit, and we were probably there within two minutes. It's a
two or three minute flight. Landed, off loaded the
patients. Went in and the shock trauma unit was absolutely
full of people, absolutely full. They'd apparently gotten
the word that this was going on and they brought in all of
their extra staff from the floors. And there were a lot of
people in a little space. So we brought the patients in,
14
quickly gave the report on what the medical conditions
were.
I turned around and I said, "Who's in charge?" And there
was, of course, no answer. And being a veteran of similar
events.- L said,_ heing_ a . veteran. of similar .. deals,_. _I said,
"Well, who wants to say they're in charge? That's close
enough." And so a young woman stepped to the plate and
said, "Well, I am." And I said, "Well, how many patients
can you take?" And she said, "Well, we can take as many as
you send us," which, of course, is a check no one can
possibly cash. But I did take that to mean that they could
handle at least the first twenty.
So we ran out, got back in the aircraft, started to respond
back. And I broadcast to Eagle One that information they
could take, and I quoted her precisely, because usually
these things in the after action report, you need to be
able to defend why you said it.
Q: That's right.
A: And if they say-- [tape off] Launched again. I told the
other aircraft what the hospital had told us. Responding
back and we're about in the area of Memorial Bridge and
15
they said that there's another unidentified aircraft
inbound and they gave an actual time, ten minutes or
whatever. And they had actually given it twice. Obviously,
with the time decreasing with each call. And somebody made
the decision, I guess the command and control helicopter
_that,_try_ to spread_ ou_t_ the_aircraft. Get_ them away __ from
the Pentagon, the logic being if the second aircraft was
headed for the Pentagon, you didn't want to wipe out all of
the aircraft. We all understood the flaw in that being what
if the second target isn't the Pentagon, but it's wherever
we put the aircraft? So everybody picked a different spot
to try to go to. And we landed on the ...
Q: How many roughly, do you have a sense of how many other
aircraft there were on site by that time?
A: I think by this point there were probably one, two, three,
five or six aircraft.
Q: Did that include some military aircraft now or is this
still too soon?
A: At this point, yes. I don't think we had a military
response at that point. I think we had Fairfax. We had
Medstar, the private ambulance helicopter, Fairfax
Hospital's helicopter, Fairfax County Police helicopter,
16
and the D.C. Police helicopter. So we landed at the western
end of Memorial Bridge in the circle there, and we kind of
hovered over next to the trees a bit so that we could
hopefully use that for little bit of protection. And we
were there waiting it out. I told the dispatcher we were
going _to __ land_ ___ The_ aircraft were __ spreading out __ and_ w_e_ w_ere
going to land at the western end. And he called us back and
said they had another MEDEVAC for us back at the Pentagon
so we had to take off and go back to the Pentagon.
Landed at the Pentagon, got out, went, we landed in the
clover leaf again. And there's an overpass there. And what
they'd done is, they'd taken all of the wounded and people,
as many people as they could find, and gone underneath that
overpass to use it as a bunker. And we went in there and
apparently our patient either hadn't lived or was decided
that there was no need to fly him so they canceled us and
we took off again. And at this point, they told us there
were no more patients to be flown. So Medstar flew one
patient, so there was a total of three patients that were
air evacked from the scene.
As we were taking off they said they wanted us to return to
pick up a Secret Service agent to patrol the White House,
17
the air space around the White House. We were at about 390
feet climbing out of the Pentagon, and in the opposite
direction there's an, I guess an F-16 coming in the
opposite direction. It was so close I could see the brand
of sun glasses he was wearing. And at 390 feet it's not
_ _ __ver-y high .... _Anci he_ was __ coming_ dcwn___to_take _a_ look __ aL_us_ to
make sure what team we were on and fortunately I guess he
recognized the shoulder patches. And Keith said, I said to
Keith, he came passed us so quickly that I don't think
Keith even saw him. I said, "Keith, don't come left." And
he said, "Oh, why not?" He said, "Okay, roger, why?" And
I was like, "I'll tell you later."
Q: By now he was gone.
A: He was history by then.
Q: So was there more than one? Did you encounter more than
one?
A: We saw more than one fighter, but not that close. He was
definitely coming down to decide whether we were a threat
or not. Then we came back. And I think, really, when we
passed that fighter, and I remember looking over my left
shoulder and I could see the White House, the Pentagon
blazing away, and remember 390 feet is low when you're
18
talking about aircraft, and a jet fighter in that one
picture. And I remember thinking at that moment was like
the first time it really occurred to me like, wow, this is
it. This is the big one.
~ Q: _ -Under-attack.
A: We're under attack. And I remember just thinking,
literally, this is the big one.
Q: So you did like this security patrol around the White
House?
A: White House and the Vice President's residence. We also
ended up flying out to Dulles to take an FBI team out. Very
eerie to land at Dulles, a huge, huge airport, and not
anything was happening. Nothing was stirring. And
everybody was on edge. And I remember we got out of the
aircraft and I was-- I got out of the aircraft. I opened the
door for the two passengers, the FBI people, and there was
a guy walking on the flight line towards us. And it was a
ghost town. There wasn't anybody. And when this guy walked
out--and he had credentials hanging around his neck. I'm
sure he was a representative of something, but at that
point you just didn't know who was who. And I remembered
drawing my weapon and motioning towards him to stop and
19
stay back. And he complied and didn't seem all of that
ruffled for having just been challenged by somebody with a
gun. But everybody sort of knew what was going on.
I remember when we were back at the Pentagon in terms of
.. ___ the __ peop.l e s!. r_e sp_ons_e s , __ L_think_ I _ might _ha_v.e __tol.d . y:ou __ tha t
at one point when we first moved the aircraft up, all of
these majors, colonels, and lieutenant colonels started
spreading out around the aircraft and Lieutenant Cholak
confronted them. And we're used to, you know, in a crowd
situation quite often crowds are not compliant either for a
whole multitude of reasons. But generally, a police officer
to move a crowd back it takes a great deal of effort, and
some loud noises, and some threatening gestures usually to
get compliance. But at the Pentagon, if there was a crowd
of people and you said everybody step back, everybody did.
It was almost unnatural.
Q: Why did they surround the aircraft?
A: They surrounded the aircraft and when Lieutenant confronted
them, "What are you doing? Get away." They said, "We're
securing the landing zone for you." And they did a great
job. But they were all colonels, and majors, and people
that would command dozens and dozens of aircraft, but they
20
had to help. They knew they had to help, they wanted to
help, and this was the time. And really, you know, you saw
that over and over. You saw, I remember seeing what
appeared to be a clerk. I know that's probably not the
politically correct description, but what I would describe
as .a_ standard .. government:coissue ... clerk..
Q: Support staff.
A: Grabbing a backboard and heading in street clothes back
towards the burning building and that impressed me
tremendously. Like the building is on fire. Obviously
there's another plane coming. If you want to protect
yourself, run away. Now is the time to run away. And this
guy just got his backboard and was headed back. He was
going to go rescue somebody. And frankly, I was pretty
impressed. I thought it was wonderful.
calmness.
But really, their
Q: So they were more organized than some of the other
responses you participated in?
A: Oh, absolutely. And it wasn't, there was still the chaos
you have in any emergency. But policemen, emergency
services people are used to working in chaos. Our job is
you respond to chaos and we're supposed to start making
21
order out of it. And that's why we yell, and scream, and
get in line.
Q: I think you mentioned to me last week that these are people
to some extent, not the employees of the Pentagon, but like
A:
Arlington_ Eir_e __ D_ep_ar_tmenL people ___ that ____ y_o_u_ha_d __ Dn_going
relationships with.
Right. These are people we work with on a routine daily
basis. The difference was the size of the event that was
going on, and to some extent the fact that all of us could
be in the next explosion.
Q: Sure.
A: And everybody faces various levels of danger in their work,
but this was we're all in this. We're all going to get
wiped out when the next plane comes in. But really.
Q: So at what point did you start to have the sense that the
site was "safe"? I mean did you get, after the plane hit
in Pennsylvania did you get word and then sort of feel
like, okay, at least we don't have to worry about another
attack?
A: No, I think for the next week, certainly for the rest of
that day we anticipated more aircraft, more attacks,
22
whether it was a ground attack. In my mind, the entire time
we were there I was anticipating other aircraft coming in.
I certainly felt better when that F-16 passed me, because I
knew at least we'd be shooting back this time.
Sure _____ - ~
A: But the whole time we were there and the rest of that day I
was anticipating getting hit again. And really for the two
weeks following that it certainly was a high level of
suspicion, but that day for sure.
Q: Were you in communication with the Park Police command post
during all of this?
A: And we were going, everything we do goes through the Park
Police dispatcher. We tell them when we're responding. We
tell them when we're on the scene. We tell them when we're
transporting.
Q: Is that dispatcher next door here?
A: Well, at Haines Point.
Q: Oh, okay.
A: And actually, that would be a great interview, too, because
not only do they handle all of this, but their window looks
23
out across the river. And the chaos they were handling. I
remember when I first heard the explosion I remember
hearing a footman calling into his radio that it looked
like it was near NCR, the NCR building. And probably from
the angle, I don't know where his foot beat was, but from
__ _the __ c:o!lling
up from. So those dispatchers were getting all of this
input, all of these people calling in, in addition to us
because we're all on the same frequency.
Q: So that's where you were getting your directions from? It
sounds like some of that was decisions you were making on
the scene on your own, but the decision say to go back
after evacuating those two patients, to go back to the
Pentagon, was that coming to you through that command post?
A: No, those were self-initiated. But we would keep the
communication center and the command post apprised of what
we were doing.
Q: And is that how any coordination with NPS Bangers would be
done, too, law enforcement rangers would be done?
A: I don't know what they do. But our, you know in a, if we
respond out to the parks, we' 11 dial up the Park Rangers'
frequency and talk to them directly.
24
out across the river. And the chaos they were handling. I
remember when I first heard the explosion I remember
hearing a footman calling into his radio that it looked
like it was near NCR, the NCR building. And probably from
the angle, I don't know where his foot beat was, but from
---h-is- ang-le,. smoke __ w_as_c_oming
up from. So those dispatchers were getting all of this
input, all of these people calling in, in addition to us
because we're all on the same frequency.
Q: So that's where you were getting your directions from? It
sounds like some of that was decisions you were making on
the scene on your own, but the decision say to go back
after evacuating those two patients, to go back to the
Pentagon, was that coming to you through that command post?
A: No, those were self-initiated. But we would keep the
communication center and the command post apprised of what
we were doing.
Q: And is that how any coordination with NPS Rangers would be
done, too, law enforcement rangers would be done?
A: I don't know what they do. But our, you know in a, if we
respond out to the parks, we'll dial up the Park Rangers'
frequency and talk to them directly.
24
Q: Okay. But since this was in the city.
A: Pretty much, their role would be almost non emergent sort
of stuff, so they would be, I don't know how they. We can
only talk to three, on three frequencies, police
frequencies. In this case we were talking to the fire
_a_n the s _and __ P_ar k
Police. So unless the Rangers somehow got on our frequency,
I don't know. [tape off]
Q: I'd like to hear you talk for just a few minutes about what
you're proudest of with the way the Aviation Unit
responded. What went really well, whether it's the training
paid off, or however you want to approach the question?
A: I think the thing that I'm proudest of. You know, none of
us are pretending that what we did was like any great earth
shattering thing. We just did our part. But what we're
proud of is that we did our part the best that we could.
That the thing I've said for years is the United States has
tremendous assets. We've tremendous aircraft resources,
materiel, equipment. The Air Force has aircraft that are
staggering, staggering.
But when you have an emergency in downtown Washington,
D.C., you don't get Task Force 160. You don't get Air Force
25
Special Operations. You get two Park Policemen in a blue
and white helicopter. And we were there in three minutes
and started doing what had to be done. We had that golden
horseshoe and luck should, I'll take luck every time that
we happen to have, that Keith and I were here, just
__ h.aPJ;>.!O_ned __ :t.P __ b_e __ phys i_cally:_ her_e _ t_o __ g_e_t_ the ___ s_e c_ond._air.= aft
out. That somebody had the foresight; a whole series of
people had the foresight, to sign off on this program with
military medics. A lot of administrators and our officials
took chances and signed off on this program and because of
it we had the extra medics to take.
We responded, we did the whole range of missions. We did
everything that a helicopter can do for you. We got there.
Our guys did command and control. Took over the air space,
Ronny took over the air space. You know, it's the Park
Police. It isn't the 5th Air Force rolling in. In this case
you've got a handful of Park Police. We got there. We did
the MEDEVAC. We picked up the fire chief for command and
control. We, throughout that whole process we down linked,
we gave information. We gave the most accurate information
to the people that needed to make those decisions. Every
crew performed, and it doesn't even occur to us that
rational people might not have into it. No one has ever
26
even mentioned the possibility that we might like wait. And
for all of the Park Police, you know, a very proud street
sergeant said, "While everybody was trying to get out of
the city none of my men left their beat."
something to be proud of.
And that is
We did everything we possibly could do. We had the right
equipment. We had the right training. We had the right
people. They did the right thing. And everybody was rowing
in the same direction, with the exception and when poor Tom
was trying to put in the mass casualty kit and we were
defeating him. But other than that, everybody was doing the
right thing. [tape off]
Q: Well, and we actually got to the end of the tape and I
appreciate you taking the time to do this.
A: Thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
27
INTERVIEW WITH
JOHN DILLON
U.S. PARKPOLICEAVIATIONUNIT
CONDUCTED BY
JANET A MCDONNELL, PH.D.
DECEMBER 10, 2001
A: Our radio system, and the pilot, and the other rescue tech
that were on the helicopter as well, we were conversing
between each other. We were also talking on the radio. You
kind of have the hum of the helicopter overhead of you.
Initially, when we responded, there was a tremendous amount
of fire and smoke from all of the jet fuel that had been
spilled. The first couple of passes overhead, I was doing
the down linking and kind of taking my eyes off of the
screen and looking down to see if I was really seeing what
I was seeing, because I was looking at a video monitor.
Q: Through the monitor, right.
A: And so it's almost surreal that you're like videotaping
something like that because that would be something that
you would really see in a movie or something like that. It
wasn't something that I'd expect to see flying over in real
life. And I'd look out on the side of the helicopter, and
the first thing I noticed was how small the hole was inside
the building. The base of the building had a fairly small
hole and all of us in the crew, all of us were kind of
talking amongst each other, like there's no way this is an
aircraft. This must be like a truck bomb because the hole
just wasn't--there was no visible damage to an aircraft.
There was no real aircraft parts readily visible. Just
1
looking down, there were no scrape marks going into the
building.
Then, I think on the third pass, we came overhead of the
roof and you could see the penetration into the building
from one section into another and out of that section into
another. And that's when you got the full scope of how
much the aircraft had kind of penetrated into the building.
And there was debris fields in between both or all of those
corridors, the sections of building.
That coupled with the amount of fire from the jet fuel, and
then we started to put together that, wow, this was an
aircraft that crashed. There were also some light posts
that were knocked down on the road that runs along where
the heliport is on that side of the Pentagon. And you
could see how the aircraft had come down in low and knocked
those down.
The other thing that sticks out in my mind there's a phone
truck that sits right next to that heliport tower. And
it's there 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, and it was on
fire from all of the jet fuel spilled on it. The back of
it was just engulfed in flames and I just thought that was
2
like one of those things that you pick out that sticks in
your mind. Like, oh, man, that's the silliest thing. The
phone truck's on fire.
And then there are other things that you saw, people
running out of the building on fire. It didn't really seem
chaotic on the scene until we landed, when we landed to go
to triage to look for patients. There were just a lot of
people, I don't want to say sitting, running around. They
were kind of just standing around. I think it was more in
shock than anything else. And then you take into account
that it is the Pentagon, so most of the people are military
or they're influenced by the military because they work
with them as civilians. So in that sense, there was some
sort of order to the chaos. And many, many people were
volunteering to help. It was just--they couldn't have
picked a worse target to hit, as far as trying to cause
mayhem, because the military kind of has a pretty good head
about them and in a situation like that everybody tries to
lend a hand to help out. So you know, just it's a day that
you'll never forget, but it's not something that I like to
remember.
3
Q: So take me on through to sort of the rest of the shift that
day, and then some of the missions you were on in the
couple of weeks that followed?
A: We, just after we couldn't find any patients to MEDEVAC, we
ended up taking the chief of Arlington County Fire
Department up with us to get an overview of the scene. And
then we actually stayed back at the scene and launched to
continue down linking more video for the FBI. The military
aircraft started coming in with their supplies and their
medical teams to evacuate, I'm sure, some of the higher
ups. And we decided as a crew that there were so many
aircraft flying in, the command and control of the air
space is generally, it's not who it generally is, the
tower, so we're going to go back and try to avoid being
more traffic in the area.
By the time we got back, our other crew who had been here
was already engaged in making arrangements to start doing
patrols for the Secret Service, flying FBI agents out to
Dulles Airport because one of the highjacked planes had
come from there. At that point, we started to develop the
plan for patrolling the area, going up every hour on the
hour with one crew. We called in another crew to come in
early. And then we started making arrangements schedule
4
wise to run two crews for however long they needed us. And
then we got a call from D.C. Fire and they had a shooting
victim from Southeast, and that's a typical, that's a
pretty typical call that we get here. They actually drove
down to, it was right across 295 from the hangar, so they
just drove the ambulance over here. We took the patient
from our pad over to MEDSTAR.
And MEDSTAR was on a mass casualty alert. I think they only
got five burn patients in total from the scene. This was an
hour or two, well, longer than that, probably 4-5 hours
maybe after the accident, after the explosion. And I just
remember taking the patient in. He had three gunshot wounds
to his legs and groin area. Going through the doors, I
usually encounter 5-6 people on a trauma team. Here's like
60 doctors and nurses looking at you, like what have you
got?
Q: That's right. Expecting those numbers of burn victims,
right.
A: Not that it's any less important of a patient or
traumatizing for the victim of gunshots, but I think they
were expecting something else.
5
And then following that, the next couple of days we spent
patrolling the river for, checking on the bridges in the
area. There were several different look outs for vehicles
of different types that we were looking for. We were
taking up the Secret Service every hour to patrol around
the White House and other restricted zones in the area. And
we also spent some time. In addition to the microwave
downlink with that camera, that camera can be switched to a
forward looking infrared device which is called a flare.
It's an infrared heat, it works on heat. What we did is we
would fly over the Pentagon with one of the battalion
chiefs at the scene and we would look through the roof
structure, not look through it, but look at the roof to see
where hot spots were. So when you looked along the roof,
you'd see that white spot, or grayish or white spot, you'd
be able to tell well, that's where the heat source is
coming from or that's where the fire basically is inside
the roof.
Q: Is that a unique use of that technology?
A: Well, no, I think that's been used before, I'm pretty sure.
I hadn't used it for that before and I don't know if
anybody from Arlington had, but it was another tool that we
had that we were able to help out with. And I think that's
6
generally, everybody here at the U.S. Park Police Aviation
Section is here to help our own people, but we do a lot of
mutual aid.
Q: Did your particular helicopter perform any evacuation
missions of officials,
patients?
government officials, not with
A: No, we were kind of tied up with the situation at the
Pentagon and so we never, we had never received word. I
don't think we ever received word that we were wanted for
any type of evacuations. I think we probably could have
taken care of that since we did have all three aircraft in
service. In a real situation or a situation like that where
we weren't needed for any more MEDEVACS, the medical aspect
of it kind of ended, so we were kind of sitting around and
we probably could have gone over, but nobody really gave us
the word that we were needed.
Q: How long was it before what you would consider normal
operations resumed where you're sort of schedule and
response rate or whatever got back to something more
typical?
A: I'd say two and a half weeks after. All of the Secret
Service missions didn't end completely, because we still
7
have the Presidential protection. You know, when the 24/7
kind of patrols ended, we were getting back to normal, but
we're still, what is it, three months later, four months,
three months,
differently.
and we're still kind of doing things
Q: You had mentioned earlier that you're staffed differently.
A: We're staffed differently. We're still working 12-hour
shifts. We have a group that's on call now so they can ...
Q: That's the third group?
A: Right. And it's generally a pilot and a rescue technician
that have emergency vehicles that they take home and drive
in. And what they do basically is when they drive them
home, they generally will be the first people to call. So
they can get here quickly.
Q: Did you have any contact with the Park Service's Incident
Command Team? Are you connected to that system at all?
A: No.
Q: Just curious. Well, just a couple of more questions. Did
you find anything that was, I' 11 rephrase that. What was
8
particularly challenging about this response? Maybe it was
the personal aspect that you mentioned?
A: I think it was more personal than anything else. I hate to
be, I don't want to say nonchalant or egotistical about it.
We deal with trauma everyday. Like I said before, we see
people in varying states of distress. I have people die on
me, not. frequently I'd like to say, but it does happen.
They call for a helicopter when things are really bad. And
so I'm used to seeing people in pretty bad shape. I'm not
used to seeing it on the magnitude that I saw it.
Everybody here has some critical distress. [interruption)
Q: Actually, sort of the last thing I wanted to ask is if,
it's sort of the opposite of the last question. What worked
particularly well? I mean what went most smoothly through
this process? Was it communications or whatever ... ?
A: In any sort of situation like that, the radio is going to
be chaotic. So that wasn't unexpected to have several
different people calling in for things. I good friend of
mine is 102. Car 102 is the sergeant for the central
district, which is the downtown area. And that's where all
of our monuments and memorials are so, of course, when
something like this happens, our initial response is kind
9
of like circle the wagons. Let's make sure that we have
these things as well protected as we can. And I just
remember being in the helicopter at some point, I don't
know when, but they were calling for different people to
come down and do different things and they were his units.
And he's in charge of the patrol guys and the foot
officers. And they asked him for a couple of people to go
to a certain location, and I can just remember hearing in
his voice, and he's a good friend of mine so you kind of
pick that up when you know the guy, his frustration of
like, ~ I don't have anybody else to give you." And, "I'm
doing the best I can here." So you realize in a situation
like that how, like I said, chaotic and how tough times are
on the radio. For us, the training.
Q: Wasn't it hard to get accurate information, too? I mean it
certainly was from the media, you know, in that first half
hour, first hours?
A: Yes, I guess, in that sense a little bit, but you realize
what you're dealing with, the information. I guess the
biggest thing everybody wanted to know is where are these--
they reported there were seven planes out there that are
unaccounted for. And when we were at the Pentagon they had
a call for one that was inbound to Washington that was 18
10
minutes away. And you didn't really wonder where the
information was coming from, but then after 18 minutes and
nothing really happened, you were kind of like, well,
whatever happened. And subsequently, we think that it was
the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.
Q: And you mentioned that you took your helicopter.
A: We got away from the Pentagon, right. We wanted to get out.
And we kind of dispersed helicopters every kind of which
way to make sure that somebody would be around, if one of
us had to go down. But, you know, things worked well. My
training worked well. You revert to your training. You
revert to--our communications with other agencies. And
that's generally the biggest complaint you will hear about
a mass casualty incident is that we couldn't communicate
with this department or that department. And our
communications was pretty good with Arlington County and
the fire department, and the police department, and calling
in other agencies, but we're used to doing it .. We fly out
to Fairfax County or up to Montgomery County. We're used to
dialing in to Fairfax County and talking to them or
Montgomery County and talking to them, so we have an
advantage over that, over a lot of agencies that don't deal
with other agencies a lot, and the fact that we do.
II
And we have a really good working relationship with the
local agencies. When I call up on the radio and say it's
Eagle One, I don't have to say this is U.S. Park Police
Eagle One. They know who Eagle One is or Eagle Two. They're
familiar with that terminology. And that's a real advantage
that we had and it's real nice to have that. So although
some information you got you were kind of wondering where
it came from or how accurate it was, for the most part our
communication was pretty good. As a whole I think things
went really well.
Q: Did you think, and this will wrap it up for us. Anything in
the area of lessons learned that you want to put in the
record here? It sounds like it all worked smoothly.
A: It's, in the sense we were lucky we had all of those crew
members. You'd love to be able to support a staff of that
many people all of the time, but you know it's not going to
happen. Maybe we'll get a three man crew out of this. That
would be pretty nice. You know, just a terrible day. I
think it's an amazing time in history that we're living
through.
Q: It's true. I appreciate you taking the time to do this.
A: It's not a problem. I'm more than happy to take care of it.
12
END OF INTERVIEW
13
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11TH ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with
RICHARD T. GALE
Chief, Fire Aviation Response Emergency Team
Conducted by
Janet A. McDonnell, Ph.D.
December 12, 2001
Main Interior Building, Washington, D.C.
TAPE ONE SIDE A
Q: It's December 12. I'm Janet McDonnell and I'm here with Rick Gale to talk about the
Park Service response to the September 11th terrorist attacks. And maybe we can start,
Rick, if you would just identify yourself and explain just a little bit about your position,
your role, with the Park Service.
A: Okay. Rick Gale and I'm the Chief of Fire Aviation Emergency Response for the
National Park Service. I'm a Washington office employee, but I'm on duty station in
Boise, Idaho, at the National Interagency Fire Center.
Q: Okay. How did you first learn about the attacks on September 11?
A: Actually, I had a meeting with somebody from Human Resources, Dave Davies
(phonetic), I think his name is, in Dick Ring's office.
Q: So you were here in Washington?
A: I was here in Washington, yes. And Dick [Ring] got a call from someone, I think his
wife, but I'm not sure of that, and so we flipped on the TV and there we were. We saw
the second, the live pictures of the second aircraft hitting.
Q: Would you take me through those first hours? I mean what were your first actions?
A: Well, really not any. We sort of finished the meeting and then not knowing what else was
happening, I came back up here to Ranger Activities. And then as the reports began to
1
come m it, it appeared that the Park Service might have some involvement here,
potentially, and certainly, maybe some putential involvement on sires- in New York City.
I decided, you know, I'll go down to the front hall and see what's going on, what we're
doing. So I walked into ...
Q: The front office being the director's suite, okay.
A: The director's corridor. So I walked into the deputy director's office, who was on
vacation. John Reynolds, the regional director from Pacific West was in, I guess acting
for him. And the director was there, Fran Main ella, a couple of her special assistants, Sue
Masica, Kate Stevenson. Sue is the associate for admin. Kate is the associate for cultural
resources and partnership. I don't remember who else was in there. And they were just
talking about what needed to be done.
About that time, I think, there were some instructions about ready to come out of the
Secretary's office. I don't remember if they were out or not. But Reynolds introduced
me. I had met Fran, briefly, the week before. And Reynolds introduced me basically
saying, and you need to check his exact words with him, but basically he told Fran,
"Here's this guy that does this stuff for a living. You need to pay attention to him." And
so Fran did. And we, I sort of just, she said, "Come on, we've got to go upstairs to the
political office on the 6th floor." And I don't remember all of the sequence of what we
did there now, but again, it was time to get organized. The Secretary wanted all of her
leadership of the department, as well as the bureau leadership, to go out to what is called
Site B, which is the USGS [U.S. Geological Survey] office in Reston [Virginia].
2
And so Fran and I actually got in a car with one of the departmental guys. I can't
--remember-his name, David something, but I think he's the guy that runs tlie depaffuient' s
congressional affairs. In the basement in the garage under the main interior, we started
out on 18th Street here, and of course, it was total gridlock. It took about 20 minutes just
to clear out to get to the street from the garage.
Q: Can I interrupt just for clarification? Was going to Reston, was the idea that that would
be sort of a safer place?
A: Yes, and get everybody organized. That was the Secretary's direction. At that point, I told
Fran because communications were down, all of the cell links were just overloaded, I
said, "Fran, you're going to be incommunicado from everybody all of the time if you do
this for several hours. My recommendation is we go back in here, go back to the 6th
floor and do what we need to do." But I said, "I think you're going to spend all of your
time sitting and you won't have any knowledge of what's going on nor will you be able
to do much."
She agreed so we just got out of the car, walked back up there, went to the, I guess we
went right to the 6th floor at that time, and the deputy secretary, Steve Griles, was here.
And shortly after that, the department opened up an office, I don't even remember on
what floor, but it was part of the National Business Center, a big conference room, and
that's basically where we worked out of the rest of the day.
Q: Did that become the DOI communications center?
3
A: Yes, I think so. Well, for the first couple of days it was, yes, it was a little bit of
--everything.- Andthenwebrought inGary VanHorn;wh-o'stneU.s-.- ParlfPoliceMajor,
he's the National Law Enforcement Specialist stationed here. He came, was here. I don't
remember where he'd been earlier that day. But any rate, at some point in time, then the
decision was made by the Secretary to go to what now is called Site C, which is in
Shepherdstown, part of the Continuity of Operations backup plan. Which means that the
director goes there and which means then that typically, [when] the director, the
Secretary would do that, we would send our leadership under the deputy to Harpers Ferry
Center, the museum facility not the park and where they have a space, set up there.
I went back to the hotel. And so when Gary Van Horn took Fran, and I don't remember
what time it was, late in the afternoon, early evening, took her to Shepherdstown, I went
back to the hotel and under her direction, I contacted all of the associates, plus Reynolds,
who was as I say the acting, and made arrangements for them to go out there to Harpers
Ferry the next morning. I barely got that accomplished, and the call came in, I don't
remember where it came from, but anyway, that the director was coming back. So we
canceled it. Then we turned around and canceled all of this.
Q: So tell me a little bit about that Continuity of Operations plan? So there was a pre-
existing plan? Did that work well?
A: Well, it worked reasonably well. I mean it's a little out of date. And we found, and of
course, with lessons learned we learned is it better to keep people in this building or just
to send them out into the street? There were rumors abounding whether the Metro was
4
running, Metro was shut down. So it was pretty chaotic, as you might guess. So, yes, but
there- is-a plan;- our bureau has a--plan for this actually there's one for North
Capital, and for AOC [Accounting Operations Center]. Each regional office has one, each
service center, where they're going to go in case of this.
And our plan basically calls for recognizing that the director will go where the Secretary
goes or wants her to go. We arrange with the Harpers Ferry Center and they have, I
guess, I've not seen it, a conference room where they've installed extra phone line, jacks,
and that sort of thing, so she can actually manage the NPS operations from out there.
Q: So just, again, just so that I understand this. Is the Park Service's plan, is that a piece of
the DOl continuity [of operations plan] instead of separate?
A: Yes, it is. They're all integrated. They're supposed to be integrated. There clearly needs
to be some more work done.
Q: Okay. Just to backtrack for a second, when you first went and met with the director you
said that the parties there, the senior staff, were discussing some of the things that would
have to be done. Can you just give me, I mean, obviously, don't talk about anything
particularly sensitive, but a sense of the kinds of things they were discussing?
A: Well, the main thing, we were trying to get information. But, you know, they were,
"Well, we've got to find out if this road is open. Can you get there?" And I said, "Time
out, folks. Let's stop, take a deep breath, and get ourselves organized and deal with it.
Let's figure out the critical things that need to be done." I said, "We don't have any
5
information so we're going to have to go with our best stuff. But let's not have associate
directors running around trying- to figure-out wlianoufes are open. -we can get someoo d y
else to figure some of that stuff out." So I tried to just get them organized a little bit,
which we did.
And basically, shortly thereafter I said, Fran said, "We need to go upstairs." And I don't
remember whether she already knew that or whether she got a call. I can't recall that.
And so I went with her, and then we did the--so I sort of lost contact with the associates
and stuff for the rest of the day. I'm not quite remembering that. But basically, I was just
with Fran the rest of the day.
Q: Would you go on and talk about how your role unfolded? You assumed something of an
advisory role.
A: Yes, basically what I was doing there was to give her advice about how we should think
about getting organized, what we could do, and some of that stuff. So one of the things
we did right away was call our national Incident Management Team together and pre-
plan, and not knowing what we might need from them, but to have them on site at
Shenandoah [National Park]. We didn't want to have them here, because we didn't know
what you could do here. So we tagged them up in Shenandoah just to be ready. So that
call went out the first day. And we'd have to look at the Shenandoah logs and all to get
the exact times and all.
6
Q: Maybe just to stop at that spot for a minute. It would be very helpful to me if you could
--- just explain a little bit-more-about the-process for-activating the-ewell; first ofall, maybe
just to get on the record a brief description of the Incident Command System.
A: Well, the Incident Command System is a very flexible system designed to manage any
sort of incident. It's generic in nature, and the NPS uses it and adopted it in 1985 for all
emergency operations. It's flexible enough to expand and contract quickly both ways.
It's basically, what it does is, the way the Incident Command team works is they get, the
Incident commander gets a delegation of authority or something. Now we just had a
verbal delegation at that point in time. I'm wanted those guys pre-positioned.
Q: This is from the director?
A: In this case it would have been from the director, correct. But I wanted that team pre-
positioned in case we needed them. At least I had them all in one place. I had them in
short, a short time from here rather than bringing them from all over the country to get
here. So it made sense, until we scoped out what their need might be is to do that. So
that's what we did.
Q: And they convened at Shenandoah National Park?
A: Yes.
Q: Is that part of this operations plan that they would convene there?
A: No, not necessarily.
7
Q: How was that decision made?
- A: - - -Well; based on; because- the decision was-based-on; we didn't know-what we-had:-We
knew we might have a need, so let's put them someplace close, but not right here in the
middle of things where we might have to move them sometime again. So just put them
down where they're close. We talked, I don't remember. It seems to me we might have
talked about putting them at Manassas even or something. Shenandoah has got a dispatch
center and all of that. I mean to me it made more sense just to put them there.
Q: Were there any challenges in activating the team? I've heard that, the fact that planes
were grounded, getting some of these people in was somewhat difficult initially. Do you
have any thoughts on it?
A: Well, I don't remember that. I mean I'd have to go back-and probably you'd need to-
-I don't remember that. But once we talked about that and got them going, I really was
not in that loop much anymore. But I don't know. Brenda Ritchie, who is the head of
communications center at Shenandoah, can probably tell you that.
Q: And this delegation of authority?
A: Well, we didn't have one at that point. We were just getting it ready, but that's how
ultimately they would work.
Q: But there was ultimately one, correct?
A: Yes.
8
Q: And if you would just explain to me a little bit about what that included?
-A: Well, what-the delegation would include,- in this case, we wrote-it for Fran to-sign, but it
gives them her authority to do things. So they were speaking on behalf, if you will, for
the director. And it also gives them authority to expend funds. But it also, is equal to the
authority is the constraints. It will also tell them what they can not do without checking
back with her or her designated person. And what she did was designate me as her
representative to the Incident Management Team.
Q: And does it lay out tasks or missions?
A: No, it's very broad. It's very broad. That's the benefit of ICS, let the people who know
how to do that do that.
Q: Okay. Maybe just a little bit more about, moving into the area of communications for a
minute.
A: Back to the team and coming by air. Come to think about it, I think we were able to get,
because the teams were nationwide, I think we were able to fill out the team locally pretty
much with people who could drive. For example, one of the Incident commanders is
from Indiana Dunes, J.D. Swed, the other being from Colonial. And I think if I
remember this correctly, J.D. was in Philadelphia visiting his, I better not put that. I'm
not sure. Anyway, I don't remember some of that.
Q. Okay.
9
A. So that was basically the first day, I mean it was mostly just trying to gather stuff up, and
my role basically was just to be a sounding board for Fran or when things-came up-out of
the politicos to say, "Okay," or "Fran, I don't think we have to do this." Early on, one of
the thoughts by the Secretary's office was to shut all of the national parks down. And I
told Fran, I said, "That's easier said than done, because that means, if you're truly
shutting them down, you're going to have to sweep the back country, remember, we're
still in the fall, of places like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and then you've got to enforce it."
Sometimes that takes more resources. Shutting the park down wasn't so much because of
the threat. It was freeing up the resources. So the director talked to the Secretary and
said, "Let's do this differently. Let's reduce service or something. Let's not have a total
closure," which the Secretary readily agreed to.
Q: So explain a little bit more about what actually happened then, how that played out.
A: It was mostly a discussion in the Secretary's conference room. I mean there were just
ideas being generated. We need to do this. And Fran carried our message very easily to
the Secretary, who as soon as she got that picture, I mean there wasn't a question. She
just hadn't thought it through clearly.
Q: Right, but some parks were closed temporarily.
A: Yes.
Q: Primarily the ones in the Northeast.
10
A: Northeast, I think. No, more than that. We shut down, and I can't tell you the actual
We-can-fine that out. But we shut down the H.S:SoArizona Memorial;- Fort
Point under the Golden Gate Bridge, the Arch. I don't know if Mount Rushmore was shut
down, but it might have been. The monuments, the memorials here.
Q: Things that were considered icon parks.
A: Yes. of course, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island.
Q: Did some of these discussions then involve risk assessment? Maybe only in the broadest
sense?
A: In the broadest sense at that point. I mean I don't think we were really into that for a few
days.
Q: But only the assumption that the icon parks might be at more risk than the other?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay. Well, just, before we leave the Incident Command team, I understand that the
team actually met with you on a daily basis?
A. Yes.
Q. What kind of information did they provide you with?
A: Well, we finally brought them up here. I don't know if that was the second day or the
third day.
II
- ~ , Into the south building of interior?-
A: Actually, they worked in here for two days, this little office right here. This little office
right here for the record is the office of the Chief of Ranger Activities of the Main
Interior. They worked right in here. And then they used some other offices, maintenance,
and wherever they could find the space. There is an organized place over in the top floor
of South Interior where they went. I guess they were in here maybe two or three days, I
don't remember.
But what we had them do was, what we started them doing, and we could get [a copy of]
the delegation [of authority] and look, but basically was intelligence gathering, what's
really going on? Resource availability, what do we have? They started to identify things
like heavy equipment operators. Where were they? How could we get them there? And
heavy equipment that might be used for respiration and rehabilitation. I don't remember
whether it was because of a request from the Northeast or what, but the same thing with
boats and boat operators, because again we had NPS rangers and Park Police officers
patrol the New York Harbor, at the request of the Coast Guard.
Q: And you were shifting some ranger resources, too.
A: We were. Exactly, yes. And at some point in time in there is when, again, we have to go
back to the written record. We started getting requests to support the Bureau of
Reclamation dams. That was fairly early on. [TAPE INTERRUPTION]
12
Q: So the support to the Bureau of Reclamation, ranger support. Would you want to give me
- a little background on that? -
A: Well, I don't remember now off hand how that came in, but we were, because again, it
sort of makes sense, initially. I mean Hoover Dam has got Lake Mead. Grand Coulee
Dam has Lake Roosevelt so the NPS has a presence there anyway in those lakes. So here
is some law enforcement assistance that could be done. Again, this was a short term,
immediate kind of a response. But you can see, one of the things I asked that team to do
is begin to do a bunch of strategic planning. Play the "what if'' game. Now "what if''
we're asked to do this, what kind of an impact? And that's what they started on.
Q: Okay.
A: And so you organize the team based on the kind of response. This team, and probably
some of their frustrations, they didn't do any "real work". They never shoveled any dirt
or moved any material, but they were vital at what they were doing for planning. And
then they also then served early on and for some time as a focal point for all of the
updates of park status, who's on, what's closed, what's open, where we are, focused to
them. And so we had a briefing with Fran every morning at 7:30, so that she could take
the latest data upstairs to her political meeting at 8:15. So the Incident Commander
would come over and brief us every morning at 7:30.
Q: You mentioned a couple of things that I want to follow up on. The team was organized,
this Incident Command Team is shaped differently for different types of events. Is that
what you're trying to say?
13
A: Well, the basic functions are command, operations, planning, logistics, and finance. So
that was the functions for- them and then information,--But we beefed-up, -for example, the
information section to start, to help pull stuff together and do that. We brought into
operations in gathering the data, we brought in people, for example, that were familiar
with the Maximo process, the facilities maintenance [system], that knew how that system
works, because they had some of that information. For example, on this team the
operation section chief is Dennis McGinnis, who's a facility manager at Shenandoah.
Well since he already knew about that, he knew the kind of people he wanted to get in to
do that sort of work. So that's how it's organized.
So the big functions for this thing were in operations, and planning, and information .

Logistics, once they had a place to stay and a place to work, didn't have much to do
because we weren't supporting any ongoing activities.
Q: Sure. How effective do you think the Incident Command System was in this event?
A: I think it was very effective for us. Where it fell down is that we offered to share the
people, that team, with the department and they opted not to use it.
Q: Is that anything you want to elaborate on?
A Well, I mean, to me that was not a very smart decision because these, I mean it didn't say
that we had to run everything. They could still do that. They can be the overall leader.
But we were just trying to give them the support.
14
Q: And what was the impact, if any, of the department not-
-A: Well, it made our job alot harder because there's no integration going on._ And so_itwas
just like, you'd go over there and you'd say, "Why are you guys doing it this way?"
Q: And I would be interested to hear your thoughts about coordination.
A: Have you seen the lessons learned that we did for the department?
Q: Yes.
A: Okay, well some of that is covered. Well, I think the coordination was not very well, or it
was in spite of, not because of. I mean, there was a huge amount of effort expended to do
those things and a lot of it was duplicative. It wasn't very effective.
Q: As I understand it, there were actually several command centers that maybe contributed
to ...
A: Well, it could have been. I mean we had ours doing our stuff. I mean it was pretty clear
what their responsibility was. It wasn't to muck around with the department. The
department had one for overall. They were also then coordinating some of the responses
to the dams. And then they decided we needed to protect this building. At the time all of
this was going on, don't forget, we had just moved the weekend before the resources
management, I guess natural [resources]. I don't know if cultural [resources] went up
there, too, and administration folks, up to the G Street [office]. And that facility is not--I
mean it's a public garage. Anybody can drive in right underneath the thing. It's right
next to the World Bank building. And so there was utter chaos.
15
And so one of the early things we tried to do, and basically Major Van Hom and Dick
-- Powell;- the chief of Risk Management; led the charge on thi:t, was to try to figure out
some security for that facility. And basically what we persuaded, and when I say we, it
wasn't just me, the director and others to do, was to be very liberal with those folks in
terms of administrative leave for at least until that Monday, so we could get some things
back in shape. Well, before that ever happened, of course, the White House and the
Executive Office Building came over and said, "We want this. Bye."
Q: I did understand that the Incident Command Team had a big role in facilitating that
move?
A: They did. They went out, and again, that's sort of what they can do well. Instead of all of
these people trying to do that, the administrative people who work for Sue Masica who
are part of being the victims if you will in this case, they went out, found under a federal
supply schedule, a furniture supplier. Now you pay through the nose for this stuff. I mean
they had it done. By Monday when they came back, they had furniture there. Now I
mean try to go through the normal process, it takes forever. But because on that team
you have people who understand the logistics. You've got a contracting officer, well, she
doesn't have unlimited, but she's got something like five million dollar authority. Bang.
TAPE ONE SIDEB
A: Well, can I tell you then, day two, we carne back here. The Secretary called the Deputy
Secretary. I think this is the way it went. I'm not positive. But I was up in their offices
16
on the 6th floor when there was an unreported plane across the Canadian border, as I
- -remember it,- so the- deo:;ision -was-made to put everybody down in the cafeteria.- And
again, that's where sort of where the Continuity of Operations. There's no alarm system
to talk about, other than [for] fire. And basically the two people that sort of brought order
to chaos, even though they didn't know anything, were the director, Fran Mainella, and
the Deputy Secretary, Steve Griles. I give them both high marks for trying to coordinate
that, trying to keep people informed, when they didn't really know anything. But they did
very well.
Q: Actually, that brings us back to communications again. I'd like your sense of how well
communications worked within the Park Service those first few days. Obvious! y, you
mentioned earlier that phone lines and cell lines in the Washington area were jammed.
Were you getting information from?
A: There has always been an established process for reporting incidents. That's been in
place a long time and that's the 24 hour dispatch center in the Shenandoah. So we just
augmented that. They brought in and hired some more dispatchers to be able to handle
that, people, coordinators to be able to handle that flow. But that I mean, again, it was ...
Q: Was the morning report a useful tool in getting word out throughout the service?
A: No, I don't think so. My sense is that it was okay, but it was always behind. It's not
designed to be a communications vehicle. What we had done, I don't know who set this
up, but they had noon Eastern Time conference calls early on. I don't remember what day
this was, with every region. And usually, all of the associates, public affairs,
17
congressional affairs, etc, from headquarters were in there and we'd just go around and
get updates; what-are the issues?- Well; for example, and again you- need to; I don't have
the precise thing, but Alaska, with a total band on flying, we're dependent on air in
Alaska. So you had people in the bush that you needed to support. I mean it was, that got
fixed. But those were the kinds of issues, the different issues that you'd never think about
that were coming out of some of these things.
Q: So were your days sort of just, I mean I'm sure that no two days were the same. Was it
sort of this trouble shooting, problem solving role?
A: Exactly. What I tried to do is be the heat shield for Fran, to get her the stuff she needed to
do when she needed to make decisions or take upstairs, and as best I could, keep some of
the other stuff, I say trivia but it's not necessarily, [the] more tactical kind of stuff, so she
still had other things she needed to do. And, of course, she was, I mean, again, the
Secretary of the Department had certain things they wanted from their leadership of the
bureaus. So she had a full time job.
Q: Did that communication system that you just described and the information flow process,
were you comfortable that you had all of the information that you needed for her? Was
she comfortable with that?
A: Well we had some glitches in there because there was some times, and we finally got it
fixed, I think, that there were alternate communication around and therefore the
intelligence that was coming in necessarily didn't jive. And so the numbers weren't
18
necessarily correct. This was open, this was closed. And that caused, it even caused her
some grief, because she wasn't getting the right precise stuff to take upstairs:- --
Q: And to respond to calls from the media, too, I would imagine.
A: Yes, again, I don't know again how much of that we had here. I guess you need to check
with Dave Barna or somebody about that. My sense is there weren't that many media
calls about the impact on parks, but there might have been.
Q: Okay. I've heard anecdotal accounts of people coming to parks in those first few days to
feel a sense of safety, reassurance, connection with traditional values.
A: That seemed to be the case. I don't know if it was the very first few days, but shortly
thereafter that was definitely the case. And again, you know, although the other thing that
was being decided is what special events would go on and what would be canceled?
There was some ceremony at the Jefferson Memorial that was scheduled for a day or two
after September 11, and that was postponed just because of security. On the other hand, I
think it was National Public Lands Day which was like ten days afterwards or something
and there was a ceremony in the Shenandoah for the CCC to celebrate that. Well, that
went on. The Secretary was there. The Assistant Secretary ___ was there. And at
that place is when the leadership of Shenandoah, Connie Rudd and Doug Morris, were
talking about people that were coming in. So, yes, I don't know, I don't have a sense that
it was right the first few days, but definitely there's anecdotal information that people
viewed these as places of refuge.
19
Q: As special places.
-A: Yes.
Q: You've been with the Park Service for quite a few years and I'd be interested if you have
a sense of whether the way people viewed national parks changed at all as a result of the
attacks?
A: Well, I don't know. Again, not knowing, I mean just going on what the anecdotal
evidence is and I think the answer is yes. I mean I think they, I don't know if there's any
difference in the way they view them, but it's maybe a more heightened awareness of
them. I don't know if they think the attitudes are different. Maybe it's just raised up that
this is more important. Down here, now it's up higher.
Q: Right. That certainly occurred during World War II.
A: And I don't know how the parks, I think many parks around the system were that way.
Not just the ones closest, for example, to here. I mean I think other parks, and I can't tell
you which ones, but people saying, "I've had enough of watching TV. I've got to go and
do something different."
Q: Go and see something green, right?
A: Yes.
Q: Oh, okay. I'd like to talk about the issue of funding for a minute. I don't know how
deeply you were involved in that, probably not real deeply. You mentioned some funding
20
authority that came with the delegation of authority letter for the Incident Command
-Team-- And-I- guess looking- at it more-broadly, does the Park Service-have- existing
authority for emergency spending? Is there a pot of money that the Park Service can--
and if not, what kind of, how did you folks deal with that and what kind of problems did
that create?
A: Well, the answer to the first one is no. There isn't a pot of money, and this is something
that at least maybe before this, but at least since Hurricane Andrew in '92, not only the
NPS but the department has said we need to have some of that authority. Now, in
wildland fire, we have a preparedness account and we got the authority to immediately
establish an account, no money in it, to record charges. We don't have that same
authority in other than wildland fire. But you know, you still have to do what you have to
do, and that doesn't mean your silly about it, and record all of those charges. But yes, that
was a big issue about, "Well, are we going to get paid?" Well who knows? "Yes, they're
going to get paid, but are we going to be reimbursed?" Can't answer that question, but
the point is, typically on those kinds of emergencies, if you don't get a supplemental
appropriation, it comes out of land acquisition or you delay a construction project, or
whatever.
But the mechanism to seamlessly go, like we have in wildland fire, for other emergencies
is not there. And that's again one of the highlights in the lessons learned that needs to
really be fixed.
Q: Okay.
21
A: And whether that fix takes legislation or not, I'm not sure.
Q: Which sort of brings me to the area of resources in general. Do you believe that the Park
Service was adequately resourced to respond to an event like this, resources in the sense
of enough Park Rangers, enough law enforcement officers? And you just talked about
funding. And enough resources in terms of incident team members and that kind of
thing?
A: Well, let me put it to you this way. We had plenty of resources to take care of the
immediate threat, okay? Which is sort of shut the door, here we come. And that
immediate threat, and once you get into restoration! rehab, you still may have a threat but
it's not as immediate. So yes, we were okay for that. No, we're not okay for the long
term which we're being impacted to this day about protecting dams, protecting this
building, trying to protect parks. We've been committed for at least a year or probably
more to 100 plus rangers to support the Winter Olympics. So we're running--and the Park
Police, in some cases, we've got some ability to hire seasonals, and rotate people and all,
but they don't. They're potentially in, as far as running people into the ground, worse
than we are. But no, we're not there yet.
So to do that, what we did was in early October over the Columbus Day weekend, we
brought a group of about five people together right here, spent the weekend in this room,
and we developed a strategic assessment with alternatives for how to deal with this in the
longer term. And that was given to and briefed to Deputy Director Galvin on the Monday
22
or Tuesday after the holiday and he took copies in to the [National Leadership Council]
NLG meeting that- montho- -- -
Q: Is that something that you can talk a little bit more about?
A: Yes, and I can give you a copy of it.
Q: Okay, great.
A: Now basically what we did was say, we can't do this reactive thing of send us this ranger,
send us these guys, do this, do this. We've got to get on top of it. So one of the ways you
do that is by setting up what in the fire world we call the Multi-Agency Coordinating
Group. In our case we used the regional chief rangers and called it the MRCG, the Multi-
Regional Coordinating Group, by using those processing to set priorities and allocate
critical resources. Okay. What's the first priority? Hoover Dam. Okay, so then they get
all of the protection first before the fifth priority.
And so that process took awhile, but we brought in some people that are used to doing
that, including a good colleague of mine who retired on September 30, to help organize
and get that process working. And that works until today. And they developed a plan
from that, which then by that time in November we developed a series, just like in
wildland fire, a series of five preparedness levels all of the way from businesses is
normal, to national emergency, shut the door and send everybody. The same kind of a
thought process that's used in wildland fire. We also used the wildland fire coordinating
dispatch system to move resources, which is well in place and can do that very
23
effectively. That system can move like 15,000 people m 24 hours. We can move
resources way-faster than the military can:
Q: That hadn't occurred to me, but it sounds like all of those years of experience with
wildland fire management really gave us some lessons, some insights.
A: It does. And it gave us some ideas. And then, so following that and that's in place, but
you know, several of us feel that that's still an interim step. If we're going to be doing
this for two or three years, and it appears that that's certainly a strong likelihood, that we
needed some other way to go. And so I suggested that to the associate regional directors
for admin and operations (?). We had a meeting here the week before Thanksgiving.
They concurred and so we had another small group, including some of the ones that were
on that original strategic assessment, met the week after Thanksgiving, and we have
given a briefing paper about where we think we ought to go and actually that, I think, was
handed out yesterday. Maybe at 1:00 the NLC is going to ask me about that. We'll see.
Q: Okay.
A: But we've got to get strategic about this thing.
Q: Right. I had just a couple of questions left hanging about the support to the Bureau of
Reclamation. And it sounds like you were involved in the initial request and the early
discussions on what to do about that requirement, that need. Was there a discussion
about what authority the Park Service would do that under?
A: Absolutely.
24
Q: Carr you tell-me a little bit about that? -
A: Well, there was no authority for us to do that.
Q. Okay.
A. For example, take Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which includes both Lake Mead
and Lake Mojave, which is behind Davis Dam, the dam that is downstream from Hoover. That's
all, Hoover Dam and Davis Dam are within the legislative boundaries of Lake Mead. And it's an
area established by an act of Congress, unlike Lake Roosevelt, which is a tri-partite agreement.
So Lake Mead, Lake Powell and others are established by an act of Congress. But in that
legislation, even though it's within the legislative boundaries, it excised the dam and the facilities
from this. So we had no jurisdiction. And the bureau has no law enforcement authority, Bureau
ofRec. So the answer was then you need to do that under the authority as a deputy United States
Marshal. Same thing here. Rangers in this building have no authority here unless they're acting
under the deputizaticin. So that took a lot of effort.
Q: So they actually deputized these rangers? Is that what you're saying?
A: Yes, Special Deputy United States Marshals. And we've done that for, actually, there's
many parks. Some rangers are that. They serve their own arrests warrants and that sort of
thing. And that took a lot of work. And actually, the department helped us with that.
Q: Are we still providing support?
A: Yes.
25
Q: And we talked a few minutes ago about resources. I assume that, obviously, that has
stretched the ranger resources somewhat. And I also read that pulling ranger resources to
go up to, to support Catoctin/Camp David, and correct me if this is wrong, that that has
forced some other parks to close? That their ranger resources were stretched so much
that. ..
A: I don't think it forced them to close, but one of the keys in this strategic plan is to develop
a drawdown plan beyond which you can't go. Now right now it's focused on protection
resources, but that's part of the thing we talked about in Seattle was we need that for
systems, tomorrow, I mean, you know, it could be that, what's the next terrorist threat?
Well, maybe instead of anthrax we'll use hoof and mouth disease so you could lose of all
your biologists. So you need to do this in a broad context and be ready for it instead of
just this reactive mode.
Q: Was the underlying commitment then from the director on down, or the underlying
guidance, I'm not exactly sure of the right word, but the fact that we wanted to keep the
parks open? I mean as a bottom line we want to do that as much as we possibly can. Is
that?
A: Well, we were under instruction and still are not to close any parks now.
Q: Okay. Under instructions from Interior?
A: The Secretary and the director. Now, we're not under instruction, and to provide the basic
services. So if you're going to keep a park open, that says you've got to have some
26
protective services. That says you've got to have some emergency response services.
That says you've got to run the wastewater treatment plants, clean the rest rooms, patch
the roads, whatever. Now you may not give all of the interpretive programs or you may
reduce hours of entry stations or visitors' centers, or something, but you still keep the
basic park open. And meeting that objective, plus our direction from the Secretary's
office to provide support to the Bureau of Reclamation dams, plus this building, we've
got people now that are on their third two-week or three-week assignment there. So not
only are you pulling resources out of there, but even the people that stay home are
working extended hours and you start impacting peoples' decision making ability and
some of that sort of stuff, let alone their personal lives.
Q: They just get worn out.
A: Exactly. When they get worn out, people make silly decisions if they're not careful.
Q: Is the fact that the few parks that were closed were closed really for a very brief period
and they were for the most part parks in the Northeast region, is that a record that we're
proud of with this event, that the Park Service is proud of, that we were able to continue
operations?
A: I never thought about it in that context to be honest with you. Yes. I don't know. For
example, I don't think the Statue of Liberty is open yet, is it?
Q: No, I don't think so. But that's the exception.
27
A: Yes, it is. And there's still issues about, I guess like at Independence, whether you close
the street next to the Liberty Bell or not. And that's a negotiation between the city and us.
Well, yes, I guess it would be a mark that we should be proud of. I mean I don't know
that there's any indication that I've heard ofthat we didn't respond to something because
we were doing other things. I haven't heard that.
Q: What were some of the early discussions concerning the monuments here in Washington?
I would imagine that protection of the monuments was a huge concern in those first
couple of days.
A: Well, they were shut down. And agam, that's really the United States Park Police
responsibility. I don't know how they did that, whether they barricaded them. I mean I
don't know how you shut down, for example, the Jefferson Memorial other than you have
people on patrol there. Then when they were reopened, there were certain processes they
did before that. Again, you need to talk to those folks to tell you that. Like for example,
none of them were reopened until they were searched with a bomb dog and some of those
sorts of things.
But again, you've got to be careful. Does it take more resources to enforce the closure or
to manage the open? And that's a decision making process that you need to look at.
Q: Okay. Actually, you were involved with the Exxon Valdez response and the Hurricane
Andrew response. And I would really enjoy hearing you talk about how this particular
28
response compared to the others. Obviously, the event is dramatically different, the event
itself. But just to reflect a little bit.
A: Well, basically in those things, including the Yosemite flood, we had a doing role. In
other words, putting the park back together in the Yosemite's case, helping the people in
the Hurricane Andrew. The Exxon Valdez, all I did was run, I chaired the review of that.
But, again, the same thing there about impact on park resources and how we're going to
clean them up and that sort of thing.
Here was more of a planning, except for a few, very few sites, like in New York City, and
you know, that we didn't have any "doing role". Now we're had people on Incident
Management Teams that have gone up there and helped support that, and that sort of
thing. My youngest daughter, for example, spent 34 days in New York City on that
Incident Management Team that was supporting the urban search and rescue teams that
were doing the recovery effort. But our Incident Management Teams, you know, they
were just doing the planning, the intelligence, that sort of stuff without having a real
operational kind of a role. And that's one big difference. And that's probably the
frustrating difference. I mean it's a lot easier to get a hold of something and fix it than it
is to do intelligence.
Q: Well, one of the people I interviewed pointed out to me that the response to this event
sort of was a good indicator of the flexibility of the Incident Command System because it
could be shaped.
29
A: Oh, yes, absolutely. That's exactly right. See, we used the Incident Command System,
when we drafted the Continuity of Operations Plan I brought the Incident Management
Team in to do it. And it was done in 10 days, boom, start to finish, because the beauty of
that, they can focus full time on it. They don't have to stop, "Let's go to this meeting,"
and that kind of an approach. It's a clear focused, bring in the particular type of
resources you need. We used the Incident Management Team to do the implementation
plan when we had the Park Service reorganization in 1994. So yes, the flexibility is there,
absolutely.
Q: And as I understand it, for the most part, or maybe entirely, there are people who work
their way up through the Type 2 Team, regional teams, they're seasoned people who have
worked with each other for years.
A: Yes, they are. And that's why you have a team instead of an aggregation because you hit
the ground running, you don't have to learn a management style, this person, or the
idiosyncrasies of that person. You already know those things. It's built into the process.
Q: You know who your contacts are.
A: Right.
Q: Okay.
TAPE TWO SIDE A
30
Q: Just to start winding down here. I'm looking to draw in your years of experience with the
Park Service. Do you see this as a transforming event for the Park Service in any way, the
attacks and the response to the attacks?
A: Well, I think it could be. If we use this to think like I like to say "around the corner",
instead of like we traditionally do. If we use the lessons we learned here to do some
thinking like that, yes. Now whether it's a transforming event for the Service, I don't
know. And it may be. It may force us to look at the way we look at how we allocate
resources. And all of my sense is that it's one more thing we've been tasked to do and
we'lllook at that in the traditional way of let's just throw a few good men and women at
it, which may be the wrong approach. Maybe we'll find that out at 1:00 today.
Q: And when you talk about looking around the corner, and you've t o u c h ~ d on this briefly,
but what kinds of things, what categories are von looking at?
A: Well, okay. For example, we've been at this now, what, three months. And even though
we've got this Multi-Regional Coordinating Group, we're still being in a reactive mode.
And that's what we tried to talk to them in Seattle about. The draw down plan ultimately,
so you tell the directors, tell them, "I can do this." "I can do that'' "I can do the other."
"I can't do all three. You're choice, Madam Secretary. Which ones, or what level do you
want me to do?" Or, "I've got to have more resources to do that." But we need to give
her, we have not yet, given her the ammunition that she needs to articulate that stuff So
she hasn't gotten totally wonderful staff work from us in that regard. And we're still
looking at it on a piecemeal basis which, I mean I don't think it's a piecemeal thing. I
31
think we're, I don't have any crystal ball here, but it strikes me that we're not all of a
sudden tomorrow say, "Okay. Ali, Ali (sic) in free."
Q: Business as usual. Right.
A: And therefore it behooves us to spend some quality strategic time looking at the long
term implications and also, what are our opportunities? For example, now these are just
off the wall, okay? But why couldn't we think about talking to the Bureau of
Reclamation or the sky marshals and say, "We've a win/win deal for you. We've got a
lot of seasonals that would love to be permanents. Why don't you hire them for two
years, train them, use them, and at the end of that time they'll have their status, they'll get
some benefits and then we'll start moving, this will be our intake program into the
National Park Service?" We haven't thought about that stuff. Now is that doable? I
don't know, but it sure as heck isn't if we don't think about it. Let's look at what we
have here and look at what kind of opportunities that provides us, instead of just looking
at the detriments that we're looking at. We're focused totally on the detriments.
Q: Right. Right. And if you've got this draw down plan, I mean you're also looking at a way
to ramp up, too, in case of another event.
A: Well, the draw down plan needs to talk about the potential, I mean it may not be a
terrorist threat, but if we lose a critical resource, cultural or natural, or impact it, then we
haven't met our statutory obligations. And so the drawdown plans need to take those
things into account. I mean you can't, in my judgment, provide protection for natural or
cultural resources strictly on a reactive basis. You have to do it on a proactive basis. You
32
know, what is the value of a patrol ranger at Manassas? Well, I think some of the value is
the fact that they're out and about, probably precludes metal detector type folks trying to
get artifacts. As opposed to catching them in the act, and we still need to do both. But we
need to have that proactive approach and we need to not forget that part of it and just
have resources in the draw down plan that is a totally, if something happens, we'll
respond. Because I don't think, in my judgment anyway, that means we're meeting our
statutory obligations to this nation's resources, natural or cultural.
Q: And it also sounded like one of the things that you and the other planners are keenly
aware of now is, or have always been aware but this highlighted, was the need for
flexibility in the plan that you're talking about.
A: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Q: Do you have any other thoughts on the lessons that we've learned from this? You've
been pretty articulate about some of these lessons.
A: Well, I think, if I gave ourselves the way we reacted and the use of our Incident
Management Team and some of that, I would only give us about a C+. I think we really
did not do and we need to spend some time effectively using that team, maybe articulate
what that team needed, or maybe the team or something. There needs to be some
analysis of that. The communications were at best C+. We shouldn't have had, after the
first couple of days, any glitches about the intelligence that was coming in here,
regardless of the source. And yet we continued to have it.
33
Q: What kind of glitches?
A: Well, different people getting different information. And then Fran would hear one thing,
and then she'd hear another, and she rightly said, "Well, what's right?" Perfect question
she should be asking and a legitimate question. She shouldn't have had to ask that. And
there were some internal stuff about that. We need to look at the process we use to move
information through the Shenandoah and the way we dealt with it here. And I think we
need somehow, and this is a lot harder, but we need somehow to integrate what we're
doing far better with the department. I mean this almost loggerhead approach is not
healthy or useful or productive. And that's not saying that we have all of the answers. But
we need, there needs to be better integration and coordination.
Q: How did some of that, conflict is too strong a word, ...
A: Maybe not in some cases.
Q: How did that exhibit itself? Can you give me some examples?
A: Well, it was just like, "We don't want any of your resources," and yet [they] turned
around and used them. Ordering resources without going through us, so we didn't know
what was occurring. Establishing their own Watch system that was not coordinated with
ours. And again, it's not all their fault. Maybe we didn't do a good job of coordinating
with them. So there needs to be some, and it's focused now on protection. But you know,
the next time it might be again, you could think of, if you have something like hoof and
mouth, that affects a lot of bureaus in this department. And it affects potentially the
bureau like the Bureau of Land Management and Grazing. I mean there's a whole bunch
34
of scenarios you could build without much thinking that are cross bureau boundary kinds
of things on a global type scale this is, as opposed to the local scale, which typically we
deal with.
Q: Well, we've been focused on coordination between the Park Service and the Department.
What about coordination with the other Interior agencies? For example, did our director,
did she sit down at the table with representatives from Fish and Wildlife? How did that
happen? How did that work?
A: I only went to those meetings with her early on, but yes, all of those other people were
there. We were still in there. How they're doing now and doing that stuff? I don't know.
Again, the focus is on law enforcement protection kinds of things. And law enforcement
administrators for all of those four bureaus are working together. Now how, for example,
Fran is interfacing with nine and a half people at BLM, I don't really know. There is
some interface at Fran's level, and even at my level with the Commissioner of
Reclamation. At my level, mostly because he's an old personal friend of mine, but there
is some of that. But I do not know the answer to that question.
Q: Okay. Well, just getting down to the end here. I'd be interested in hearing you, and
you've partially responded to this as we've gone along for the last hour, but what aspects
of the operation were the greatest challenges? It sounds like maybe you're telling me that
that coordination was the biggest challenge.
A: That was one. And it's still going on. Now I think the greatest challenge is to think
strategically, to look ahead, to play the what if game, to develop a proactive approach to
35
how we're going to deal with this for two years and what are the other threats and that
sort of thing.
Q: And the flip side of that is what worked particularly well? What do you think the Park
Service was most successful at? And maybe what did you personally find most
gratifYing?
A: Well, I think the Park Service was most successful at is what we always do, what we
usually do. When the crises hits, we know how to deal with it. If you look at the response
from the Park Police, whether it was the Pentagon, or New York City, or the monuments.
When you look at the response of the rangers. When you look at, "Let's go. It's doesn't
matter. Let's get every resource." Every division that was asked or function that was
asked to provide resources and assistance did so without blinking an eye. So as usual, we
pulled together at the time.
I think the most satisfying thing from my point of view is I think we basically had good
leadership at the top. I mean I think Deny Galvin has done a lot of this sort of stuff,
whatever it is. And his advice and counsel is always, in my judgment, 100 percent on
target. I think the director did a good job in representing the Service, representing us, and
the [National Park] System at the departmental level, certainly early on. I think when I'll
be the most satisfied is if in fact we use this, and whether or not we use what we did in
Seattle, if we actually get a proactive long range strategic approach to continue in this,
then that will make me happy.
36
Q: Is there anything that I haven't asked about that you want to get into the record here?
A: No, I can't think of anything, off hand.
Q: Just one thought just carne into mind. You were talking about getting this information, or
the Incident Team getting information from the various parks. Did you get the sense that
sometimes for, some of these park units have very, very, small staffs.
A: That's right.
Q: Very short on resources. Was there ever a case where you could sort of sense that this
requirement for information, a justifiable requirement, could become burdensome for
some parks?
A: No, because they set up processes so that early on you're reporting twice a day, and then
it became once a day. And then it was we'll assume no changes unless you tell us. So we
tried to--I don't know of any of that. Now, I think early on, for example, I can't tell you
the things without going back and looking them up. We got, and I was involved in all of
them, three, four requests from three people within the same hour in the department for
the same information. Now this is early on, but we still haven't smoothed out some of
that stuff. I'm sure that we were equally as guilty about that to the parks early on. But
people like Dale Ditmanson, the associate regional director in Philadelphia, Bob Rice (?)
and others can tell you better. But my sense is, and that's one of the things we have to
look at, and when I said I gave us a C+, that sort of stuff we have to look at. What did we
learn here that we can smooth out and make it better?
37
Q: Are there were any historically new missions for the Park Service in this?
A: Well, yes I mean I don't think we've ever provided really security type services like
we're doing to the dams and to this building. I mean that is not our overriding mission.
Q: I thought maybe that would be. Well, I appreciate you taking the time.
A: Glad to do it.
38
INTERVIEW WITH SERGEANT RONALD GALEY
NATIONAL PARK POLICE AVIATION UNIT
CONDUCTED BY DR. JANET MCDONNELL
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
DECEMBER 17, 2001
SIDE A
Q: If you'd begin just by explaining what you're role here is
with the Park Police Aviation Unit, a little background
about yourself.
A: I'm assigned as a section pilot. And I have a collateral
duty of budget and finance for the section. And I guess as
seniority goes, I'm the senior pilot here.
Q: Well, maybe if you just started by telling me how you first
learned about the terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center on September 11, and we'll just sort of go somewhat
chronologically?
A: That morning of September 11, we were actually outside in
the hangar. There were four of us cleaning the hangar,
washing the floors. It was a nice day. The door was open.
There were some people from the Uniformed Health Services
from DOD out in the field practicing for the IMF
demonstration that was coming up. So we were all busy doing
little chores and training. And one of the section members,
and I really don't remember who, it might have been even
sergeant stasulli had been watching CNN and saw, they came
on with the plane hitting the World Trade Center. And he
I
yelled at us, "You guys have got to come in here and see
this."
And we dropped what we were doing and came in there. When
we first looked at it, we thought, collectively, we were
thinking, well, that's a strange accident to have happened,
but we didn't know it was a commercial airliner. And while
we were still watching the coverage, the second aircraft
came around. We saw that live and it hit. And it seemed to
me it wasn't but a matter of minutes after that, I mean we
just looked at each other and we knew that, you know, that
we were going to have a problem.
And I went back out in the hangar, actually, and heard the
explosion and saw the smoke coming up from the Pentagon
area. Right about the same time, the aircraft crash phone
from National [Airport] rang. And I picked that up and the
air traffic controller said that they had had a 757 crash
somewhere in the vicinity of the Pentagon. By that time,
all of us were scrambling getting equipment, getting ready
to launch the 412s, which we did in a matter of a couple of
minutes because from our timeline, we were probably on the
scene, on the ground, 3-4 minutes after the initial impact,
so that was pretty good response.
2
Q: Well, tell me a little bit more. You were on Eagle One?
A: Eagle One. That was myself, Sergeant John Marsh, and
Officer John Dillon.
Q: And you were piloting?
A: Yes, I was the pilot. And John was the paramedic. And
John Dillon was also a paramedic, but he was in training at
the time.
Q: Okay.
A: And when we arrived on the scene, actually, there was a lot
of smoke and fire. Eagle Two had already picked a landing
zone on Washington Boulevard and it was shooting its
approach. There was some discussion in the cockpit, well,
where' s the 757? The damage, initially, didn't look that
great. It certainly didn't look like a 757 had hit it.
There was absolutely nothing that we could see that was
noticeable of any kind of an aircraft on the ground at all,
but there was a lot of fire, a lot of smoke. I could see,
I saw a couple of people on fire running away from the
building, initially.
While we were doing all of that the tower called me. We
were still circling.
3
Q: But you hadn't set down yet.
A: No, we were still circling and the tower called and said
that they had a report of another aircraft 20 minutes out,
inbound, an unauthorized aircraft inbound. So we just kind
of registered that in the back of our heads and continued
to circle. We were waiting for, we actually picked out
another LZ that we could land in to pick up more patients,
because we were getting various reports that we had
anywhere from 11-20 more patients to be MEDEVAC'D.
was a lot of confusion.
Q: Where were you getting those reports from?
There
A: From fire ground information. So it was a lot of confusion
at first. And somewhere in the midst of all of the talking
back and forth that my paramedic was doing with the ground
people, the air traffic controller at National Airport or
Reagan National Airport, advised me that, and it was just
kind of like a happenstance voice, he goes, "Oh and by the
way, we're abandoning the tower. You've got control of the
air space." And I'm thinking this is just what I need to
do right now.
Q: Explain to me a little bit about what that means?
4
A: Well, what that means is he is literally turning over their
function to me, to our aircraft. We were going to be in
control of that air space.
Q: That air space for the D.C. area?
A: Yes. And I immediately asked him if the air space had been
closed down, and he said yes.
of (o) (7)(E) to contact NORAD.
And he gave me a frequency
The NORAD had taken over
command of the national air space. I knew that the only
time that that happens is in a time of war.
obviously at a high DEFCON level.
So we were
Q: But that simplified the task a little bit better, didn't
it?
A: Oh, yes. Nobody was going to come in or out of the air
space unless we asked NORAD for authorization to do that
without being shot down. And that was as simple as that,
other than the military, of course .
So the next event was that we l anded, right after we had
gotten control of the air space, we landed. And my, the two
paramedics had deployed from the aircraft. Right at that
time, we got another update that the unauthorized aircraft
was about 10 minutes out. And j ust while we were on
5
approach getting ready to land, there were two F-16s that
came screaming by our aircraft.
Q: There were two of them. I didn't realize there were two.
A: Yes, two of them. And they had been preceded about 10
minutes before that by two others that were real high that
I saw going across. But these two guys came in low. And
apparently, they were a flight, had been a flight of four.
Two of them peeled off to stay in D.C. and the other two
went up in Pittsburgh, quite earlier.
Q: But you didn't get any radio communications about them
being in the area, right?
A: No, NORAD didn't tell me that they were coming. But neither
did I or would I expect them to do that. They're not going
to share everything with us.
They knew what we were doing.
And they knew we were busy.
Q: But NORAD knew that you were there.
A: Yes, right.
Q: Okay.
A: My crew came back and John Marsh advised me that no, in
fact, that the only patients that were to be MEDEVAC'D had
6
been MEDEVAC' D and we were to do a command and control
function, but to standby, that they were still bringing
people out. And I was thinking at the time there was no
way I could do both jobs. I can't do this command and
control, and also do MEDEVACS and rescues and whatever else
they wanted. We're going need some help. And I asked John
to get a hold of our dispatcher to contact the Metropolitan
Police and ask them if they could get their aircraft up in
the air. And they've got a smaller aircraft that wasn't
capable of doing MEDEVACS and such, but they were capable
of doing the command and control function. And they did
launch their aircraft and took over the command and control
function.
Q: This is D.C. Metropolitan Police.
A: Right. And that allowed us to do a lot more with our
aircrafts, stand by for MEDEVACS, and in fact, we ended up
taking the fire chief and a couple of other people to do a
command and control function.
quite sometime.
He ran the fire ground for
Q: How long would you--I realize things were happening very
quickly, but how long would you say that you had the
command and control function?
7
A: A couple of hours.
Q: Oh, really?
A: The command and control function for the air space,
probably no longer than 30 minutes.
Q: Okay. But you're talking about?
A: But the command and control function for the fire
department lasted pretty much the entire day and some into
the next day, actually, too. So that was pretty much it for
the scene. I mean there's a whole lot of little
communications back and forth in there. The FBI almost
immediately when we got on the scene, the FBI contacted and
asked us to turn on the microwave downlink because they
were capturing the video. So they were right on top of it.
They were there almost instantly and they set up a command
post, which is actually pretty impressive.
Q: They set up a command post there at the Pentagon.
A: Immediately, well, right up the hill.
Q: Okay.
A: It was in a trailer up the hill, wasn't it, Bernie, the
FBI?
8
B: Not too far.
A: Not too far. And they did that quite quickly. So really,
it was very much organized chaos. The fire department did
a wonderful job, Arlington did, of coming in and setting up
their incident command structure.
Q: And what kind of coordination went on there between you and
the Arlington Fire Department?
A: Right, we could talk to all of the fire departments. We
have all of the frequencies. So we were in contact with
Arlington, and Alexandria, and some of the other fire
departments that responded. And it was interesting that
some of the ground fire departments couldn't talk to each
other. They could talk to us and we would relay that
information. So there was a communications, there was a
mutual communications problem there that they had on the
ground, but obviously along with the post incident stuff
they're going to address that. We had no problem talking
to anyone. We had all of the frequencies in the aircraft.
Q: So you had started to tell me about taking the fire
marshal?
A: The fire chief.
9
Q: The fire chief, excuse me.
A: Well, they were having a lot of difficulty getting their
equipment into the proper locations to fight the fire. As
problematic as the fire was, it was added to by the fact
that the impact of the aircraft actually went in four
levels through the Pentagon. And it happened to be in some
of the areas that they had put a steepled roof on and the
fire was all on the roof. And they had a real difficult
time doing it. And the only way he could really get a real
feel for it was up in the air in the aircraft. So he
probably made 4-5 flights, an hour each, to position his
various firemen and fire fighting apparatus to get to the
fire.
Q: What was he able, I mean was he actually able to see like
flames from the roof? To see?
A: Oh, yes. And what helped them tremendously was the
infrared unit on the aircraft. We gave him the infrared
image and the imager was able to see through the roof and
show him where the hot spots were, where the fire was
underneath that hadn't broken out yet. And that was what
he was really, really interested in, also.
Q: So a difficult situation to f ~ y in?
10
A: Yes, there was a lot of smoke.
Q: Smoke and are there currents set off, too, by the fire?
A: Not so much that, but it was, visibility was a problem. And
there was a lot of concern about what kind of smoke we were
flying through, too. I mean what we were breathing in.
Q: Okay.
A: And in fact, we did find out there was a lot of hazardous
materials down there burning, so.
Q: So that was like the next 4-5 hours you were taking him up?
A: Right.
Q: Were there some other missions in that time?
A: There were missions for the FBI. There were missions for
the Pentagon staff, itself. There were missions for just
about anybody that you can think of that would have any
concern wanting to, it was almost endless. I mean it was
like, the FBI, the Department of Defense. We took the Army
up. We were the only aircraft there for quite sometime.
The military aircraft actually didn't start arriving until
late that afternoon.
II
Q: Okay, so for about 4-5 hours. Are there any of those
missions that you can talk about on the record?
A: Well, yes, I mean they were, for the FBI, most of them were
documenting the scene. For the Department of Defense, a lot
of it was, again, they were documenting.
Q: Documenting with video cameras?
A: Right, everything. Video cameras, still cameras. Some of
them were, you know, one or two of them were officials who
just wanted to see it for themselves so they could better
allocate their units. We took up the commander of the 82d
Airborne so he could deploy his troops around. It was just
about anything you could think of to use an aerial platform
for was used for that day.
Q: Well, tell me then about, I mean you were onsite then at
least until late afternoon. And then what did you? Did you
come back? I mean was that sort of it for the day?
A: We had made a conscious decision that we were going to, we,
the Park Police aircraft crews, we were going to do our
mission and we were going to get the heck out of there and
let the military do theirs. That there was, there was just
not, we wanted to come back here not knowing if this was
12
over with and stage, replenish, refuel, and make sure we
were fresh for whatever else was coming.
Q: Sure.
A: And in the middle of all of this, we'd had, we were given
the heads up that we were going to have to evacuate the
Secretary. And we had to keep an aircraft ready to do that,
in case they were going to evacuate her by air. And I
think they finally, they didn't do it by air. They did it
by ground.
Q: Right. Let's go on to the following weeks and the
aftermath. Did your tasks change at all?
A: Oh, it changed dramatically. It changed dramatically from
9:30 on the 11th until today and probably forever.
Q: And what are some of the?
A: It's a reprioritizing of what we're going to do. I mean in
the past, aerial checks of the monuments and memorials
weren't done routinely, because they were then P56. And we
tried. . .
Q: What does that mean?
13
A: The prohibitive area around the Capital and the White
House. It's a little--you have to get special permission.
Q: That's called P56?
A: P56, right. But now that's done very routinely. You know,
there was a lot of attention down here trying to, not to
disturb the tourists and such. Now it's, well, they're
going to have to put up with some disservice. They're going
to have to put up with some noise and such. The security
is going to be paramount. So it's a shifting of
understanding within, not only up over here, but within the
Park Service, too. I mean it's, yes, we're trying to be
there for the people and do the land management, but at the
same time now we have this overwhelming issue of security.
They've got to do it safely.
So we're doing that. We're checking the bridges, every
single bridge, river crossing, Cabin John Bridge, Wilson
Bridge, all of these bridges. Then we're chasing around,
Ryder Rental Trucks as they--every Ryder and Hertz Rental
Truck coming into the city was stopped. Everyone in the
city was stopped and searched.
part of.
14
So that kept us busy. A
Q: How would you be involved with that?
A: Spotting them. We were spotting them and bringing the
ground resources in to bear.
Q: I didn't realize that.
A: Oh, yes. The 12th and 13th, we had the Secret Service--at
this point they were no longer requests. It was Secret
Service orders. We kept one of these 412s was on station
above the city 24 hours a day. We would relieve each other
on station. They wanted an aircraft up with two agents in
it round the clock. And that's very, very tiring and
demanding on the equipment.
After about two days of 24 hours a day being up in the air,
that went back to checks every hour, and then checks every
other hour, and then as we got further away from the 11th,
they started winding it down as the likelihood of more
attacks became less and less.
Q: When you say checks, you mean these patrols?
A: Patrols. Well, it was, as you can well imagine, we were
going from report, report, report. You know, check this
person. This person is on route. Check this car. We got a
report of this. And they had, you know, they had a list of
15
600 suspects that they wanted to be stopped and detained as
a part of all of this. And the FBI and the CIA came up with
that list instantaneously. And 600 suspects can yield
1,200 cars. And it just went on, and on, and on, for days,
and days, and days.
Q: Sure, sure. So how well did that coordination work with the
FBI and the Secret Service?
A: Very well. Very well. All of the agencies, in my
estimation, that used to be very, they squabbled a lot. The
FBI and Secret Service are notorious for protecting their
turf, so to speak. All of that fell by the wayside. They
were really working well together. So much different
atmosphere now than it was before the 11th. I mean people
aren't so territorial. Agencies aren't so territorial.
But at the same time, and this is just subjective. I mean
I've been on the department now for 30 years. So it's, you
know, you're going to have some people that just don't ever
get it. But by and large, I even see a startling change in
the Park Service. I mean the Park Service is now, a lot of
admission that, yes, we've got a problem here.
Q: All right.
16
SIDE B
A: Okay. I started seeing a radical change in direction with
the Park Service particularly after meeting the new
director. And she was very concerned about the security and
law enforcement and protection. And in the past, although
it was a concern, there wasn't a lot of emphasis, a lot of
resources placed toward it. But now there are. And I mean,
for instance, the Statue of Liberty is still closed and
they're not going to open that up until they have good
security in place there. And that's going to cost a lot of
money, but they're finding the money for these things now.
And it's, these are things that as a law enforcement
agency, not only us, but the law enforcement Rangers have
been screaming about for a long time. They said, "Look, we
have a lot of vulnerable, very vulnerable in these areas.
And we've really got to protect these resources that we
have here." It's just like everything else. Priori ties
shift when something happens. I think that this priority
though is probably going to stay in place for a long, long
time. This is not going to go away in anybody's mind
anytime soon.
17
Q: But how much of a challenge is that for you in your budget
and finance capacity? I mean there was no, as I understand
it there was no emergency funding authorization that would
cover some of the cost of, say the extra duty hours that
you displayed?
A: There still isn't. We're actually cashing checks we have no
money in the bank for yet. There's just an assumption that
well, we have to do this. This has to be done. Somebody is
something, the famous somebody has to come up with the
money. To a certain point, we've been mandated by Interior
to do it. And Interior is hoping that part of that 40
billion dollar package is going to sit down. But that's so
far above me that. .No, to answer your question, no.
There were obviously no resources in place to possibly
contend with what happened on the 11th. And we're still
playing catch up and probably will for a year or two.
Q: And as I also understand, you're flying with three person
crews now, too, which add to your costs.
A: It adds to the cost because we really don't have the
manpower to do it, so the extra person has to come out and
be paid overtime, essentially, to do that. But on the 11th,
the three man or three person crews proved to be
invaluable. And given the circumstances of that day and
18
what we might find ourselves in the future, we just made a
decision here we were just going to stay with the three
person crews. These aircrafts are so sophisticated and they
have so many great resources on them that two people can't
possibly, the pilot is supposed to be flying the aircraft.
And in this air space around here, that is a full time
attention job.
Q: Sure.
A: With all of the other resources that are on that
helicopter, the microwave downlink, the flares, the video
cameras, the recorders, the moving map displays, and the
ton of radio communications, just too much for one person
to do.
Q: You mentioned commanding the scene, command and control on
the scene, too.
A: Exactly. So we've gone with three person crews and we're
striving and bending over backwards, and wearing people
out, trying to keep that with the thought that this is not
over with yet. And so far, management has seen the same
thing that we have seen, that this is an important function
and they're going to try to maintain it as long as we can.
19
Q: And then you saw that, I think you said you saw that even
before September 11, that Fran Mainella' s administration,
you know, has sort of increased the emphasis on security
issues and law enforcement issues?
A: Yes.
Q: Someone told me the other day that he thought there was a
problem in that Congress and OMB [Office of Management and
Budget]as well probably haven't in the past viewed the
National Park Service as a law enforcement agency or viewed
the Department of the Interior as a law enforcement agency.
And therefore, when it came to divvying up the pie, the
money for things like security and law enforcement that we
didn't get.
A: I couldn't possibly speak to what the intent of Congress
would be in that or how they would do things. I know that
I can tell you emphatically that many of the folks in
Congress, many of the Senators and Congressmen on the
Interior Appropriations Committee have supported us 100
percent in getting aircraft. So somebody up there thinks
it's important enough to do that. I mean Congress,
literally, has supplied this department with its fleet of
aircraft, special appropriations, and in seeing that these
things are funded properly to operate. So in that regard,
20
Q:
yes, they do see that as an important function or they
wouldn't be appropriating eight and a half million dollars
at a time to do it. As to what the entity of the
Appropriations Committee, how they view Interior, I don't
know.
Well, I didn't really mean it that narrowly. Just to
rephrase, whether you think there's enough, whether it's
public perception, enough of an understanding that the
National Park Service and Interior Department do perform
these missions? I mean people think of the Park Service
and they think of Park Rangers and they think of beautiful
scenery. And I guess I'm talking about a level of awareness
whether
A: Well, I guess subjectively speaking and only an opinion
after being on the Park Service for 30 years, is I think
that the Park Service's view of that has been that way for
a long time.
Q: Okay.
A: I mean I've had an opportunity, a very nice opportunity
over years to talk to most all of the Secretaries, because
we transport them in the aircraft. And most of them, for
the large part are just down to earth people, like you and
21
I, and we'll sit there and share their opinions. I know
the current Secretary absolutely believes that there is an
important law enforcement mission within the Department of
Interior.
Again, I think the Park Service's traditional view is that
the interpretive Ranger, and the beautiful scenery, and
tourists picnicking in the park, and that's what we're here
for. But, and this is where thinking might part a little
bit, but we also have to insure that that's going to remain
that way. It's going to remain pristine.
you're going to have to enforce the laws.
And that means
And the further
we get along the timeline here, the more crowded these
parks are, and with people comes crime. And now we have
to add in terrorism into the big mixing bowl, and holey
mackerel, now what have you got? You've got a real mess.
And somebody a long time ago had the wisdom to give a
Ranger a gun. And thank goodness for it, because the law
enforcement Rangers are pretty much out there by themselves
in some of these other bigger parks. And along came the
Park Police. Actually, George Washington formed us back in
1786 and we've been here ever since. Changed names a few
times, because the national parks have moved in closer to
the cities, and with that, you're going to have to have
22
almost like a city type police department to deal with the
crimes, the drugs, and everything else that's in the park.
And it's a difficult pill for the Park Service to swallow,
and I understand that, to make the admission, yes, there's
crime in our parks, but there is. And the goal is to try
to keep it out or at least under control. So now we have
terrorism. And we have targets? You bet we have targets.
We have some grand targets that they would love to make a
statement, not only here, I mean all over the country. So.
Q: Which leads me to my final question. I just wondered if you
had, I mean you shared a few things just now. But any other
thoughts on what we learned from this response? From the
response, not from the attack, itself, but the way the Park
Service, or the aviation unit, or you, personally, learned.
What might you have done differently?
A: Here's what I know after being an employee of the
government for 30 years. We'll wait and see. Everybody is
reacting to a recent event. Will we have learned anything?
Ask me a year from now and I'll tell you.
23
Q: Okay. That's a valid point. Well, I appreciate you taking
the time to talk to me.
A: Sure.
END OF INTERVIEW
24
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11TH ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with
ROBERT R. MARTIN
Chief Ranger, Northeast Region
Conducted by
Janet McDonnell, Ph.D.
February 5, 2002
Washington, D.C.
TAPE ONE SIDE A
Q: It's February 5, 2002, and I am here with Bob Martin who is
the regional chief ranger for the Northeast Region. We're
here today at the Main Interior Building to talk about the
September 11 terrorist attacks and the aftermath. Probably
the best place to start is for you to tell me how you first
learned about the attack and what your immediate response
was.
A: I had had about an hour long meeting with our local park
police captain, Jimmy Moore, in my office. And we kind of
made the decision that okay, that's long enough for any
meeting and he had left to go over to his [office] . And
within a matter of seconds, he was back in my office. I
remember joking with him saying, 'Jimmy, I love you man,
but I've got to get some work done." He said, 'Boss, you
need to come over." I said, 'Jimmy, come on." You know
sometimes we have little tricks and little things that we
do in our office, kind of camaraderie. And he said, 'No,
seriously. You need to come over and look at this."
Whenever I got over to the little conference room that they
had, the television was on. And I was looking at the first
tower that had been hit, the smoke that was billowing up.
I
And a group had gathered there, a number of agents, the
Park Police captain, myself, and a couple other folks from
nearby and we were just kind of, a little bewildered. You
know, what was this? What happened? Gee, that's quite a
beautiful day for a plane to just go off course, you know,
and hit a tower. And then a few minutes after that a
second plane had hit the towers and we realized this was
something that was, obviously, terrorism oriented.
And it was interesting tCl just kind of go back just a
little bit. I just had been hired as the new regional
chief ranger. The position had been vacant for about seven
years. And all of my group, the folks that are in Boston,
and the folks that are in Philadelphia had just had a
retreat the last week in August up in Roosevelt-Vanderbilt.
And we talked about all of the things that we needed to do,
what we were doing right, what we needed to pay more
attention to. And we made the decision there that we really
needed to have a person focused on terrorism, physical
security and personnel security. Just in that we decided
that was the major void just given the realities of the
world and the way things were. And the next week I moved
into my house and the following week was 9/11. So we had
just made the organizational decision that one of the park
2
Q:
police captains up in Boston would actually serve as the
counter terrorism physical security secc:tion for the region.
So after we went through with our initial shock of this
whole thing, we started to just ask questions. Me, being
new to the region, I was quickly asking some of the others,
okay, what is the normal protocol for this sort of thing?
What is the emergency operations plan? Jimmy Moore had
been new also. He had only been in the office about a month
longer than I. So we just kind of started just
brainstorming about what kind of things needed to be done.
We actually established a quick little incident command
team there using the staff that had, you know, that will
teach people to come into the office and watch the
television. We ended up with folks from interpretations
and operations, and then our little group there, the law
enforcement group. And we set up an incident command post
there.
So what sort of issues were you discussing?
needs were you highlighting at that point?
What sort of
A: Well, one, we knew in New York, we have an awful lot of
park units in the immediate area, so we were trying to get
an idea of what kind of, how close is that to park units?
3
What kind of issues should we be thinking of, be aware of?
How do we go about contacting folks? At the time Marie
Rust had been out of state at a, I think it was a general
superintendents' conference, something that she was down in
the southeast somewhere. And Dale Ditmanson, who is the
associate regional director for operations, was off. So we
were just kind of starting by the seat of our pants, to
where we should go and what we should do.
And so we started, I called Washington and talked to the
chief ranger down here, just to get a feel for, if he has
any thoughts, if there was any indications of what else
might be going on. I continued to watch the television.
We just started formulating a strategy of okay, if there is
a decision made to close parks and we'll start doing it in
such a manner. We ended up spending a little bit of time
just trying to figure out a grand plan. About that time,
Dale Ditmanson came in from being off at his home. And he
talked a little bit more of a long term strategy, but not
sure exactly how this is going to relate, but maybe we
ought to think about activating our Northeast Regional Risk
Management Team and put them on standby or just go ahead
and alert them that we would like for them to come in and
help manage the incident.
4
-Shortly thereafterr we sta:c-ted hearing -indications o:E-- other
things that were going on, like the Pentagon, the Flight 93
aftermath. So we started hearing from the Park Service that
then there was going to be a shutdown, and so we helped
with notifications of the shutdown. I sent out an email
message to all of the chief rangers, just to heighten their
awareness that this has happened, to be thinking about what
steps they should take to help facilitate an evacuation of
the parks, and also to secure the parks, and what types of
thing that they should be looking at, thinking of. And that
this isn't, obviously, operation normal.
So we ended up being involved in making phone calls and
helping out with different things. We asked all of the
parks to report their available resources, thinking that
maybe we'd start getting calls to actually send rangers and
or equipment to different places to help out with the
incident. And it's hard to imagine, but by that time the
day was just pretty much shot. We made a decision that
myself and Jimmy Moore would stay over in the command post
that night and just be available, not knowing whether we
would have more terrorist incidents and whether it would
involve national parks and all.
5
Th& other folks- left. We started getting a fair amount of
press. We set up an information officer, one of our
interpreters, our managers, had volunteered to help out
with public affairs. So we were fielding some calls.
There were different things that were coming in about, are
the park service areas going to be used as mortuaries. We
started hearing information about the Federal Hall and the
ranger that was there that was pulling people in off of the
streets and giving them first aid. We got a hold of the
Park Police and we asked the Park Police if they would be
able to send some people over to help that one lone
protection ranger that works there at Federal Hall and that
we knew had hundreds of people there. Some needed first
aid. There was an issue of caring for that group. It's
just literally right around the corner from Ground Zero.
So the Park Police said, yes, they would send some folks
over. We heard some reports about some damage to Federal
Hall.
And so we overnighted. There wasn't an awful lot that
happened, just a lot of general information. And then in
the wee hours in the morning, a call came from Shenandoah
saying the decision had been made to reopen the parks. So
6
we then facilitated notification of all of the parks
through a phone tree with superintendents- of the different
sites.
Q: Before we go to the next day, I'd like to ask a couple of
questions. Were you also seeking information about NPS
personnel in that first afternoon?
A: We had asked. There were general messages about accounting
for your people and what not.
Q: As well as what's the status of your resources, or was that
part of it at all?
A: Yes, we weren't too terribly concerned about other than
Manhattan Sites was the only facility in our region that
was kind of right there and impacted by it. We did make
them contact if there was anybody that was missing that
type of thing. And folks were reporting back that everybody
was accounted for. And so we weren't terribly concerned.
It was just the Manhattan Site that was right there. There
were other sites that are around the Federal Hall, but we
knew the ranger was okay, and we had communications and
were hearing from them, but then there was nothing
reported. We weren't overly concerned with any personnel.
7
Q: And also you mentioned that one of the first things you did
in that- e&rly period - [was]- that you contacted Dennis
Burnett. My question is, with phone lines down in the
Washington area, how were you communicating with, how much
of a challenge was that?
getting through.
I guess some incoming calls were
A: There was initially no problem. Obviously, then when I
really started evacuating everyone, but this was still all
of the New York stuff was playing out. I don't think the
Pentagon had really played out yet. It was just kind of
immediate, did you see that yet? Yes. Okay, I need cto
send out a message to the parks, you know, the heads up
kind of thing.
Q: What kind of guidance were you receiving from Dale
Ditmanson or from WASO other than, we need information
about the status of park units?
A: Nothing more than that there was going to be a general
closedown, so really nothing much from Washington. Really,
I think things were starting to crank up here and all of
the full-bore activity related to events here. Dale was
just more of a, okay, let's think about this. Let's get
some professionals to come in and help. We're going to have
to bridge things in the interim, serve as the
8
communications wing for the northeast. And there was
i-nteracting- w-ith- Shenandoah during- the night; touching base
on a few things. They had received a few calls of
suspicious nature that we found interesting and we passed
that information on to the FBI. Interestingly enough,
relating to folks that were seen in south Florida, that
weeks later the investigation ended up centered in to the
folks down in south Florida.
Q: I heard that.
A: So the info was just passed on to the FBI and we just let
them handle that. And just a few general touch base calls
going into the wee hours of the morning.
Q: How would you assess communication? It sounds like you are
saying they were pretty effective. You were able to get the
information you needed and convey it. Is that accurate?
A: Some of the phone systems up in the New York area were out.
And with that, I think a few of the email systems had
failed. So I wouldn't say that it was perfect by any means.
And to rely on phones or rely on email is not really the
best. I mean obviously it would be better if we just had
an ability to push a switch and talk to people on the radio
throughout about what was going on.
9
Q: Did you -have -the GET-S card the-- Government Emergency
Telecommunications System were you keyed into that?
A: No.
Q: Also you talked a little bit about the initial planning.
Does the region have a continuity operations plan? Is that
something you pulled out and looked at?
A: We looked at that for both the support office and for the
region. But most of that kind of relates to something
happening to the regional office. And since this really
didn't affect a closure of the regional office other than
the administrative closure, people being sent home, it
really didn't have a whole lot of bearing on this event as
it was transpiring. We called in an IT [Information
Technology] specialist to help set up a command center with
this all Risk Management Team that were coming in, the Type
2 Team. We thought it would be best for them to really
have adequate facilities where you could spread out and
work. So we converted one of the training rooms there in
the Philadelphia support office into a command post. And
one of the IT specialists came in and worked most of the
night getting in all of the computers and telephones and
all of that stuff set up, so whenever the team came in they
10
were just ready to go right into their space and start

Q: I read somewhere that you were the incident commander until
the team arrived. Is that accurate?
A: Yes, that's what we had determined.
Q: I'm just sort of looking for the basics here as to how the
team was mobilized. Is that something that you sent a
message to Shenandoah or how does that happen?
A: Yes. Actually, we had had a discussion with Dale as soon as
he arrived. We had called Rick Brown, who is the incident
commander for that team. And we talked to him about what
was going on, what our thoughts were. Should we, shouldn't
we. Is this overkill? We didn't know how it was going to
play out. And then we just ultimately decided that let's go
ahead with this team.
He had a short team. I don't believe he had a--I want to
say he was short an admin person, and maybe a, yes, but we
didn't have the full complement, a full Type 2 Team. So
yes, then we asked Shenandoah to actually affect the
callout of the group. Several team members were actually
from the Shenandoah. Paul Pfenninger and Chester Mikus.
11
And I had worked with them during my time at Shenandoah so
__ -it -was good- to-- know who was coming in and --I -had known Rick
Brown from my days at the district ranger at Shenandoah. So
it's good to know that now the reinforcements were coming.
Again, we really didn't have any idea of what the long term
implications of any of this and of, would there be possibly
additional events.
Q: Were there any challenges in bringing them in? Maybe they
could all get there by car, because the planes were
grounded?
A: No, there was, they would all just do driving. And we had
communications with them, where we made reservations for
them, where we would need them, and what the plan was, and
that sort of thing. They arrived, and then Jimm',! and I
after some briefings and what not, we went home and it was
a pretty long, it was like 28 hours or something we had
been at work. And I remember walking out and going down
along Independence Park and out onto Market Street and
there was a jet flying overhead.
And we had had conversations with the folks here in D.C.
and they said that they had just had a scare. A plane had
made a sharp turn from up in around Canada, and it was
12
heading south and they had no idea of what its intentions
were or -whatever, what- i-ts destination would-- be-. -And I
remember walking down Market Street and hearing a jet
overhead. I remember kind of looking up and I looked around
and everybody else was doing the same thing. It's like all
of a sudden, out of all of the noise and hubbub of downtown
Philadelphia, we're aware of this one jet that's up in the
sky.
So the time after that was just kind of liaisoning with the
Incident Command Team, touching base with them every day,
starting to formulate some strategies for the parks. The
icon parks were kind of established as being potential high
risk areas, particularly the Statue,
Boston.
Independence and
Q: How was that determination made? Or had it previously been
made, the determination as to which parks were considered
icon parks?
A: We actually had, Fort McHenry was doing some additional
security. Sandy Hook was doing some as well. sandy Hook,
because they're next to the Earl(?) Weapons Station. And
Minute Man was doing some additional security, because
they're next to an Air Force base up there where there was
13
a common boundary that did not have a fence with an
agreement that the Park Service- has- w-ith the Air Force- that
there's a trail system that goes right through there. So
they asked the Air Force not to put a fence up.
Q: So there had been some thought previously as to which units
might be more at risk than others?
A: No, I wouldn't want to say that. I think it was just kind
of a, the days were kind of moving along and we started
having direct contact with the different chief rangers and
what not. There was some decision, and I can't tell you
exactly when it happened, that there were certain hard
identified icons from DOI's opinion. And in talking to
Steve Calvery at a meeting on gth of January this year, he
said that that was based on a survey that had been done in
the mid-90's where threat assessments were done on federal
facilities and then all of these kind of rolled up into a
big list, a big master list of what are really the number
one priority for these at the Interior Department.
Q: Who is Steve Calvery?
A: He's the director for law enforcement and security at
Interior.
14
Q: So it was a combination of sort of established areas of
concern and then the unfolding s-ituatien.--
A: Yes.
Q: Okay, great.
A: And I can't do a real breakdown day-by-day.
Q: Oh, no, no, sure.
A: Just subsequent, but there's an awful lot of ...
Q: I imagine it is sort of a blur at one point.
A: There was an awful lot of concern over do we have the right
kind of security, like in Boston we're hearing little bits
and pieces of somebody looks like they're profiling the
park of middle eastern descent. Another group of folks
were arrested right outside of the park, who had connection
with other folks who had been arrested by the FBI. And
different little bits and pieces of Intel, and then working
with the different parks to get, kind of get them support
and clearly they could only do so much with their existing
staff. So then we started to spend time on mobilizing
resources from outside of the area in to help those areas.
15
Q: Actually, I'd enjoy hearing about that process a little
bit, the procedures for-identifying needs- and then shifting
resources both within the region and bringing resources in
from outside. Is there any set process for that?
A: Initially, we were just making due with what we had. But
then it became clear that we needed to really get- I mean
people were starting to work really long shifts. They were
starting to burn out. I'm talking like in a course of a
week or two. We had been trying to have some interactions
with the different teams that had been set up here in
Washington, but there really wasn't a whole lot of really
like, "follow me boys" kind of stuff. There wasn't a lot of
leadership that came out of that group. And from what I
understand, just to plop the Incident Command Team down in
the middle of all of these different bureaucracies and
different ways that people do business, some people are
comfortable with incident command, other people aren't.
Some understand.
and stuff.
Some don't. There are phobias of control
From my perspective we never really had the true leadership
out of Washington. And that's not to be damning on anybody.
But I mean we were asking things like, okay, where' s the
intelligence data? What do we have to go by? What kind of
16
things are we using to make our decisions on staffing and
coverage? What - al:'e the- threats that are-- out- there?-- We
never really got an awful lot of that. And so we ended up
bringing in some agents from within our own region and we
put them into this counter terrorism task force that had
been set up in Philadelphia and Boston, one, to do our part
to help with facilitating the information flow into these
places. There were just hundreds of calls coming in
constantly about different possible suspects, different
things. Different, can you follow up on this or that, I
think our neighbors, a lot of that kind of stuff. Plus we
figured that by just having some agents there, if there was
anything that came through intelligence-wise that could
potentially affect one of our park units, that we thought
the information would quickly to, hey, we've got a park
unit over here. Let's get that.
TAPE ONE SIDE B
Q: I did want to ask you about interaction with other
agencies. I assume there was some coordination with say
the FBI, local law enforcement, and that kind of thing.
And you were just mentioning the special agents were well
17
able to communicate then with their counterparts in those
other- agencies.--
A: Right, because they're trained investigators. They just
have a natural ability to get into and understand, and talk
the language. They're kind of a good match for these
counter-terrorism task forces that are really a mish mash
of all of the different federal agencies that are placed in
some of the larger cities across the country. And then they
basically filter through incoming calls, develop
intelligence, develop leads, go out and investigate
particular issues.
merits additional.
Try to confirm if in fact this person
Q: Who would they feed that back to, the parks as well, the
parks that maybe had initially reported an incident or
suspicious situation or something like that?
A: That was part of their charge, was to bring information in.
There wasn't an awful lot that was generated from parks
because things had been quiet, thank goodness, for post
9/11. But, yes, that was part of that, to put things into
the system and then to help out with information and to be
there should information need to come out so that we could
put it out in a timely manner.
18
Q: Was there, we were talking this whole area of shifting
resources -and -in-- you-r-- case,-- I guess,- primarily ranger
resources to meet their requirements within the region.
And I was wondering if you encountered some reluctance on
the part of parks or park superintendents to release those
A:
resources because, I suppose primarily because the
situation was so uncertain and they wouldn't necessarily
know whether there might be future threats against their
own parks. Or did you find park superintendents really
willing to say, yes, take what you need?
I think, initially, most of the parks already had
established relationships with other parks in their
vicinity. So Boston, obviously, had a direct relationship
with Minute Man, with Cape Cod, with Springfield, the parks
that are in their surrounding areas. Similarly,
Independence already had a relationship with Valley Forge,
and Gettysburg, and Assateague. So I think the initial
response was simply professional chief rangers just sending
resources to help out. And I don't recall much grousing on
the part of superintendents. I think they all were aware
that this is just trying times and we can be in this boat
needing these kinds of things as well.
19
A bit later on, things changed a bit as SET teams were
going_ otLt on- their thir-d or---fourth- rotat-ion and they were
kind of being overused, and there was concern about their
health and well-being. And s o ~ ~ superintendents definitely
started holding back from that. So just their overall
coordination aspects, we were making due there for sometime
and then we realized that we needed to get a larger pool of
people to help out. And Shenandoah served as the central
hub to do what they have done for years in the fire
program, to get bodies to where they need to be in order to
accomplish the mission. So they did a really good job of
helping us. The parks would keep in touch with Shenandoah,
what the needs were, when the rotations would be, and so we
were kind of running with it on a local basis, a regional
basis.
And then it kind of quickly got to the point where there
were a lot of resources across the country that were
starting to have needs, and elsewhere outside of our region
there were really large programs that were developing
namely at the BOR dam sites, some of the major dams. And
their needs were large, I mean like 15 and 20 rangers. Here
at the BOR Main Interior Building, there were a large
number of things that were needed.
20
So the regional chief rangers got to talking and I had been
asked by them to come in and work with- Rick-- Gale,- who -was
putting together the initial strategic assessments of the
National Park Service. And it was interesting because,
actually, there are several other things to talk about, but
anyhow, working with Rick over the Columbus Day weekend,
holiday weekend, and we developed this strategic assessment
of where we were, how we could affectively allocate
resources on a very large scale. Interior was trying to do
things where they were just directly calling parks, trying
to do the best they could with the system that they had in
place, but it was kind of fumbling and it wasn't very
efficient. And so to Rick Gale's credit, they brought a
group of people together and said, "Let's try to come up
with a better way of doing business."
Q: Is this some multi-region coordinating group?
A: Yes, right. That was the result. So a bunch of us went
out to Denver, had meetings, training, and then the
following week we actually started working on allocation of
resources. We started spending time getting familiar with
everybody's site, what the issues were, and we developed a
priority criteria so that we could deal with effectively
based on threats and risks, potential for loss of property
21
and life, and assimilate all of that into a fashion. Then
_we __ could -make rea-lly- informed deci-sions -as- to what -with
limited resources are truly the highest priorities for
these sites that we were assigned to look at.
And since then it's just been a really cool situation.
We've brought in the national fire dispatching community
and they do that all of the time for fire. And they have
individual coordination centers that are set up across the
country that our rangers and our chief rangers are very
used to dealing with, because that's how they feed rangers
into the fire fighting system. So here they're just using
the same system to feed protection rangers into the
homeland security system.
So things have been working out well. We at first had
conferences calls everyday. We're down to a one-hour
conference call on Mondays and Thursdays. We're focusing a
lot of our energies now on trying to get all of these sites
some type of permanent staffing situation so that then we
can get out of having detailees going into the different
sites.
22
One of t he things I wanted to mention was we set up a
..... - ---- meeting, . I -think -it was Friday after 9/11; with some--of--the
New York Harbor. They were having a general superintendents
meet ing up there and a number of us drove. As we we re
getting ready to leave downtown Philly, we had gotten a
request from Paul Anderson, who' s the deputy regional
director up in Alaska. And, apparently, .(b)(6) I
want to say (b )(6) , I'm not certain of the name . I think it
was (15 (6) She was actually in the tower, training. And
she was stuck in downtown New York, in that all of the
bridges and everything were closed. And Paul asked if there
was someway we might be able to get her out to another
airport so that she could get home.
And so we coordinated with the Park Police . And the Park
Pol ice sent a couple of officers up, picked her up, threw
her on a boat, drove her across the harbor, and we brought
her out. She has a very interesting story. I don' t know i f
you've heard it, but s he was on the sixty something floor
of the second tower and she made it out. A friend of h ers
was not so lucky . And so there's an interesting family
story there . I called Paul that eveni ng, whenever I made it
home, and said, \\You've got a good one here. She s eems
23
like she's doing well with it." Paul was very appreciative
o-f -what- the E'ark-PoJ.ic:e and- we--had done.
Q: Can you tell me some ways that rangers provided support to
Park Police? I guess the reason I'm asking is that when we
talked to Einar Olsen, he said that usually it's the other
way around. The situation is reversed. But in this event,
at least in the National Capital Region, that the rangers
in terms of helping protect the monuments and such, the
rangers really filled in behind the Park Police. And I
wondered how that might have been in your region as well.
A: The only thing that comes to mind for us was that the Fire
Island National Seashore sent over rangers in a patrol boat
to help with the effective closures in the New York Harbor.
And they interfaced with the Park Police patrol operations,
and basically provided security all around the Statue,
Ellis Island, and helped with the closure the whole bay
there. So they were literally right there at Ground Zero.
There's a lot of really amazing pictures that were taken
during those tours with the Park Police, Park Ranger boats,
and with the backdrop of the former towers smoldering.
Q: Did you see any new roles, unique roles for Park Rangers in
the aftermath of this event?
24
A: Well, I think that we've definitely rallied to the need for
homeland- securit-y.-- -W-ith-- the Bureau- of Rec-lamation not
really having a law enforcement program, except the only
site I think they have is Hoover, Hoover Dam, with the
police .department. We've definitely been working closely
with them on those most significant, high threat, high risk
dams, six of them right now where we're providing a lot of
rangers and resources to them, too.
I think, and it's interesting I had a conversation with
Marie [Rust]about this when she came back from her tour in
New York. And people look differently at their protection
staffs now. She felt that. She definitely felt it when she
met with the ranger that was up in Federal Hall. The
rangers, the multi-skilled folks that they are, you know,
they're the medics, the fire fighters, the search and
rescue people, and law enforcement officers. And I think
that we went through a time there when everybody was not
very secure in their personal being, their workplace. And I
think just the presence of a protection ranger, knowing
that they're there probably made people more conscious and
aware of rangers than ever before. All of them had been
given instructions to maintain a high profile, to be out
there and looking. This isn't the time to be working on
25
reports. We need to really be in a high profile. And so
_ Eve-heard--that--from a-number--of -folks--that they definitely
feel differently about protection rangers.
Q: That they inspired a new sense of security?
A: Well, that they are there and that is part of their
mission. And many parks participated in additional training
for their people. Some of the directions we put out to the
parks, this is the good time to dust off your continuity of
operations plan, update your emergency operations plan,
your bomb plan, and more importantly to make sure all of
your employees are aware of what they're to do as their
part and role in these various op plans and emergencies.
Q: It's actually a renewed emphasis on the law enforcement
aspect, the security and the protection aspect of the
general ranger mission. Is that part of it?
A: Yes, that's part of it.
Q: Interesting. What are the unique uses of park properties
as a result of this then?
A: I know there was debris taken to some of the, there was a
field up there they were using to take a lot of debris to.
There was actually quite a bit of discussion about, I think
26
it was Ellis, could they possibly use it as a temporary
-I- denLt:c - thi-nk--tha-to --it- e-veE -was-,-- but - there was
quite a bit of press interest in that. And then the
unfortunate incident of that plane that lost its tail and
crashed right there near Jamaica Bay and park employees
were some of the first on scene at that.
tail in Jamaica Bay, within the park.
They found the
But I'm not familiar with, whenever I started to really get
active on this national level with the multi-regional
coordination group, the assessment with Dale and what not,
Dale kind of assumed the role of really being the leader as
it related to the Statue operations and the greater New
York Harbor operations, because this national thing was
just getting to the point where it was just a major in your
face all day long, kind of an endeavor. You had to rally
the resources and figure out the systems to insure that we
were communicating and facilitating things. So I kind of
focused on the national and then him, being in Boston, Dale
really spent time, and appropriately so, especially with
the Secretary of the Interior really wanting to get the
lady back up and open and that was definitely a priority.
27
Q: Is there a sense that ranger resources have been stretched
too.thin?
A: Well, yes, we've had a number of studies that told we were
woefully inadequately staffed before 9/11. And it just
exacerbated the situation clearly whenever we have events
and start pulling resources out of parks to meet this
national need. I had conversations with Marie when she
returned back from her New York trip and briefed her on a
number of things. And she asked me to attend an NLC
[National Leadership Council] conference call later that
day.
I just thought I would be sitting there, you know,
listening and maybe giving her a little advice or
something. And she asked me to brief the director on what
it was that we had to say and it was basically that that we
have inadequate numbers of rangers. We really don't have a
real understanding of what the National Park Service wants
from us, as far as what is the National Park Service's
posture in this period of war on terrorism. As the
attorney general is declaring law enforcement is on the
highest state of alert. We have countless terrorists still
in country. We really weren't sure of what was wanted of
us as to help with that whole national law enforcement
28
Q:
emergency. And that we really needed to give some attention
--to--and- develop --a plan- for -our' response-, -
And so out of that came National Emergency Response Plan
that the regional chiefs authored. And it's a spin off of,
and I actually plagiarized quite a bit of, the strategic
assessment that I was working here with that group with
Dale. And out of that, we have the five levels of
emergency response. It has an appendix that relates to the
terrorism incident, but its written in a general fashion so
that the director can declare levels of response based on
what's happening throughout the system or the nation, and
then we can start making conscious decisions on what impact
this will have on our parks. And a spin off of that then
was the draw down plan that each park was asked to figure
out what they could do without in order to meet the
greater, for the service to the nation.
Did you ever have any information, even anecdotal
information, that either natural or cultural resources in
the parks in the region were at risk at all as a result of
this shortage of ranger resources?
A: Resource protection has always been an issue for me as a
professional all of my career. We've always had to focus
29
so much time and energy on the public safety operations
- ------------ beeause- o-f visita-tion gEow-ing-- the-- way- -it- was,--t-he---tln-its
growing the way it was, and with that demands for taking
care of the public. Resource protection was always
something we did as a side bar or something when we, catch
as catch can. And I've always had problems with that if
we're the premier resource protection agency, if you will.
When you look at our mandate, and our mission, it's like
nothing else in federal government. And so I've always had
a concern that we've never really done what is needed to
adequately protect resources. Even to the point that I did
a little rabble rousing in my earlier days of trying to get
the agency to take more seriously.
Part of that comes with money. It comes with staffing, and
it comes with a real attempt to take care of the resources
because what we have is extremely valuable, not just the
cultural resources and if their lost and their gone forever
which is traumatic enough, but there's a market value for
just about every natural resource that we have in the
system. And so, yes, apparently we have real concern with
the resource protection that wasn't going on, the things
that we weren't doing.
30
And park chiefs were calling me saying, gee, you know, if I
.. -mee-t - this-. dr ve
anybody out during the midnight shift to try to catch the
poachers or, you know, we've got archaeological resources
that really need to have adequate protection. So we've been
very concerned actually to the point where we're going to
get our public affairs-type person work with the multi-
regional coordination group and actually start, to try to
develop the stories of what is it that aren't getting done
as we're meeting this homeland security mission.
TAPE TWO SIDE A
Q: Just to talk a little bit more about the impact of having
to draw these rangers more into security issues and the
dilemma in protecting the resources as well.
A: Well, the rangers are traditionally the eyes and ears of
the park, I think even to the point resource managers a lot
of times will depend on rangers who are out there
observing, seeing change, detecting things like these
plants or this tree being cut, or these blood stains,
obviously, a deer had been taken or whatever. And so it
just goes without saying that if you already are short and
then you take and you split that even by more and take more
31
of those folks out into this national security situation
that- much awaTe 0-f is
going on. I think everybody has the gut feeling that we
definitely have lost natural resources over the period. I
mean it received a lot of press, a lot of airtime.
And we did have a report of a particular art(?) thief that
was casing one of the sites up in the northeast about the
same time that all of this press about rangers are going
out, are out elsewhere, which we found very interesting. We
found a way to increase the security for that site.
Nonetheless it was a concern.
Q: So it's all part of the cost, whatever that total cost is
of the response?
A: Well, during that NLC conference call, I remember Marie,
she just leaned into the phone after--we were talking about
well, why don't we try to get addressed to the staffing
issue now? We have report after report that says it. And I
remember somebody in the background here in Washington on
that conference call says, "Well, if you feel that strongly
about it, you can go ahead and reprogram your 03 money or
your 02 money." And Marie leaned right into the phone and
said, "We're going to look at different ways of getting
32
Q:
things done up here. And if it takes that, then we'll do
_ Lt.fl ___ And_being_ a_ new__gU--- tO-- the-region, -I -was-- pretty
impressed with Marie to take that position and feel
strongly about it.
Which brings me to the issue of funding. As I understood
it, there is no emergency authorization, no pot of money
that the Park Service could go to, to fund some of these
things. How did the region, or at least ranger activities,
how did you do this?
A: Well, we just did it, initially. I mean we just figured
that if nothing else we could get emergency law and order
account or some other way. And at some point, you just have
to not worry about that in order to do the job. And then we
can always go back and figure out a way to pay for it.
There was a definite move within two weeks of the 9/11
event. A lot of activity trying to figure out, okay, what
kind of money should we be requesting, going in for a
supplemental request from Congress? And so we were feeling
good about it. If these things fly, then this is how we'll
pay for them.
And so we instructed all of the parks in our region to set
up a holding account, basically, and just start charging as
33
if you had it. Just betting on the come that this is
.unlike_ aiLything--else-tha-t-we--fat:ed-in---t.he- -coun-try,-- in the
history of the country as far as a foreign attack goes, you
know, of this kind of a dimension. And so we just figured
the money would be found to do it. So we really encouraged
the parks to really state what they need, really get what
they need, because if you try to run these kinds of
programs on a shoestring budget, it ends up being run on
the backs of the employees, because there isn't enough of
them. They're not getting adequate relief, breaks, lunch
breaks, or they're not being able to adequately really
cover the site. So either we do it right or we do it half,
and half really isn't acceptable for national icons.
And then lo and behold, the money did arrive. We're still
kind of running on a wing and a prayer as it relates to the
BOR sites, but we're in the process of developing general
agreements. They're getting funding for their operations
from Congress so we should have those things whole as well
down the road.
Q: Do you think that there might be a greater awareness in
Congress of the Park Service's law enforcement mission,
national security mission, as a result of all of this?
34
A:
Q:
Maybe that might equate to additional funding. Are you
optimi-stic--about -that- a-t--al-1?-- --- -----------------------
I'm very optimistic. I guess as far as Interior goes, the
National Park Service is the only agency that has a
definitive public safety mission written right into its
legislation, as well as a definitive resource protection
mission, and to serve the public. So as I understand it,
the Department of Interior has briefed the Homeland
Security Agency on what it is that we're doing, our efforts
in a number of ways. And all indications are from a
meeting that the regional chiefs had with a number of the
directors was that they're very pleased with what we've
done, and what we continue to do, and the way we're going
about doing it. That we should be hopefully looking good.
It's an opportunity to share the message that we've had a
number of outside reports done on the Park Service now, and
specifically on the law enforcement program. And if it's
ever going to get fixed, I can't think of a better backdrop
then to fix it than now.
Well, just to get to the end here. What are some of the
lessons do you think you've learned from this event, from
your perspective on the regional level and your involvement
in this agency-wide planning?
35
A: I guess at the department level, we really need to have
. ___ -----them. full-:t---uti-1-ize--the- inc-ident command-system.---It-"-s--just
Q:
A:
a way on an interagency basis to manage an incident and
free the managers up from the day-to-day stuff so that they
can effectively manage and do their programs and deal with
the things that really need to be done and let the incident
commanders with their delegation of authority run the
incidents.
I constantly see a tear in the hall for the law enforcement
security folks where they're dealing with these day-to-day
things that they really could focus more on their budget
and developing the new program, and kind of positioning the
Interior Department to meet its role in homeland security
much better if they didn't have to deal with a lot of the
nitty gritty day-to-day operations.
Is that what the Type 2 Team did for you? I mean did they
take care of that, the daily reporting business,
information sharing business?
Yes. They briefed, they handled questions, and they
fielded things. They would get things. They would do an
awful lot of even decision making, right up to where
something might be a policy issue, not sure if we can go
36
there kind of a thing and then they would just run it by
_____ us_. __ BuLyes,- L-f-elt--and--- saw- the--benefits -of -having--that
very thing. It sounds like for whatever reason that didn't
work here [in Washington) really well, but I think it might
be time to give that a new try. I think the just
willingness of the regional chiefs to just belly up and
just figure out how can we make this, how can we make
something out of all of this madness and chaos, and I think
we have. I think we've done good stuff. The great unknown
is, what's next?
Right now in the off season, we're meeting the demands that
the Park Service has, what's been put on us, to help
coordinate these different details. We have an additional
110 folks at the Olympics this month. So that's 110
resources we don't have. Many of them are Special Event
team members, rangers that are skilled in specialty law
enforcement skills that are there at the Olympics so
they're not here as an available resource to send out. And
so there's a real concern that luckily, if there is such a
thing as lucky with a terrorism event, that it happened in
the off season for us so we could put additional rangers.
The parks would definitely feel the impact, as will the
communi ties when they lose a person who may have run on
37
their ambulance squad. A person who may be a volunteer
- f i r ~ fighter-, -folks wh0 g0- Gut-and-bae-k--up-E-he--loeal- po4cce
departments on incidents, which is all of the things that
we do.
But if this continues on, we're definitely going to have to
figure a way to get out of these assignments because summer
is coming, spring fire season is right around the corner,
and heaven forbid another incident, because I'm really just
amazed that we haven't had a little continuum of little
terrorism events, because that would really rock the United
States. I mean not to say that the horrendous events that
happened weren't enough, but I just can't imagine the
country with a lot of little ..
Q: There may have been a lot of events that were precluded,
that we managed to stave off.
A: And the other thing is just the shear intelligence and
interface with the intelligence community. I still to this
day, one eye blind, whenever it comes to, we're not getting
the information and then with that, the folks on the ground
aren't getting the information. And so we hear things in
newscasts that relate directly to sites that we're
38
Q:
protecting, but we don't have any knowledge of what's
.. really--known-abaut-those-si-tes-.- --- ---- ------ --- ----- --
Where should that link occur? How, in the best of all
possible worlds, how should that have come to you?
A: I think we either need to get some dedicated resources in
the intelligence community and do like we did with the task
forces on a local basis. And I've had conversations since
I've been here on this detail with the Interior folks of
just saying, to have every bureau try to get into this main
FBI center is probably not the best way to go about it, but
there definitely should be a link so that information that
comes out, it can be packaged in terms of declassified,
non-specifics of source, but nonetheless to give heads up
to folks at dam sites, like the incident commanders at dam
sites. If there are things that are known out there, we
should be able to get them the stuff. They dang sure should
hear it from us before they hear it from the press. It's
just--these folks are putting their personal lives aside to
facilitate security for these places.
we really need to fix.
39
It's something that
Q: Is there anything you would have done differently? I mean
i_t sounds_ like __ there- were- certa-in- things-- you had -no -control
over that you might have wished were different. But ...
A: There are days I wished I was back at Redwood National
State Parks, because little did I know that it was going to
be so much so fast. And there are so many programs that
I'm not giving any attention to whatsoever, because we're
still dedicated to these things. But they're vital things
and I think we, as an agency, are continuing to serve these
multi-faceted roles far beyond the mission of the National
Park Service.
So I'm actually proud to have had an opportunity. My folks
are like really amazed that, heck, I'm even down here in
Washington. I never believed that I would be doing these
kinds of things. I think that everybody out there is
totally dedicated. They're working hard. And they're doing
all they can to pull it off for the agency, for the folks
that we're cooperating with, and for the homeland.
No, I can't think of anything that I would have changed.
It would have been nice to have been able, like I said, to
push a button and just radio rangers and give them
broadcasts in an instantaneous manner from the command and
40
then gotten reports back instantaneously about things that
-were -going- on.- --T-hat---wa-s--fjrobably-one-o:t'--the-gre-a-t-est
frustrations. Just because you hit send on an email, it
doesn't mean that they've received what it is, the message
you're trying to deliver.
a lot of times.
You can't reach people by phone
Q: So it's not just a need for more resources. It's a need for
information and particularly certain types of information.
A: Yes, the support that it takes to run a professional
protection program. And that's telecommunications, and
it's, use the gadgets of space age that we're in.
Q: Is there anything that you're particularly proud of, again,
either in the region or at the national level that you'd
like to add before we stop?
A: I guess I'm proud of rangers. I mean they have just met
the need. They do it without belly aching. They're out
there 24-hours a day, working in some of these details that
aren't extremely exciting, but their mission, and their
purpose, and their cause sure is. And folks do it without
grumbling, without causing headaches or whatever. So I'm
proud of that.
41
And I'm proud of my fellow chiefs. I mean we, as a group,
----have only been- toget-heE---s-inee- May-of--last-- year--when-the
remaining two regions that did not have regional chiefs
filled those positions. So we had a first meeting in May in
Denver. And then since then, we've just taken on so many
issues and have really gelled as a group, you know, to the
point where we had one of the associate directors say, "You
all are a force to be reckoned with." And that's a pretty
high compliment for the folks that hadn't even worked
together for more than three months before all heck broke
loose.
Q: Seems like an appropriate place to stop.
END OF INTERVIEW
42
INTERVIEW WITH OFFICER DAVID MOEN
CONDUCTED BY
DR. JANET MCDONNELL
MAY 7, 2002
Q: I'd like to hear about September 11. How did you first
learn about the attacks on the World Trade Center?
A: I was working an evening shift, scheduled to work an
evening shift that day. So my day started with me taking
my daughter to school, and I had my youngest daughter with
me. This is about 8:00 in the morning. We were planning to
go to the beach that day, because the weather was nice, so
I had stopped in to get a coffee before going to the beach.
And once I got inside the store I noticed on the TV that a
plane had hit the World Trade Center. They had a news
conference going at that time. So I watched for a few
minutes and I figured it was a small plane had hit and
eventually they would put the fire out.
A few minutes later, I had heard that a second plane hit
the Trade Center, and a little bit after a plane had hit
the Pentagon, and a plane had crashed into a field in
Pennsylvania. So I kind of really didn't know what was
going on. It didn't seem to be too good, so with all of
those planes going down I figured maybe I'll go back home
and make a phone call to the office and see if they needed
me to come in for any reason.
1
So I made it back to the house with my daughter. We're
about an hour away from work and tried to call in numerous
times. The phone lines were dead into New York City. I
then decided that I was going to take my daughter to the
babysitter's a few hours early and try to make my way up to
work.
On my way into work I heard all of the bridges into New
York City were closed so I was expecting not to be able to
get over the outer bridge crossing into Staten Island,
which is my route into work. Once I got on the Garden State
Parkway I noticed several state police cruisers with their
emergency equipment heading on up the Parkway to help out
in Jersey City and Bayonne. I got off of the Parkway and
once I got into route 440 heading into Staten Island, the
traffic was just bumper to bumper. So I utilized my badge I
was able to flag the vehicles that were in my way off to
the side and I was able to travel down the left hand
shoulder of the road. Once I got to the checkpoint of the
bridge I figured they weren't going to let anybody cross
the bridge. I identified myself as a police officer, showed
my credentials, and I was allowed to go over the bridge.
2
Once over the bridge I made it into work with no problem.
I passed the 122 Precinct here in Staten Island and I
noticed they had numerous police officers out the road, New
York City officers getting their people rallied together to
help out. I don't think I knew at that point that the
towers actually collapsed. Made it into work. I was told.
Q: You came in here?
A: Yes, I came into Staten Island.
Q: Fort Wadsworth?
A: Correct. I was told to get dressed and just stand by. So I
did that. I was waiting in the office here to be assigned
a detail. Then I was told to go down to the Coast Guard
Station in Rosebank, which is just down the street from
here, and wait for a boat to pick me up. Within a few
minutes of waiting down at Rosebank one of our patrol boats
being captained by Sergeant Dorino (?) arrived, we jumped
on the boat and we were going to head over to Ellis Island
to assist with anybody that was sick or injured from the
collapse. They were using that as a staging point to bring,
they were going to use that as a staging point to bring the
injured.
3
Once on the boat we headed over there. We dropped off
personnel. And I think because of my experience in the
Coast Guard with running different boats in the Coast
Guard, boat coxswain, I was asked to stay on the boat crew.
After we dropped off the personnel, throughout the course
of that morning, I think we got up there about 11:00, the
morning of September 11; we went over to Manhattan quite a
few times to drop off supplies and personnel. We did a
check of the huge air duct for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel,
which is located on Governors Island, for any explosives
just to be on the safe side. We were assigned to do that by
the NYPD command post. So we did that and we didn't find
anything over there.
I can remember the soot and the smoke in the lower harbor
there still pretty thick. There were a number of boats
from just about every agency in the tri-state area in the
harbor assisting with rescue efforts. It was nice to see
the maritime community assisting with tugboats and party
boats. Everybody that had a boat was helping out. That was
nice to see. I spent 10 years in the Coast Guard. There's
just that bond in the marine community that, you know,
people can help, they help each other.
4
I can remember some of the feelings of the crew members of
the Park Police that were on the boat as being that of,
there was a lot of anger about what had happened. And how
something like that could happen. It just didn't sink in,
the initial impact didn't set in right away. I guess my
personal feeling was how could something like this happen
here in the United States, such for two prominent
buildings? And I would say for the first few days it was
just mind boggling.
Q: Was your boat carrying people off of lower Manhattan? Were
you helping people evacuate, too?
A: By the time we had gotten up there a majority of the people
that were being evacuated from Manhattan had already been
evacuated. We were in, probably a 23-footer, with 3-4 crew
members and it wasn't an overly large boat. And at the
point that we had gotten up there a majority of the people
were evacuated, so we pretty much dealt with taking
supplies, and doctors and nurses from Ellis Island over to
Manhattan.
Q: It also sounded like some sort of security missions, too.
I mean.
A: Correct.
5
Q: Okay. And I know that some Park Police boats were providing
security for Ellis Island and Liberty Island.
A:
Q:
We were one of those boats. That was one of our tasks. We
were kind of multi-tasked that day with a bunch of
different.
How did the directions come to you out on the boat? I mean
who was telling you what the missions were?
mean Captain Lauro, somebody on Ellis Island?
Somebody, I
A: Well we were receiving directions from our dispatcher.
Q: Okay.
A: And we have a number of boats here in the field office and
we were also receiving directions from some of the other
marine units as far as help and things of that nature. I
guess to go back, so much went on that day. I guess we did
end up taking, I remember we were moving some of the agents
from the Secret Service who were over Chelsea Pier when we
went over there and picked them up, and moved quite a few
agents, and took them over to Ellis Island that day. There
was so much going on.
Q: So how long was that day?
6
A: Oh, I don't know. I think it started on my way up there. I
guess, you know my day started at 7:00 in the morning with
getting my kids ready and I don't think I went to bed until
the wee hours of the morning the next day. And I didn't go
home for the first four days.
Q: Is that right?
A: They were long days.
Q: So were you back on the boat again the next day?
do this for days on?
Did you
A: For the next three weeks.
Q: Oh, for three weeks.
A: And we did multi-operations on the boat. I think it was
either the 14th or 15th of September, we were in the area
of South Cove assisting with operations and all of a sudden
we heard collapse, a building collapse. And we were in the
marina area, and we just noticed thousands of rescue
workers that were partaking in the digging at Ground Zero
running towards the water. I notice all of the boats, the
rest of the boats that were in the harbor area there. They
untied and they were getting out of there. That's a pretty
small area and a lot of boats in there, so it was tight
7
quarters as far as boat handling is concerned.
the helm of the boat.
I was at
We had noticed some U.S. Marshals running towards the water
looking for an escape route from the pending building
collapse. So we motioned for them to come over to our boat.
I believe it was eight marshals and one contractor, a
construction worker, ran over. Sergeant Gullino (?) was
able to hold a line around the dock. With everybody
jumping on the boat all at one time the boat nearly
capsized. I thought we were going over. And one of the
marshals ended up, as everybody jumped onto the boat, the
boat kind of pushed itself away from the dock, and one of
the marshals fell into the water and was completely
submerged. We pulled him up, got him on the boat, got the
remaining marshals and the contractor that were on the dock
off of the dock onto the boat, and then we went out into
the harbor. And right after that we took them over to
Ellis Island to see if they were okay and to feed them.
Q: So how smoothly did the operations go those few weeks on
the boat?
A: I think all things considered, I mean hindsight being
2 0 I 2 0, I'm sure there could have been some things done
8
differently, although on my level I thought we did the best
we could with the resources that we had. It was nice to
get an opportunity to send officers over to Ground Zero to
assist with the recovery effort. I was fortunate enough to
be one of the officers to go over and do that. And that was
a very humbling experience, just going over there seeing
the destruction. I mean everybody wanted to help. Just the
amount of volunteers and the people that were donating
materials, goods, and things of that nature, it was just
unbelievable. And it was just, just to know that you went
over there I mean, we were filling 5-gallon buckets with
debris. And I said, you know, "This is going to take
years." And I mean even though we didn't move mountains
with our efforts, it was just nice to say we went in there.
and did as much as we could. I would like to think that
somebody would do that for me if I had been in that
situation.
Q: Do you look at your job any differently now as a result of
September 11?
A: I think law enforcement in general now is looked upon a
little bit different. I can remember the first couple of
months after September 11, just the general attitude of
people was a little kinder. The way people drive on the
9
streets. New York doesn't have the reputation for having
some of the kinder and gentler drivers. And people on the
streets were a little bit more forgiving. They were a
little bit more apt to let somebody cut in and get into
traffic, merge into traffic, than prior to September 11.
Since then everything has gotten back to normal and, but I
think for law enforcement, I think that was a big shot in
the arm for law enforcement. It really showed the American
people that no matter where the danger is we're going to be
there.
Q: Do you feel like you had the resources you needed to do
your job well?
should say?
I guess resources and training, I guess I
A: I think the training that the Park Police give is very
good, and I think by having the boats here in the field
office played a major role and what we could accomplish. I
think without the boats, we would have just felt like we
were helpless. But because we had the boats we were able to
travel back and forth from Manhattan to Jersey and from
Staten Island, and I think the boats played a vital role.
10
Q: It's sure a testament to the importance of the marine
program.
A: I think so. I think that was a shot in the arm, too, for
our marine unit, because without those traveling into
Manhattan would have been next to impossible. And with
having that link to the water by having the boats, a more
direct link, and one that got us where we needed to go much
quicker. So I think that's, to the managers that put the
money into the marine unit, I think that was very wise. I
think they had visions and it ended up being a positive
thing.
Q: Well, how, would you talk to me a little bit about
coordination with the Coast Guard? What's that connection
like? What's that relationship like?
A: My personal or just the operations that were going on that
day?
Q: In those operations, how smooth was that coordination?
A: I think the Coast Guard did a good job as far as setting up
command posts.
directions from.
You asked earlier about who we took
The Coast Guard was one of the agencies
that we provided assistance to. We had radio communications
with them and we made ourselves available to the needs that
11
they had by providing escorts, by providing personnel,
safety zones, and transporting personnel back and forth
from Ellis Island to Manhattan. They were planning on mass
casualties coming into Ellis Island and we were
communicating with the Coast Guard about when those
casualties might be coming over and preparing EMS workers
that were waiting for them, to when their arrival might be.
I think that was one of the important things to know. We
didn't get the casualties that we expected, but we were
prepared. And I think that we did as much as we could and
we were prepared for the worst.
Q: Well, is there anything, there's probably a lot that stands
out in your mind not only from that day but the ones
following it. But if there were one or two things that,
one of the things that you were really proud of
or things that you thought worked really well, I appreciate
you sharing those thoughts.
A: I think everybody kind of put their personal differences
aside and the teamwork really showed. And it showed that
under a great deal of stress and pressure that we were able
to pull through and accomplish the mission.
Q: Anything you would have done differently?
12
A: No, I don't think so. I think we did as much as we could
with the equipment and the capability that we had. I don't
think there's much more we could have done. So, you know,
in hindsight I have no reservations about what we did.
Q: Well I don't have any more questions. I appreciate you
taking the time to talk to me.
A: Okay.
13
INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS MURPHY
U.S. PARK POLICE
CONDUCTED BY
DR. JANET MCDONNELL
MAY 8, 2002
Q: I guess the best place to start is to ask you to tell me
how you first learned about the attack on the World Trade
Center?
A: Well at about 9:00A.M. or so my brother and I were moving
furniture for my mom. We were just pulling into my parents'
house and the Maytag repairman was coming. He was actually,
he had his head out of the window and he was saying, 'Oh, a
plane just hit the World Trade Center." My brother and I
looked at one another and said, "How can that be?" My
brother is a Port Authority police officer. So we both
looked at one another and then very soon we went inside,
put the TV on, and right away another plane hit the other
tower. And right away my brother and I said this is an act
of terrorism. It had to be. You can't miss something like
that.
At that time I was living up in Edison, but I was down in
Tom's River, so I told my mom, "Let me get something to eat
real quick and then head home. Get about four or five
uniforms and then head to work," because I knew I'd be
there for awhile. My brother thought the same thing, but he
waited until he got called in. He didn't get called in
until a day later. So basically .
I
Q: Were you actually called in or did you just decide to go on
in?
A: No, I went in on my own. Actually, yes, I went home to
Edison, which is about a 45 minute ride, and when I was
about 20 miles away I was able to see smoke. And I was
listening to, I was actually listening to Howard Stern and
he was talking about how everything was, everything that
was going on. And it was hard to believe because when I go
over the Raritan River there's a bridge there, and you can
see the World Trade Center from there. It's about 10-15
miles away. And when I went over the bridge that day I saw
nothing but smoke. Couldn't see the city at all, just the
smoke. I got home to Edison and then I tried to call work.
And everything was, every circuit was busy. So
Q: Both land lines and--how about your radio?
radio with you?
A: I didn't have my D9 radio so with me, no.
Q: So where do you work out of?
A: I work right here. I work at the Statue.
Q: Okay.
2
Did you have a
A: I grabbed some uniforms and some food, because I didn't
know how long I'd be there, and I headed up to Ellis Island
here because this is how we drive over the bridge. I have
to take the turnpike for that. So I guess it was, I was
making my way up the turnpike and all of a sudden I hit
dead traffic. What happened was is the State Police were
detouring everyone off of the turnpike onto the parkway
because the turnpike headed right towards Manhattan. I had
to show my credentials. I was able to get by and then
everything was closed. The Holland Tunnel, everything was
closed. They thought the Holland Tunnel was under water.
They didn't know really what was going on. So it took me,
it normally takes me about 30 minutes to get in, it took me
an hour to get in, which I didn't think was that bad.
And the park here, Liberty State Park, was actually open at
the time. Well, they did have law enforcement people there.
So once I got in, I noticed right away about 300-400
ambulances that were lined up all along this road here.
They were expecting mass casual ties. They had ambulances.
They were setting up tents, because Ellis Island is
designated to be a morgue during a disaster.
Q: Under a city plan or under a (?} plan do you know?
3
A: I really don't know. I know, I think the Lieutenant Comrod
or whatever, (?) the superintendent of the New Jersey State
Police did come here. And he was the one that said Ellis
Island was too small to be a morgue and that they would
move it on the mainland. They brought in big refrigerator
trucks, like four semi-trailers that were just refrigerated
to put the bodies in.
So anyway, came in here and when we were going over the
bridge you can see the whole city. It's like the best view
around. You couldn't see anything because of the smoke. And
it smelled like ash, like burnt ash. So I got dressed right
away and everyone was running around. I got here about
12:00 and at that time there were some boats bringing over
some casualties. They brought over about 200, maybe 250
people that they (?) right down at Battery Park there. I
know there was a fireman that had a compound fracture. I
think only two or three other people had to go to the
hospital. Everyone else was pretty much like walking
wounded. They were covered in ash like they had snow or
they came out of the freezer. They were all white.
Q: Were they coming over on all kinds of boats as well as the
ferries here?
4
A: I really couldn't tell, because I was only in the parking
lot, and I don't know who brought them over here. It might
have been that the staff of the Park Service brought them.
I'm not sure of that.
Q: So when you showed up, who did you report to?
assignment were you given?
What
A: I was told to go outside and go down to Post Three area,
which is on the other side, it's on this side of the bridge
because the far side, which is called Post Four, where you
check in, that was a madhouse. The Jersey City Police
Department wanted to come in. New Jersey State Police
wanted to come in. Port Authority Police wanted to come
in. Basically, everybody wanted to get in here for what
reasons we don't know. Basically, everybody thought that
they were running the show. It was a little confusing who
was, you know, I mean.
But basically we closed the gate. Shut the gate. We had
some guys with shotguns out there because ourselves, we
didn't know what was going on. We didn't know how many more
attacks would take place. So basically, there were a lot of
rumors going around that there were 10,000 dead. And then
it went up to 20,000, but they weren't getting anymore
5
casualties. They did, they had busses come in to take them
out to the ambulances.
Q: I've not come across the bridge. I always come from the
ferry.
A: It's a narrow bridge.
Q: So if you just sort of lay it out geographically for me.
The ambulances were on the other side of the bridge or
running along the bridge?
A: They were on the mainland and there's a small access road,
a narrow access road to get to Jersey City Liberty State
Park to here. And they were all lined on both sides of the
road.
Q: Okay.
A: And then we have a little guard shack out there and then we
have a fence.
Q: And that's what you closed?
A: Yes, that's what we closed down. And then the bridge is
about a half a mile long. That's the only vehicle access to
the island. So about 200 casual ties left and I guess it
was like I said, it was pretty crazy because people, we
6
heard rumors that more buildings were falling. And the Port
Authority police were coming here saying that they thought
their dead were here, but no bodies were brought here. So
they had enough ambulances, enough water. They must have
brought about three or four truckloads of water and soda,
but there wasn't anyone to give the water to. No one ever
came.
So I worked until about 12:00 and I guess about dusk they
realized that there wasn't going to be any casualties
coming so what they did is all of the ambulances went over,
they went north through the park, Liberty State Park, to
the old railroad terminal. They use it to sell the Circle
Line tickets now.
there.
And the Salvation Army set up a post
Q: So at what point was it determined that this wouldn't be a
morgue site after all? I mean at what point did they pull
those refrigerator trucks out do you recall?
A: Well, the refrigerator trucks were here for a week or two.
They brought them in the back, north of the island here.
So they had two here and they had maybe two or three in the
main parking lot over near the park on the mainland. They
didn't know what to expect, really.
7
Q: Well, I guess that makes sense because they were still
hoping for, they were still digging at Ground Zero.
A: What happened was is we have a boat, a small boat here, a
police boat, so we were taking people back and forth, you
know, supplies. I mean the EMTs brought over oxygen. They
brought over supplies, and then one of our bigger boats
from Jamaica Bay came here. And that could take about 30
people at a time. And they were running back and forth,
constantly. Just basically, our agency for this first
couple of weeks was used to bring other agencies back and
forth. I mean Ellis Island is a, I think it is a pretty
strategic area because you're kind of a distance from the
mainland. You're protected. They did a lot of staging here.
A lot of big wigs and the New Jersey State Police, Park
Service, this was a staging area for them. They have a
cafeteria here that stayed open 24 hours-a-day for us. We
have a lot of resources here. We have a lot of fuel, a lot
of diesel fuel, so they used this as a staging area,
basically.
Q: Did you get the sense that that coordination worked pretty
well, I mean the interagency cooperation?
A: It's something we talked about a lot. You can plan for
certain things and disasters, but when it comes down to it
8
you really couldn't plan for something like that. I mean
it was such a mass amount of--you're trying to get
information, trying to decipher what's right and wrong.
And then they were talking about Washington, D.C. The
Statue of Liberty, the officers that were working here at
the time said a plane flew right over the Statue about
maybe 100 feet off of the torch and it just shook
everything. There were other planes in the air, too. So no
telling how many planes that, when they shut everything
down, if there was a plane heading for the Statue.
Q: What was the most challenging thing, not just that first
day, but I guess probably in the days afterwards as well in
responding to all of this?
A: I think the long hours. The first two or three weeks I was
getting, I was working about 90-100 hours overtime. Some
of these guys were working even more than that. I normally
work a four day week, four 10 hour days, and for the first
three weeks I was working like seven days a week almost,
12, 13, 14 hour days. So you know, it takes a toll, plus I
was in the middle of a move. I was moving from Edison down
to Toms River, so I had to do that and still maintain a
family and everything.
9
Q: How has your job changed since then?
view your job changed?
Or has the way you
A: I think I'm very lucky. I mean I couldn't--there's a lot of
my friends that worked over there in the World Trade Center
financial area. And I thank God none of them got injured.
But, you know, I could have been working that day. And I
could have been in the Statue and one of those planes could
have hit the Statue or my brother could have been at the
World Trade Center working. I think, I don't know. The
Statue itself, the whole island was closed for about three
months. And it made us think about how vulnerable we
actually are. How can someone get on a plane and fly
something like that into a building without any ifs, ands,
or buts?
Q: Have you seen any changes in your interaction with the
public? Do you think the way the public views Park Police
has changed at all?
A: I think people have more of an understanding towards us.
They do treat us--well, in the beginning it was them on the
band wagon, you know, "God bless America," "You guys are
doing a great job." Slowly they're gone back a little bit,
which I understand. But
it, s,
people haven't really
complained that the Statue is still closed. They're kind of
10
happy that it's closed, because they say they don't want to
be in it if something happens.
that.
You can't really argue with
Q: Did you get the sense--I guess I would just like sort of a,
granted you were outside, is that correct? You said Post
Three and it sounds like you were primarily sort of
securing that area.
A: The back door.
Q: Yes. And so maybe you won't be able to answer this, but
I'm trying to get sort of a feel for what it must have been
like here, to get a sense of was it calm? Was it well
organized? Just to get a picture.
A: I think at my level, like the private, regular police
officer, it was, I mean we were just told to pretty much
don't let anyone in the gate. I don't know what management
was doing at the time. But they had more to worry about
than who's at the gate. But considering everything and
everyone thinking the worst, I think it ran pretty smooth.
Like I said, you can train for so much, but when it comes
down to something like that you don't expect something like
that. Maybe a fire, you know, because we do practice for a
11
fire here for an evacuation of the museum or the Statue,
but not when you have 16 square acres to secure down.
Q: That's right. You can have contingency plans, but none of
them would have covered an event like this, I suppose.
A: And from here we watched the people walking over the
bridges going home. It got to a point where every aircraft
that was like say unauthorized, they sent up military
aircraft to make sure that they were supposed to be there.
Q: Is there a moment or, you know, or a person or an image
from that day that just really stands out in your mind?
A: From that day? Well, the image just not being able to see
the city at all. As far as the eye could see into the
horizon, just smoke, and probably just, probably the
people. What happened was back here there's a sidewalk
that, a little tunnel that goes out to the parking lot.
And that's where they brought the people out. And the
local concession there was giving them shirts to put on,
because the people were just covered in ash. They were
taking their clothes off. And the concession person gave
them T-shirts to wear. Just their faces, they were like in
shock.
12
Q: It seems sort of surreal.
A: Yes, they all had blank looks on their faces.
say a word to anybody. They were just in shock.
They didn't
So I think
that's what stuck out the most. They kind of looked like
they were just waking up after a long sleep. They didn't
know really what was going on.
Q: Well, is there anything that I haven't asked about that you
want to add to the record?
A: I don't know. Just the harbor was closed for about three
weeks. No one was allowed to traverse. And some of those
sanctions are still in order.
Q: And you're still on longer shifts, too, as I understand.
A: Yes, I work about 60-70 hours a week.
Q: Well, I appreciate you taking the time.
13
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11TH ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with
CAPTAIN NEAL LAURO, U.S. PARK POLICE
District Commander, New York Field Office
Conducted by
Janet McDonnell, Ph.D.
May 7, 2002
Fort Wadsworth, New York
TAPE ONE SIDE A
Q: It's May 7. I'm Janet McDonnell and I'm here with Captain
Neal Lauro to talk about the Park Police response to the
September 11 attack. And maybe just to start, if you would
tell me what your position is here. Describe it a little
bit for me.
A: Okay. I'm the district commander for the U.S. Park Police
and I have command of the Staten Island Station and the
Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Station for the Park Police.
Q: Just to start right in with September 11, when did you
first learn of the attacks on the World Trade Center?
A: I received a telephone call telling me that the north tower
of the Trade Center had been struck by a plane. That call
came from my son, who was on an express bus heading into
Manhattan where he works. Like I guess everyone else, we
just assumed it was an accident. And I grabbed Lieutenant
Dave Buckley and Sergeant Frank and we drove up
to the overlook at Fort Wadsworth. It has a clear view of
lower Manhattan.
And a few minutes after that, we saw the second plane
coming across the harbor. And at that point, I knew what
1
was happening, but we kind of hoped it was just a plane
that had been diver ted because of t he first incident. You
know it was a very helpless feeling, because you knew what
was happening and there was nothing you could do to stop
i t. And then we watched the plane strike the south tower.
And then from that point on, we were kind of busy just, I
contacted the Statue commander and told him to evacuate.
Luc kily, visitors had not arrived yet for the day. And I
ordered Fort Wadsworth shut down. And then I jumped in the
c ar and went to Ellis Island.
Q: How ma ny officers do you have on Ell is Island? What does
the organization there look like?
A: At the time, working that day there were about {b) {?){E)
total for the two islands, Ellis and Liberty.
Q: Okay . So after you saw that second plane hit, it sounds
like [ you] concluded that it was something other than pilot
error . What were some of the things going on in your mind
that had to be done?
A: Well, initially, my thoughts wer e to prevent any further
attacks, if possible. There was a report of a third plane
coming in. And that report also went through New York City.
2
They were advised of the same thing. Luckily, it turned out
not to be true. I felt that if we were able, we evacuated
the Statue of Liberty. And we kind of put a cordon of boats
around it. I pulled all of my people off of the Statue,
after the residents were evacuated, because I knew if a
plane came there was nothing we could do about it anyway.
But if something came by water we had a chance to defend
the place.
Q: Was there an existing plan for evacuating the Statue of
Liberty?
A: Well, not really, but we've done it before. But like I
said, luckily it happened early enough that no visitors had
gone to the island yet. So it was just a matter of getting
staff off.
Q: Okay.
A: And once that was accomplished, then we set up Ellis Island
as a triage center. Throughout the day, I would say, about
400 either evacuees or injured were taken to Ellis Island
and treated and--I forget the exact number that was
transported to local hospitals, but it wasn't as many as
anybody thought because there weren't that many survivors.
3
Q: Did it occur to you very early on that Ellis Island could
be used in that way? I mean were you thinking about this
at the same time you were thinking about the need to
evacuate the Statue of Liberty? Thinking about well, how
can, that we can make use of Ellis Island?
A: Well, we've done it before. The Secret Service has used
Ellis Island as a possible evacuation point when there are
big events having to do with the United Nations and stuff.
And it's proximity to Lower Manhattan and the fact that it
has a bridge that you can drive over makes it a viable
site.
Q: Did you augment your force?
A: Right. We were augmented by officers that work out of the
Brooklyn or Jamaica Bay unit. Most of them came by boat.
We had one sergeant, who was fishing with a couple of
friends in New Jersey, and he had his friends take him by
boat to our marine unit location in Rockaway, New York.
And he took command of one of our vessels that came up.
That's the kind of response we got from people. And we also
received a call from Federal Hall asking for assistance. So
we were able to get a sergeant and a couple of officers
from Brooklyn to Federal Hall.
4
Q: I believe I read somewhere that this event and that
assistance, particularly to Federal Hall, was the first
time that the U.S. Park Police had been in or supported the
Manhattan Sites. Is that correct?
A: Well, we're there now, and it appears to be permanently.
But we've gone there on occasion at the request of the
superintendent of the Manhattan sites for different things,
some special events. A couple of investigations where
we've--but it's only been for a day or two at a time, and
it's, although there was one other time during Desert Storm
we had people at Federal Hall 24-hours a day. And that was
the last time that we've been there on a regular basis.
Q: How does the coordination occur between the Park Police and
the superintendents, or the Park Police and the Park
Rangers?
A: Well, we know the superintendent of Manhattan sites because
he worked in Gateway for years, so that makes things a
little bit easier. But the coordination on that date and
subsequent dates was smooth. I mean people just had it in
their mind that they weren't going to let any obstacles get
in the way of what had to be done. And I saw that from
everybody I dealt with, Park Police, National Park Service.
It was a real nice thing to see where something needed to
5
be done and it just got done. Usual stuff that goes on,
you know, minor impediments were just overcome.
Q: What challenges did you face that first day and in the days
after, I guess, as well, in terms of communication systems?
I would imagine that landlines were down.
heavily on radios or NEXTEL systems?
Were you relying
A: Well, one of the problems we had and we're solving it as of
today, the Park Police at Statue and Ellis are on a
different radio system than the rest of the New York
contingent. Today is the first day we're all on the same
system. And it was something that we had planned to do, but
it always got pushed aside because of whatever, money, or
politics, or whatever. So that was an impediment. It was
almost impossible to get a signal on your cell phone
because everybody was on their cell phone. We do have
phones that have a direct connect feature, kind of work
like a radio. Without those, we would have been in serious
trouble so we were able to communicate; at least the
commanders were able to communicate effectively,
that.
using
Q: So is that how you worked around that radio problem, by
using those phones?
6
A: Yes, for the most part, for the most part. And a lot of
places lost landline systems. Fort Wadsworth had no phones
for a couple of weeks. But we worked around it using the
cell phones and whatever else was available.
Q: And who were you communicating with? With the Park Police
headquarters at Floyd Bennett Field? Were you
communicating from here directly to the chief's command
post in Washington? How did that all work?
A: Well, what happened, my boss, Major Wilkins, responded
directly from here to the New York City command post at One
Police Plaza, so I was able to speak to him directly using
that NEXTEL phone. I also communicated with my counterpart,
the captain in Brooklyn, as he was sending reinforcements
up to us, and the lieutenants that were working. I really
didn't have any contact with D.C. because we had our hands
full dealing with our own things.
And one of the big problem was with rumors because the
rumors that were going across Ellis Island were that not
only had New York been attacked, but that the Pentagon,
which was true. We heard Lincoln Memorial, the Capital
Building, the State Department, the Supreme Court, a
building in Chicago, and a plane crash outside of
7
Q:
Pittsburgh . And, lucki l y, just the Pentagon and the one
outside of Pittsburgh were t rue. I mean those were the
rumors that were flying a r ound the island a nd we couldn 't
confirm them.
How did you get good intel l i gence informat i on? Did that
come from Ma j or Wilkins, what he would hear i n the command
center, the NYPD center that you just described?
A: Yes and a l ot of it came f rom a TV that was on in the
s uperintendent ' s office . Myself, \vho ' s
the comma nder of the St atue Station, along with
Superintende nt Diane Dayson and her assi stant , Cynthia
Garrett, we were within two feet of each other I think the
ent ire day, t rying to work out diff erent t hings. Like I
said, a l ot o f the informat ion we got came f rom CNN.
Q: You mentione d that you quickly got in your car and went to
Ellis Island and you set up shop there. I mean is that
where, you used that s i t e as your command c enter?
A: Right .
Q: Okay.
A: I mean, like I said I ordere d Fort Wadsworth c l osed because
there were f aci li t i es here t hat coul d have b een targets .
8
The Coast Guard has a large facility here. The Army has a
Reserve center here. Defense Logistics Agency has a
facility here, plus the Verrazano Narrows Bridge I think
would be high on any target list. And at Floyd Bennett
Field, over in the Jamaica Bay unit, the New York City
Police Department has their headquarters for their
emergency services units. So that's a possible target.
However, I think the Statue kind of stands alone. And
that's the way we kind of played our hand. If anything was
going to happen, it would happen at the Statue.
Q: Well, tell me some more about some of the other missions,
going back to that first day. You mentioned briefly the
marine units. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
A: Well, we have one boat that's assigned to the Statue, but
it's not always in use. It's kind of, the officers that man
it were on kind of collateral duty boat operators. But we
have a marine unit that's usually assigned to Gateway. And
we put, I believe it was five boats we were able to put
into service pretty quickly. And they not only transported
reinforcements up to Ellis Island, but they were used to
form a perimeter around Liberty and to evacuate, assist in
the evacuation. And one of the groups that they evacuated
was the Secret Service New York Field Office. One of their
9
members was a Park Policemen at one time. When their
offices were destroyed in the Trade Center, he made a phone
call, because his people needed to get moved to New Jersey
and we were able to connect and get them out of the city.
Q: Tell me a little bit more just about the evacuation process
and how efficiently that worked? I'm looking for some sort
of assessment. Did it work out smoothly?
A: The evacuation of Manhattan?
Q: Well, both, actually both. But right now I was just
thinking of the evacuation of staff from the Statue.
A: Well, that was pretty simple due to the fact like I said
there were no visitors. So the small number of people that
live on the island and the staff that was there, that was
pretty orderly. And then we eventually, with the
superintendent's concurrence, we moved all non-essential
employees from Ellis Island. They were put on a staff boat.
I think they were taken to Brooklyn and dropped off. But
I'm not positive where they ended up.
Q: Okay. Now the other much more dramatic evacuation story. I
mean that was clearly something that you and your staff had
10
never done before. Just tell me the process of how that
worked and what some of the challenges were?
A: Well, it seemed like boats kind of appeared from out of the
blue. And I couldn't remember the list of types of boats,
and agencies, and companies that they belonged to that
pulled into the dock at Ellis Island with evacuees. But
then I also heard that at one point some boats would not
come to Ellis Island because it's a non-union site. This
was after the fact, and they took them instead to other
places in New Jersey. Whether that was true or not, I
haven't attempted to confirm. It just seems to me at a
time like that that would be something that you would
ignore, but I don't know. The people that came over looked
like, I mean they were covered with ash, the same pictures
that you see on TV. Some were pretty beat up. Others were
just shaken up. And what we did is we set up a database
with all of the information of the people that were brought
over.
Q: Actually, that sounds like a very daunting task, to get
that information and key it in, from people who had just
been through a trauma?
A: Well, I think part of the triage process is just getting
information out, personal information, name, address,
11
telephone number of someone we can contact. And then from
those lists we compiled this database, which we eventually
turned over to New York City Police because some of their
people that were injured were evacuated, as were some fire
fighters. And that was done for the simple fact that
information was tough to come by, so we figured if we had
this database and let's print it out and let people know
where their friends and relatives were. It would make
things easier and it kind of worked pretty well.
Q: Well, how long did this process go on, the evacuation, and
then how long were pe?ple actually being taken care of
there on the island?
A: It went on into the afternoon and then we received word
that, because we had set up a temporary morgue at the
request of New York City on the island. And we received
word that we were going to shut down and any other EMS or
medical personnel were to go to the Javit's Center. And we
passed that information along. And we had, someone said
that the number was about 100 doctors that showed up at
Ellis Island because I guess they couldn't get into the
city so they were directed there. And they were standing
by, and unfortunately, there wasn't much for them to do
because the number of injured just wasn't there. And that's
12
the same. I mean I've seen documentaries on TV and other
sites had the same experience.
Q: I need you to clarify something for me. The morgue, was it
just set up for that function, or was it actually used for
a brief period?
A: No, it was never used. It was set up, a temporary morgue.
Q: That's what I thought.
A: And we even had one set up here on Staten Island at one of
the parks on Staten Island that they ended up never using.
That was just precautionary, and they never did get used.
Q: So were you also coordinating with the New York Police?
Were they also supporting this effort at Ellis Island?
A: No, actually more with, we had some support from the New
Jersey State Police and Jersey City Police Department,
because Ellis Island is connected to New Jersey. Only a
small portion of it is, according to the Supreme Court now,
part of New York. The rest is part of New Jersey. So that
was, they're the people we work with at Ellis Island more
often.
Q: So there was already established ...
13
A: A relationship.
Q: relationship there that I would imagine made things
much easier.
A: And I don't one to leave out the State Rangers that work at
Liberty State Park. And we worked with them before, we
worked them during, and continue to work with them.
Q: Do you and your officers ever train for responses like this
with some of those other police elements?
A: We have with the Jersey City Fire Department, we've done
some exercises, but with the police departments, no, we
haven't. And the problem with those two sites is they never
close. So it's difficult to come up with a training
Q: That's right, where you can actually use the facilities
themselves. So I'm just trying to get a picture of, I've
been to Ellis Island, but I'm trying to imagine it filled
with 400 or however many, I've seen different figures on
how many people were actually brought there. Was it a
chaotic scene? I mean just describe it.
A: No, not at all. In fact, if you've been there when the
place is open, that day it was like a ghost town, because
14
when it's open, it's crowded, a lot of people around. And
it was kind of deserted, even though we had these people
coming in. It wasn't chaotic at all. I mean everybody, the
EMS people that worked there and others that came in,
everybody knew their job and did their job. Like I said,
there was none of the BS that usually accompanies things
such as this. People just did what had to be done. That's
the biggest thing I take away from that day, the
cooperation.
Q: Well, what were the challenges in organizing that effort
and providing some structure to it? I can't imagine that
these different police elements that came there and
participated or the doctors who showed up and participated
... I mean there must have been some structure in place to
give it organization so that those people could be used to
the best advantage. How did that work?
A: We didn't allow anyone on to the island unless they had
proper identification. We could make sure they were a
doctor or an EMS personnel and that bridge, that small
bridge that connects Ellis Island to New Jersey, comes in
handy for that. There were a couple little bumps in the
road between different police agencies, but kind of one-on-
one things that were what we easily overcome. And as I
15
said, we were geared up to do a lot more which became
unnecessary.
It wasn't that challenging. I guess everyone was doing what
was expected of them, so that made it just so much easier.
The superintendent and I, and the lieutenant, and the
assistant superintendent were right there and we worked
together the entire day, not only planning for what needed
to be done that day, but what do we do tomorrow and the
next day? What do we do about the residents that need to
go back to the island? And when does the island reopen?
Q: I'd be interested in hearing about how all of those
decisions were made.
A: Well, the island reopening became a decision that the
Secretary of Interior handled. And as far as letting the
people go back to their homes, they wanted to go back, so
we let them go back. And that was the superintendent's
decision, ultimately. She's responsible for it, but that's
kind of the way it worked. We didn't have anything in our
hands that said that there was still a threat to the Statue
at that point, and people wanted to go home.
16
Q: It sounds like your telling me is that the people who came
to help, they knew what needed to be done, had the
professional skills, so you didn't need some sort of
structure, say [of] regular staff meetings or reporting.
You didn't need a reporting system for them to report to
you or to the superintendent about what they were doing.
A: No, well, what happened, they reported and we had an area
set up where we were going to treat the victims. And the
concessionaires were bringing them out cookies. I mean
everybody pitched in and we let the EMS people do their
thing and we did our thing, and it worked out. Like I said,
that was the one day, I mean we always look to cooperate
with each other, but that was the one day that the
cooperation was amazing, at least from my point of view.
Q: There was obviously an awful lot going on that first day.
I'd be interested in hearing you talk about how you set
your priorities, just in a general sense, the process that
you used. I know it's kind of a vague question, [but] you
were in a unique position and I'd like to hear you tell me
how you sorted through it all.
A: Well, the initial priorities were (A) to prevent any
further attack if possible, and (B) to mitigate the damage
from any further attack. And once we shut Fort Wadsworth
17
down, and once we had Liberty evacuated, that kind of took
care of 90 percent of that. Like I said, if a plane came
and hit the Statue, there wasn't anything we were going to
do about it. But if it came by boat, we had a chance.
And once we saw the F-l6s up, that was a very welcome
sight. So you kind of, I think most of the people were
operating with one eye up in the sky until the F-16s showed
up. And then you knew they were there and we had faith in
what they could do, because as you know there were so many
other planes unaccounted for. And we didn't have actual
information about that, but we had no knowledge one way or
the other so we had to assume.
And then kind of later in the day, it became apparent this
was going to be something long term and we stopped calling
people in early because we knew we needed people later.
Once we had sufficient staff to do what we needed to do, we
knew we couldn't bring people in and have them work until
the next morning. So we started calling people in for the
afternoon, and they ended up staying over until the next
morning.
18
Q: I wanted to ask you about calling in your officers and the
kind of shifts you went into, 12-hour shifts?
A: Well, a minimum of 12-hours, some 13, 14. Some continued to
work 13 and 14 hours. Twelve hours as a rule. Right now
the officers are on a two-week schedule that consists of 6
days one week, 5 days the next. And some of the days are
12 hours, some are 10 hours. We're eight months later.
Q: Did you feel at any point that the Force was stretched
thin?
A: Oh, it still is. And the fact that the air marshal program
is dipping into our strength.
Q: What program?
A: The federal air marshals. We've lost about 10 percent of
our people in New York to the air marshal program so far.
And we started out behind the 8 ball, and I hear from the
rangers they were in the same boat. We were down about 20
percent to begin with, and then we have all of this extra
responsibility that we haven't had in the past, and the 10
percent lost to the air marshals. We're still trying to dig
out.
19
Q: It sounds like your telling me you're still not back on,
what I call a normal schedule.
A: Not even close.
Q: But on the schedules you had before September 11.
A: Not even close.
Q: Well, what's the impact of that?
A: Well, I think you start to see burnout.
TAPE ONE SIDE B
Q: Tell me about the resiliency of your officers.
A: They continued to do their job. As a boss, I know what's
happening to them, what we're asking of them. There's not
much right now I can do about it, but there's light at the
end of the tunnel. We do get some new people the end of
this month. It should take some of the burden off. My
goal is to get back to some normalcy, not only at the
Statue and Manhattan, but these other parks, to get back to
doing the police work we've done in the past.
Q: How has it affected some of that other police work, those
other missions?
20
A:
Q:
Well, it stretched the entire Force thin. And we've been
able to accomplish our mission, but it's been close. We
haven't had an instant where we weren't able to respond to
it effectively, but it's May. The busy season is upon us
and it's going to be difficult. I have no doubt we'll do
what needs to be done, but I'd like to be able to tell an
officer every now and then that he can have a day off.
Absolutely go away for a weekend. That's the toughest thing
is to just deny leave slip after leave slip.
Did you have the same, I can't remember the exact
terminology, but the work-to-home program, where people
could take cars home with them?
A: Some people do.
Q: Did you find, on September 11, was that helpful at least to
have had that program?
A: Oh, yes, it was. It was helpful and we've expanded it
since. But it was difficult to get in and out of the city
unless you had a car with emergency equipment. And that
helped quite a bit.
Q: Well, we've talked about the Force being stretched. What
about other resources? I mean did you have the equipment
21
that you needed? Budget issues, I mean how, there is no
emergency funding for this.
A: Well, from September 11 until the end of the fiscal year,
we're at a meeting, my boss and I, Major Wilkins, and we
got a phone call and they wanted to know what we needed to
get through the rest of the fiscal year. And we knew about
what it was costing us on a daily basis, so we just
multiplied that out and it came. And then we sat down and
we figured out what we'd need for 2002 and we put in a
request for personnel, and equipment, and whatever, and it
came. And that's never happened before.
part.
So that was a good
Q: Gratifying, I would imagine.
A: Money is not the issue right now. It's personnel.
Q: That sort of leads to another question. Do you think that
the event and the way the Park Police responded to it has
changed or has affected the way, first of all, the way the
Park Service as an agency views Park Police. I'm talking
about maybe greater visibility within the service for the
Park Police.
22
Or the second part of the question would be, has it changed
the way the public views the Park Police and the role of
the Park Police?
A: I'll answer the part two first. I think as with all other
police and fire fighters, we're held in a lot better
esteem. I mean New York City. I read something recently
that the New York City Police Department had a 7 4 percent
approval rating across the city. That's totally unheard of.
And we kind of like ride those coat tails. They're the big
brother. They're 40,000 strong. We're at 100 and change
here.
As far as the Park Service, you know, that's something I
think you'd have to ask them how they view us. But I will
say that they were damn glad to see us that day and they
told me so. So you know, take whatever you want from that,
but that's.
Q: Well, I guess part of what raised the question in me was
certainly getting the budget that you just described
certainly seems like some statement of the importance that
the agency places on you.
A: Hopefully.
times.
I know Director Mainella has been up here a few
23
Q: Has she?
A:
Q:
And she's great. And she's given us anything, the support
that we've needed. She's been here a number of times.
What kind of, has she provided any guidance, direction? I
mean what message did you feel like you were getting from
her?
A: Well, the first time she came up, the message just by her
being there let everyone know that she cared about the
workforce up here. I mean the attacks were not on Park
Service property, so some people were under the impression
that, well, what does it have to do with NPS sites? They
were ignorant of the fact that they were kind of all
interrelated here. And Director Mainella came up, and she
toured the place, she talked to people. She spoke to the
employees. And it was appreciated from top to bottom. Just
her presence here was a major factor for a lot of people. I
know it was for me.
Q: She came for the reopening of the Statue?
A: Yes, but she was here.
Q: She was here before that.
24
A: She was here in September. She was here in, she came for
the reopening. And she also came to present us with the
unit citation from the Secretary, at least those three
times. She's probably here more than that. But in all of
her visits, I don't know if you've ever met her. She's
amazing. She's amazing.
Q: That's great. That's great. Well, has September 11 changed
the way you view your job at all?
A: Yes, I mean right now, my, outside of the personnel issues
and trying to deal with those, I mean it's kind of like
everything is geared to making sure the Statue remains
standing in my mind. I've gotten some comments from other
parks, or people from other parks saying, "Yes, we know
we're second class right now." And that's the just the way
it is. Sorry. Nothing I can do about that. And the
importance that on the national level that is placed upon
that Statue, and rightly so. I mean when the Secretary
says, "You won't open that monument until I say so." Well,
when has that ever happened? That's the way it has to be.
The Statue is the number one priority.
25
Q: That's certainly a change since September 11. Well,
looking back at, and it sounds like you and your officers
are still really in a response mode to some extent.
A: I would think so.
Q: But just looking back at the past months, what do you think
worked particularly well? I mean what do you look back and
say, gee, I'm really proud of this. This couldn't have gone
better. We couldn't have done this better. What do you look
back at?
A: The way the members of this organization stepped up. The
people that were assigned downtown, people that were
assigned to the Statue, and Ellis, and to other sites, the
way everyone stepped up. I mean to give you an example. A
sergeant who's on a vacation in Florida on the day of the
attacks and can't get a flight, he rents a van and drives
back just because he had to be here. People, officers
just, everybody wanted to be one of the contributors, and
they did and they stepped up. That's not always the case.
Sometimes you have to drag people kicking and screaming.
Like I said, the way everybody stepped up and did what had
to be done, that's the most gratifying thing that I keep
with me.
26
Q: Is there anything you would have done differently?
A: I don't think so. We protected our sites and so to me that
was successful. I would have liked to have started out not
behind the 8 ball where the personnel was. I mean if we had
started out at or near our level of personnel that there
should have been, it would have made things easy that day
and subsequently. But there wasn't anything any of us could
do about that then and there's nothing you can do about it
now.
Q: And is there anything that you would do differently in
terms of coordinating with some of those other, local
A:
agencies? You know, the local and state, State Police. I
don't know who else you might have been dealing with.
I guess on the whole there weren't any problems. I mean
everybody was just, people wanted to do something. You
know, I'd get calls from San Francisco. Can you get us
there? They're 3,000 miles away and they feel kind of
helpless because they can't get there. Some of our
officers would work a 12-14 hour shift and they'd go to
Ground Zero and dig after. And many of us went down there.
That was good because it was, while you were busy, you
didn't thinking about what was happening or what had
27
happened. So that helped, I think, keep a lot of people
sane.
Q: Did you think you and your officers' bond with the
Manhattan Sites is stronger as a result of September 11? .
A: We knew a lot of the people and when we needed to be there
we worked well with them. There hasn't been any friction
that I know of.
Q: Well, is there anything that I haven't asked about? I have
this feeling that there is probably more about the marine
units. I've heard stories of them plucking people out of
the water and that kind of thing that.
A: Like I said, I wasn't on any of the boats. But I did speak
to them and they did pull people out of the water that day
and days afterward when there were secondary collapses. But
I think you need to speak to them because they were right
up close and personnel. We were on Ellis Island and it's
close, but it wasn't as close as they were.
I think you need the people who were on Ellis Island and
the plane flew over their head, those are some of the
people that I think would have something important to say.
28
The officers and we have three rangers assigned there, the
three rangers. I'm sure you're planning on speaking to
them. But I think you should speak to them.
Q: And you do sound very proud.
A: I am. I was never as proud to wear this uniform as that
day. Never as proud.
Q: That's great. And it seems like a good place to stop.
END OF INTERVIEW
29
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11TH ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview With
EINAR S. OLSEN
Chief Ranger
National Capital Region
Conducted by
Janet McDonnell, Ph.D. and Gary Scott
December 13, 2001
Headquarters, National Capital Region
Washington, D.C.
Q-S: This is Einar Olsen on December 13, 2001. And Einar, he's
the chief ranger here at the National Capital Region of the
National Park Service. And on the day of September 11,
2001, tell us what you heard, what you saw, and what you
did.
A: Okay, well, thank you for the opportunity, Gary. That day,
September 11, to the days prior to that we'd been having
beautiful, late summer weather. It was very quiet, very
sunny, temperatures in the mid-70s. It was just one of
these days that we savor after having those miserable dog
days, humid, hot, and hazy, the summer days here in
Washington.
That morning, about 9:10 in the morning, I was on my way,
leaving the regional office, going to the District of
Columbia, Northern Virginia Environmental Crime Task Force
meeting, which was being held at the Anacostia Naval
Station. And on my way out in the parking lot, the first I
learned of this was another employee in the regional office
just told me in passing, 'A plane just hit the World Trade
Center building." I go, "Boy, that's unusual." So I was
very sort of curious. So when I got in the car, I turned
the radio on to WTOP 1500, the all news station here, and
1
at that time learned that a second plane had in fact hit
the second Trade Center building in New York City.
So I proceeded to our meeting and when I got there, at the
Naval Station, we were in a conference room and there were
representatives from the Environmental Protection
Agency, Defense Department, the various state environmental
organizations and the Park Service. The mood was a little
tense, because everybody knew what happened. They knew at
that point that, and this was about 9:30 in the morning,
that there had been a terrorist attack in New York, because
the odds of two planes hitting by mistake are just
nonexistent in terms of it being an accident. So we knew
there had been a terrorist attack. So things were a little
on edge and we were having a hard time focusing.
And just five minutes into the meeting, about 9:35 I
believe it was, a number of pagers started going off in the
meeting room. And one of the individuals from the Defense
Department, Defense Criminal Investigator Service, left the
meeting to make a call and he ran back in. He interrupted
the meeting and he said, his words were, 'They just hit the
Pentagon."
2
And at that time we stopped the meeting and we went out and
looked out a big bay window of the Naval Station and we
could see all of the way over into Virginia and we could
see this huge mass of black smoke rising from the Pentagon.
You couldn't see the Pentagon, but you could see the smoke.
And right there and then we canceled the meeting and all of
the agencies picked up their belongings, got in the cars,
and we all raced, emergency response, back to our
respective offices. And it was a line of vehicles racing
back into downtown Washington. At that point, I
immediately.
Q-M: How difficult was it to get back?
A: Well, we ran lights and sirens the whole way so it didn't
take very long. And I think the public at that point
realized that things were happening and people were
clearing out of the way.
Q-S: Could you give us more specific information on the location
of the Naval Station from which you saw the Pentagon?
A: Yes. It's located pretty much, it's right on the Anacostia
River, right near, I think, it's the 11th Street Bridge.
It's immediately south of National Capital Parks East. And
the profile, the land profile in this part of D.C., is very
3
flat so you couldn't really make out a top of a building in
Virginia unless it was fairly high. You could not see the
Pentagon, itself, but the amount of black smoke coming from
the fuel from the plane which had exploded and was on fire
was incredible. Not just a column of smoke, but it was
spreading out like a mushroom, also.
Q-S: Were you able to get back to the office rather quickly or
was there traffic buildup already?
A: Not at that point. We were going inbound to central city so
it didn't take more than 5-10 minutes at the most. And
that's interesting because the issue of traffic would
become a major issue within two hours after that. But when
I returned to the regional director's office, we were
meeting in the regional director's office sort of figuring
what we should do. And at that point, we heard a large
explosion. And the gossip at that time was that they hit
the back of the Lincoln Memorial, which turned out not to
be true. In fact, it was a sonic boom from one of the Air
Force fighter planes, which had scrambled from Langley Air
Force Base down in the very southeastern part of Virginia,
which happened to get there too late.
4
Not knowing that immediately though, the Regional Director
decided to close the Regional Office and send everybody
home. So a number of people in my office, the Ranger
Services Division, were cleared out the regional office
building, went back in, and that time, I advised the
regional director we need to put all of our law enforcement
rangers on alert to be available to help out. The Park
Police had already started scrambling since they had the
primary responsibility for security of the monuments
downtown.
Q-M: Was there a plan for evacuating this building and how
smoothly did that work?
A: Well, that's not a very big deal. You know, we've had fire
drills over the years. But pretty much, there was a little
misunderstanding as to how people would get home. A lot of
people ended up walking because the traffic would become so
bad. But we weren't so concerned about the security. We
wanted to get them away from the sensitive facilities.
We're not that far from the Pentagon. We're not that far
from the monuments. I think that the regional director,
Terry Carlston, just didn't want them hanging around. So
they were sent home.
5
At that time, I asked the regional director to basically
regionalize the law enforcement rangers, which basically
puts them under my direct command. And so we did that and
at that point, I went to the U.S. Park Police headquarters
next door to their command center and offered up the
assistance of our rangers if they needed them.
Q-S: How were you in contact with all of the law enforcement
rangers?
A: At that point, I had had no contact with them. And that
would once again become a very major issue, because what
happened was, the Park Police, they said, "Yes, we do want
your assistance. Would you stage some and then once you
have them ready we'll give you an assignment."
was to get about 15 rangers together.
So our goal
Meanwhile, around that same time, because most of the
government buildings downtown had been closed, and people
were sent home, that sort of heightened the state of
tension, anxiety in the city. People were calling their
friends, their relatives, a large number of calls coming
into Washington. Now, what happened was both the land line
and the mobile phone system became inoperable, because they
were just overwhelmed. Therefore, we cannot communicate by
6
phones at all. So what I had to do then was basically go
through a radio system based out of a vehicle. And what I
did then was go to a vehicle, in the parking lot here, one
of our emergency vehicles, contact our regional
communication center which oversees all of the ranger
operations in the region. And it had only become a 24-hour
operation about six months before that.
Q-M: And where was that set up?
A: That's located in Maryland. We don't really advertise the
location, but it's out in the western part of Maryland. And
we basically put out, saying this is a regional emergency
and that all of the rangers are now regionalized and we
requested the communication center to call all of the parks
in the outlying areas where the rangers work. And
basically, I set up a staging area at the George Washington
Parkway headquarters in Northern Virginia, which happens to
be not more than half a mile from the CIA headquarters. But
it's a convenient location. It's outside the downtown area
and it's easy to get to. It's near major roads. And that
was going to be our staging area.
Q-S: They were going to come in.
7
A: They would come in. And it was supposed to be an emergency
response. And I got that process underway and I also
advised the communication center to call the George
Washington Parkway, tell them they were going to be the
staging area, and then be prepared to set up one.
At that point, I told the regional director what was going
on and I left the regional office, got in an emergency
vehicle, and started fighting my way through traffic in
Washington, D.C. It was horrendous. In hindsight, it
probably wasn't a very good idea that all of the government
offices and other offices which followed government policy,
it wasn't a good idea to close them, because emergency
vehicles could not get through the city. Because to get
into Virginia you have to cross a bridge to get across the
Potomac River and all of the major arteries were clogged.
I, basically, worked my way, lights and siren, up through
Northwest Washington, through Georgetown, took all of the
back roads through Georgetown and worked my way over to the
very northwest part of Washington, D.C., and into Maryland,
and ended up crossing the American Legion Bridge on the 495
Beltway into Virginia and taking the George Washington
Parkway south down to their headquarters. It took probably
8
a good 45 minutes to do that and only taking the back roads
made that possible.
So we set up the command, not a command center, it was a
staging for all of the people, rangers to report to. The
George Washington Parkway under Superintendent Audrey
Calhoun's direction did a great job. They provided three
individuals to help me there. They set up all of the maps
that we would need. They put on the TV so we could find out
what was going on, too, because we didn't have the full
picture at that time. So we set up the staging area. At
that point, it was the first time I got to check in with my
family and just see how things were. And told them I'm
okay, but I don't know when I'll be in touch with you.
Q-S: How many rangers did you get coming in?
A: Well, we got 15 rangers. Within two hours, we had the 15
rangers. And they did an excellent job getting there. And
once we had squads of 6 or 7 at a time, we basically went
back to the vehicle to contact the communication center in
western Maryland and had them call into the city. At that
point, they could call from western Maryland into the Park
Police command center and get an assignment and then relay
back the same way. And we got an assignment.
9
Our very first assignment was to report to the Columbia
Island area of the George Washington Parkway. And the
assignment was to check on the status of all of the
children from the Pentagon daycare facility. When the
attack had occurred, they evacuated the Pentagon daycare
center, which luckily happened to be on the opposite side
of the Pentagon from where the attack occurred at the
Pentagon facility. They crossed the bridge under Columbia
Island Marina, which is under Park Service jurisdiction,
and basically, they basically just sat down in a grass
field and waited there.
Q-S: Kids?
A: There were kids and there were the adult leaders. There
were about 50 people altogether.
Q-S: Was this in the LBJ Grove?
A: Yes.
Q-S: So the kids had been moved to the LBJ Grove.
A: Right.
Q-M: You said that was the first assignment. And maybe I didn't
follow closely enough. Where did that assignment come from?
10
A: That came from the Park Police.
Q-M: Okay.
A: They had, apparently,
the Pentagon daycare
somehow had gotten word that all of
kids and some of the adult leaders
were there and we needed to do something. We couldn't just
leave them there.
It was interesting that none of the Park Service facilities
had been attacked. It was just the Pentagon, but there was
great concern that there may be additional attacks on some
of these icon facilities, such as the monuments and the
White House, which the Park Police had responsibility for.
They were overstretched and were very tapped out for law
enforcement resources, so they needed our assistance for
these various assignments that were coming up. So that was
our first assignment.
Q-S: So how many rangers did you get down at the LBJ grove?
A: Well, we had seven at that time. And because they were
not familiar with the geography of Washington, D.C., I led
them down in a convoy. And at that point, the George
Washington Parkway had been closed for security reasons
because I guess it's close to the CIA. It was a very eerie
11
feeling leaving the parkway headquarters, going in a convoy
down the George Washington Parkway, passing various
checkpoints along the way. So it was very quiet. That's the
sense I had. It was very quiet. Not any traffic.
Q-S: Nobody is on the parkway.
Q-M: Where there any Park Police checkpoints?
A: They had a couple of points, yes.
Q-S: To backtrack, where were the rangers from?
A: The rangers were from the outlying parts of the region,
pretty much Antietam National Battlefield, Monocacy
National Battlefield, Harpers Ferry National Historic Park,
C&O Canal National Historic Park, Manassas National
Battlefield Park, and Prince William Forest Park.
Q-S: So they got to the LBJ Grove, then what did they do?
A: What happened was there was one supervisor ranger. I put
him in charge of that crew, and they were able to establish
contact, I guess with the Military District of Washington,
arranged bus transportation for them, and they were taken
to a Virginia Department of Transportation facility on
Columbia Road, where they could be inside, they could
provide snacks, probably some TV. And basically they stayed
12
there all afternoon until they were picked up by their
parents. And I do not know how the parents found out about
that, that facility, but I guess the Military District of
Washington coordinated that.
Q-S: On Columbia Road in?
A: Columbia Pike in Northern Virginia.
Q-S: Oh, Columbia Pike.
A: A couple of miles from the Pentagon.
Q-M: You said you led that squad down there?
A: Well, what happened, I led the squad to Columbia Island
Marina, turned over the assignment to the supervisor
ranger, and then they provided a convoy escort for the bus
to the facility.
Q-M: Is there anything you can tell us about just what your
thoughts were arriving there, I mean what the, what's the
word I'm looking for? Sort of the ...
A: The mood.
Q-M: Yes, the mood.
13
A: It was just very quiet, because there wasn't much traffic
around. Everybody knew what was going on. It's amazing.
Even when I had to fight through traffic to get from the
regional office to the staging area, the George Washington
Parkway area, people moved out of the way much more so than
normal. Everybody knew there was a real emergency going on.
People on the side of the street, if there was heavy
traffic area, people who might have been on the side of the
street, they were directing cars to move one direction or
the other to make room for me to pass through. So you
sensed that people were, they knew this was for real. They
were out there trying to help in any way possible.
But back to the kids, I really didn't have any thoughts at
the time. I was so caught up in just the duties. I really
didn't have any time to share any of my, or even to have
any emotions. It was purely, I was in that task oriented
mode at that time.
Q-S: So all you did was take the squad of rangers down to the
grove and then you turned around and went right back. And
what did you find and see when you got back?
A: When I got back to the George Washington Parkway
headquarters, shortly after I got back, we had enough for
14
the second squad. And then we went through the process
again. The rangers checked in. We checked their time of
arrival so we could keep track of them to make sure they
all get back safe. Then we got our second assignment for
the Park Police. That assignment was to report to a mobile
command post on the national mall near the Smithsonian
Castle. So once again, a lot of the rangers not knowing the
geography, I led that convoy downtown. We entered
Washington via the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and once
again, it was just a very eerie sensation. There was no
traffic. All of the roads had been closed. The bridges had
been closed. We entered downtown Washington on
Constitution Avenue.
Q-S: Were people still trying to get home?
A: No, it was fairly clear at that time. We ended up having to
take a little detour. We had to go right by the Department
of the Interior building and came back to Constitution
Avenue. It was very eerie. Just extremely quiet, because
there was no traffic in that area.
Q-M: Would this be mid afternoon roughly?
A: It was the mid, you know, 2:00. What we did, we reported to
the mobile command post, received a briefing, and basically
15
turned over the rangers to the Park Police and they provide
security and enforced closures along the national mall, and
also closures at the Jefferson Memorial.
Q-S: What were the duties of these rangers on the mall?
A: They were basically to enforce closures, you know, make
sure traffic didn't pass through certain areas and just be
on surveillance just looking for suspicious activity
because we didn't know if there were going to be anymore
attacks.
Q-S: And how long were their duties, the rest of the day and
into the night?
A: Those two squads, they pretty much worked just that day,
because after that point, the assignment with the daycare
children, that of course ended, and later that night, the
Park Police had obtained sufficient numbers of their own
people that they were released.
Now in addition to those two squads, at the other end of
the region at Catoctin Mountain Park, where Camp David is
located, they had their own assignment. Basically, the
President was evacuated. After a certain period of time,
he was evacuated from Washington, D.C., so we had to gear
16
up for Camp David. So we also sent a number of rangers up
to Camp David to enforce various security perimeter zones
around that area. And that started a long term assignment.
Since that day, we provided over 56 days of 24-hour
closures at various areas of the park, and that is ongoing
and we expect it to be ongoing for possibly over a year.
Q-M: What effect has that had on the parks? And what effect did
it have that day and the day after? I mean pulling some of
these rangers. .
A: That's a good question. As a result of all of these
demands, most of the parks in the outlying region, they
closed, where they could actually physically close the gate
and closed buildings, they closed down, because we had
basically stripped those outlying parks of most of their
protection rangers.
Q-S: That day or in the ensuing days?
A: That day. It was pretty much that day, maybe a day or two
after. But things settled down for a day or two after that,
but then we started getting new assignments. The assignment
with Camp David closures, they started to become very
intense, because the President, the Vice President, the
cabinet, and other senior level government officials
17
started having a lot of their high level security meetings
at Camp David and that required high levels of security.
And that require all of the rangers from Catoctin Mountain
Park, plus rangers from other parks in the region as well
as numbers of rangers from the northeast region, including
Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania Battlefield. We
had rangers from the Delaware Water Gap and Valley Forge
who helped out. So that was an ongoing assignment.
After that, though, the Secretary of the Interior got very
concerned about security at a number of Department of the
Interior facilities, nationwide. And as a result of that,
the Park Service started getting a number of requests to
provide protection rangers to guard sites at Boston
National Historic Park, where there is a naval ship, I
think it's the U.S. Constellation. The Charlestown Navy
Yard is part of the Park Service responsibility. Also
Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia with
the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, a large number of
visitors, they had security concerns there, also. The
Department of the Interior building, itself, and in all of
the Department of the Interior dams in the western part of
the United States.
18
So as a result of that, my counterparts, all of the
regional chief rangers, working with other high level
personnel from the Washington office, we developed a
national emergency response plan to organize and coordinate
all of our law enforcement resources to handle this
security emergency, as well as others that may happen in
the future. So based on this plan, all of the parks around
the country were required to prepare draw down plans to
basically keep the minimum amount of staffing they needed
for their own basic needs in the park, and then release the
other rangers for security assignments around the country.
So these, all of the regional chief rangers, we formed a
group called the Multi-Regional Coordinating Group. And we
started determining where the assignments were and matched
them with the rangers available, and we started sending
rangers all over the country. That is now ongoing. And we
anticipate that's going to be a challenge with us for at
least a year.
Q-S: Are these rangers--let's go back to Catoctin. The rangers
up at Catoctin, did they work overtime?
A: Oh, yes. There's been a lot of overtime throughout the
region.
19
Q-S: And did they work through the night at Catoctin?
A: Yes, through the night.
Q-S: So you had to provide the 24 hour coverage of rangers.
A: We covered for 56 days now.
Q-S: And approximately how many rangers does that take to cover
Catoctin?
A: We don't discuss that, but it's a fair number.
Q-S: A fair number of rangers. And the rangers then that are
sent to these parks to guard the parks and the Interior
facilities and the dams, is the travel money and lodging
available for them?
A: Right. At first there was a lot of confusion about how this
was administratively going to be handled. But since that
time, the unit that receives the support, they end up
funding it, as well as some emergency law and order funding
that has come from the Washington Office. But we're still
hoping that Congress will appropriate funds to the Park
Service to pay for our past expenses and the expenses we
know we're going to incur just with this response effort,
and to help us prepare and put in place better security
20
measures at these high profile parks and other facilities
across the country.
Q-S: But there hasn't been a block of money?
eat it then?
The parks had to
A: Well, the Park Service is basically reprogramming money
which comes out of other programs.
Q-M: Right there is no emergency funding authority.
A: No. But in addition to this, we have another challenge.
And that was a previous commitment we made to the Winter
Olympics that are going to be happening during the month of
February in the Salt Lake City area. Due to the very unique
skills which Park Rangers have, the U.S. Secret Service
which has the responsibility for security at the Olympics
requested rangers to work at a lot of the venues,
particularly the skiing venues. So we have 105 rangers from
around the Park Service who are going to be working at the
Olympics at the Alpine events, cross country events,
probably biathlon, who have skills in snowshoeing, alpine
skiing, cross country skiing, and other Nordic skills,
emergency medical skills, in addition to law enforcement
skills, they going to be providing some technical law
enforcement security for that effort. And we're going to
21
have to deal with that in addition to the work we're doing
for the Interior Department during the month of February.
And it just points out the challenges that the ranger
workforce is facing across the country. We're often asked
to provide a lot of support for these special assignments,
but we're in dire straits. We're over 600 rangers short,
nationwide. And we're just hoping that someone will pay
attention to that and start, you know, help us to provide
some funds to make up the shortfall.
Q-S: And for this Winter Olympics, you'll be working outside the
Park Service.
A: Right and in a situation like that, they're provided deputy
U.S. Marshal status where they can work anywhere. When we
do that we have to get that type of authorization at a
number of dam facilities, where they're not on Interior
Department lands, per se.
Q-S: None of the rangers here that work in the Washington area
were called up to New York then?
A: We had rangers. After things calmed down here after
September 11, we had a number of rangers who went to Boston
to provide security at the Navy Yard. We've had rangers
22
work there and at the Interior Department, as well as
Catoctin Mountain Park for security at Camp David. So we've
helped out the northeast region and the Interior
Department, also.
Q-M: You've indicated that one of the effects of having ranger
resources stretched fairly thin was that at least for a
brief period a few parks actually had to be closed. Are
there some other effects that you'd want to address?
A: Well, because of all of these security assignments we've
received, and they're long term, the parks are being asked
to basically reduce their staffing, substantially, from
what they would normally have. And as a result of that,
we're providing just the very basic public safety needs in
the parks and things such as resource protection are really
taking a back seat now.
SIDE B
Q-M: Actually I would be interested in hearing you talk about
how you set priorities with these, you know you have these,
I mean one part of it was requests corning in from the Park
Police, requests for support. But then you had other
requirements that had to be met, and some of that day-to-
23
day, keeping some of the day-to-day ranger missions going.
How did you sort through those priorities? Was there some
sort of process for that?
A: Well, on September 11, the Park Police knew that we had
about 15-16 rangers available so we advised that we had two
squads. And basically they made up the assignments knowing
that that's the numbers we had available. So that wasn't
that much of a challenge. I think the challenge has been
these long term security needs, particularly for the Bureau
of Reclamation dams. Other than Hoover Dam, they have no
law enforcement or security personnel of their own. And
historically, they have not had much security at those dam
sites. So that's been the biggest challenge.
Basically, this Multi-Region Coordinating Group, we learn
about what their requests are for security and we talk to
the incident commanders at each site to learn what the, we
basically do a risk assessment, particularly with dam sites
in the west. These dams, such as Hoover Dam, they provide
electricity. They provide water supply. Some dams provide
flood control for communi ties downstream. And so we were
sort of balancing the various risks of a catastrophic
failure or attack on these facilities.
24
Also, we'd been given a number of priorities from the
Interior Department. Security for the Interior Department
and the high level Interior officials became the number one
priority. And then also.
Q-M: How was that coordination done with WASO and with the
Department?
A: When we met, we would have telephone conferences, they
would usually have a representative participating in those
phone conferences.
Q-M: But did you deal, I understand the region has an incident
team, is that correct? I guess I.
A: Well, we basically put together a coordinating group. We
didn't use, to sort of sort out the assignments and the
personnel, we didn't use incident management teams. They
would actually go to a site and manage the incident on the
ground. And we often sent out one of those special events
teams. These are teams of 11 rangers, who have trained
together, and they would go as a unit to a site. But they
were just a resource.
In terms of coordinating, it was the regional chief
rangers. It was the acting chief ranger in the Washington
25
office. And we also had a liaison with the Department of
the Interior, and then also we had personnel from the
national interagency fire center personnel, who are experts
at coordinating large numbers of resources and assignments
based on their experience with wildland fire. So they
provided a lot of expertise in guiding us through this
process.
Q-S: You have sent rangers out in the past for fire fighting?
A: Yes.
Q-S: Did the types of emergency techniques that you used for
fighting these fires in the past have any help in treating
this catastrophe?
already in place?
In other words, were the networks
A: Right. I think rangers as a whole, as well as other people
involved in wildland firefighting, we operate under
something called the incident command system. It's a system
for organizing events and emergencies. And we applied a
lot of the aspects of that to both the initial response on
September 11th and for coordinating our efforts since then.
We've introduced things such as planning levels. We have
planning levels on wildland fires going from 1 to 5, 5
being the highest level of an emergency where at that point
26
we basically start shutting down park facilities, provide
personnel resources for wild land fires or for law
enforcement emergencies. Presently, we're at planning
level 4, that is a high level of preparedness and making
people available, but we're not actually closing down park
facilities. In the event of an actual emergency, regional
or national emergency related to terrorism, we would go to
a level 5 right away.
Q-M: So do you think that incident command system worked
effectively for this particular response?
A: For our region, I think so, because we're not that large
and most of our rangers are well-versed in it because
they're also wildland fire fighters. In terms of
coordinating rangers and assignments nationwide, there's
been some confusion, and there have been a number of people
[who] have questioned the viability of using this national
resource ordering system like we use for wildland fire, how
well it's been working for this law enforcement type of
emergency. I personally have not seen that because I'm not
actually at the National Incident Command Center, known as
NICC, where they're actually marrying up the assignments
with the personnel available. So I have not seen that first
hand.
27
Q-S: But it sounds like there was a drill. There were already
established procedures and you fell back on them very
usefully during this event.
A: Yes. Personally, particularly the day of the emergency,
determining that this is a real emergency. The idea of
staging people, having a squad leader, the adrninistrati ve
aspect, having people check in, check out, assigning
account numbers, those types of things which we had a lot
of experience in, in terms of dealing with the wildland
fires and other special events. So a lot of those skills
come in very handy. And they're going to be used, a lot of
this administrative apparatus to support the big incident
events, we're using it right now for the security work.
We're going to be using if for the Olympics, also.
Q-M: Do your rangers report any changes in their interactions
with the public at some of the parks in your region?
A: Well, I think generally the public was initially was just
more on guard. Following the terrorist attack, we also had
some other terrorist incidents associated with anthrax.
And we had a number of reports of substances that looked
like anthrax show up in the parks and, of course, we end up
closing the facilities and then calling on local expertise
28
had to reflect on what has happened. It's been one of my
toughest years, in addition to the terrorism attacks and
initial response, I spent half of my time on working with
this coordinating group and following up on the little
assignments from that. So it definitely has changed our
work in our office.
Q-S: So has the pace of work gotten a more hectic now?
A: Well, it was for a couple of months, but now what we've
done is we decided there are certain things we're just not
going to do this year, because we realize the national
security issues are on the top of the list right now. But
still, it hasn't really sunk in a lot. In addition to
that, because we haven't had a time to think about it so
much, we bought a lot of newspapers following those initial
days, too, and we've stored those away in a little box that
we're keeping for our daughter of all of the things that
have happened around the time that she was born. So that's
probably the way that we're going to remember it and we're
going to sometime down the road have a chance to read
through those newspapers.
30
Q-M: Does anything stand out as being the most challenging about
responding to this event?
resources? What comes to mind?
Was it the shortage of
A: I think it's the long term requests that are being made of
rangers to provide security. And the fact is that we're
often asked to do this, yet we don't see much assistance
for getting us more rangers. In the last six years in the
National Capital Region alone, we've lost 20 percent of our
rangers through attrition. And that's mostly a funding
issue. And other regions have lost rangers, in not quite
the same numbers. We've had numerous studies done of the
law enforcement program in the Park Service and one of the
most recent one said that we're short about 600 positions,
nationwide.
The challenge is that we're a very versatile workforce, the
rangers, and we're called upon to provide a lot of the
support. But we're part of the Interior Department and the
Interior Department is not looked upon as being a law
enforcement agency. So when it comes time for Congress to
distribute funds for terrorism, security and law
enforcement, we don't rank high on the priority list. And
it's usually the Treasury Department and Justice that
receive most of those funds, so it's very frustrating for
31
us. And the workforce is getting tired and it's getting
older, too. So I think the program is in dire needs of
being refreshed, of being rejuvenated.
Q-M: How easy was it to shift resources among parks, or between
A:
parks in the region? I mean is there flexibility in your
regional operations and enough flexibility to be able to do
that?
That's a good question, because as you know, the
organization culture of the Park Service these days is of
that we're very decentralized and the superintendents have
ultimate control over all of their personnel. And that's
why on September 11, when the terrorist attacks occurred, I
recommended to the regional director, because we don't want
to have to get clearances from all of the superintendents
and finding them, basically regionalize, he created an
emergency delegation of authority to me to put them under
regional control and we can just order them to move around
for this immediate emergency.
Q-S: Are they still regionalized?
A: Well, no, they weren't after the event, but as a result of
the draw down plans, all personnel that had been determined
32
to be in excess of their very basic levels are considered
t o be available for me t o move around as need be . And the
par ks are doing what they can. I can honestly say that
when they developed their draw- down plans, when t hey're all
completely done, every park, I think, has made avai lable a
reasonable amount of resources considering what t hey have
avai lable in the park. It's just that there are just not
that many of them. So even now at the planning level 4,
which is the second highest level, we
only have (6) {?)(E)
rangers avai lable for out of park assignments . At planning
level 5, we only had(l5) (?)(El available.
Q-M: Particularly for a region that includes the Nation's
Capital.
A: Right . And most like ly if there is another t errorist
incident , it's going to be associated with the downtown
area where the Park Police have the primary law enforcement
j urisdiction . And our role would be to provide fi rst
response, extra law enforcement personnel to meet their
immediate needs, and also provide extra support for
Catoctin Mountain Park and Camp David. We've actually put
in ant i -terrori sm packages to support our abi lity to
provide these functions and so far we have not had any luck
in getting that support .
33
Q-M: From a strictly personal perspective, do you see September
11 as a transforming event for either the Park Service as
an agency or for your region?
A: We've always had a lot of concerns around terrorism in the
Washington, D.C. area. The Park Police have commissioned a
number of studies, and I've been involved in one of them.
And we know that there's a lot of security concerns and,
hopefully, this will make a difference in terms of long
term support for security and related programs.
for that.
I'm hoping
In terms of the Park Service as a whole, based on what I've
seen from the Park Service leaders in our national office,
I don't see any change. They do not think the agency has
been stressed at all in terms of providing extra support
for the rangers. There's been a lot of concern for
individual employees and getting counseling for employees,
particularly at the sites in New York City, but in terms of
shifting resources and priorities in the agency, I've seen
no difference at all.
Personally, I've lived overseas for five years. The U.S.
has always struck me as a very isolated country in a way,
34
because we have oceans on both sides. Most Americans know
very little about the rest of the world, and I think we've
always had a sense of being very innocent because these
attacks are things that, other than the attack on Oklahoma
City, which was domestic terrorism, these terrorism
attacks, these are things that happen in other parts of the
world. They don't happen here. I think we've lost a lot of
that innocence since September 11.
Q-M: Is there something about either the region's response or
your rangers' response that you find particularly
gratifying, I mean something that worked particularly well?
A: I think September 11, the response that we had and the fact
that we were .able to adjust so well to the challenges that
we faced with the traffic, being able to move through
traffic to stage and move our personnel, to communicate
when all of the phone lines were down, both mobile and land
lines. Basically, they weren't down, they were just
overwhelmed. And we had never had resources to plan a
region wide communications network. And we were able to
work through what we had to communicate. We were able to
get the people together and we were able to get them to
their assignments and they did the job. I was very proud of
that.
35
Q-S: Do you think this is an infrastructure that will continue?
A: An infrastructure?
Q-S: That you built now?
A: We haven't built anything. We just basically worked through
what we had in place. We have identified many needs to
help us do this better, but it's going to be up to the
leadership of the Park Service, Interior Department, and
Congress to what extent they want to support us. And I
think rangers, as a whole, have been very frustrated with
the leadership of the Park Service over the years because
we've identified a number of needs and it's just, the
protection programs, visitor protection,
protection, it's just not our turn right now.
do not have the support.
resource
And we just
I can say at the regional office level we've had some
support. Regional Director Terry Carlstrom had provided
funding support to develop a regional communication center,
which is operational 24-hours a day, which was critical in
terms of organizing, communicating with and organizing our
personnel on September 11. That center is a model for other
regions of the country now. We've had numerous inquiries.
36
So I've got to say the regional director has been very good
about supporting that center, but at his level there's only
so much he can do. And I think we all recognize that.
Q-M: So the new heightened security measures, new security
A:
measures, are broadening the role, expanding the role, of
Park Rangers without the resources to support that?
That is correct. And what that means is it pulls money
away from other functions. And if this is a long term, it
looks like it will be a long term assignment in terms of
security at these icon parks and dam facilities, and [if]
there's no new money, it's basically being reprogrammed out
of other program areas. And also, the rangers would like
to be able to do some of the work that they were hired for,
also.
Q-S: Sure. Have you had any interface with the President's new
homeland security agency?
A: No, but I'm sure that various individuals, high level
officials in the Interior Department have.
Q-S: Is there anything else?
A: I believe that's all.
37
Q-S: Well, I think your interview is worthy of preserving in the
archives of the National Park Service.
A: Thank you.
END OF INTERVIEW
38
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11TH ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with
CAPTAIN SAL LAURO
U. S. Park Police
Conducted by
JANET A. MCDONNELL, Ph.D.
March 28, 2002
Washington, D.C.
TAPE ONE SIDE A
Q: It is March 28, 2002. I'm Janet McDonnell and I am here at
U.S. Park Police headquarters with Captain Sal Lauro. Your
official title this point in time is?
A: Currently I'm the commander of our planning and development
unit.
Q: But at the time of the September 11 attack?
I
- ------ - - - ~ - - - - --------- - ~ - - - - - ~ - - - - ~ - ~ - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - ---- - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ---------- ------------
A: I was assistant commander of our Special Forces Branch,
acting as the commander of the Special Forces Branch.
Q: Then maybe just to start if you would tell me how you first
became aware of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center and what your first actions were.
A: Okay. I was in my office in Building 136 in the Washington
Navy Yard, where we have temporary offices. Actually, I was
working on plans for the upcoming World Bank/International
Monetary Fund demonstrations which were to occur the end of
September. We'd been working on that for several months. We
expected major problems with these groups. Some of these
demonstrations have turned violent in other countries and
we were planning for violence here.
As I was working on some of our plans one of my, one of the
officers who works for me came in and said, ~ J u s t heard
over the radio that there'd been an explosion in one of the
towers of the World Trade Center near the top." So we went
into another office where there's a television and a group
of officials ended up congregating in there looking at, I
don't remember if it was CNN or one of the local channels
had the shot of one tower burning. And they were coming up
with all sorts of theories as to what it was. And I
2
remember we were sitting there trying to, discussing
probably coming down here to headquarters to coordinate.
If it did turn out to be terrorism, we need to get down
here and coordinate our response, because obviously DC is a
target just as New York is.
And while we were discussing that is when we saw the second
plane hit the second tower, which was, I mean everybody has
seen it now, but at the time it was just a shocking thing
to see. And that's when we knew it hadn't been accidental,
the first one. That we were under some sort of attack. We
immediately--Major Pellinger, who was my immediate boss at
that time, but who was acting as the commander of the
Operations Division, he called here and spoke to Deputy
Chief [Edward] Winkel, who was acting as the Chief of
Police since we, our chief had retired and we hadn't
replaced him yet. And Deputy Chief Winkel asked us all to
come down here to headquarters exit to meet in the
conference room to determine what steps we were going to
take to secure the monuments and memorials.
I was driving from the Navy Yard across the Southeast
Freeway towards the headquarters right here, and speaking
on the phone to my mom back in New York, because I have a
3
nephew who works on Wall Street. And I called to--I wasn't
sure where exactly he worked. I was pretty certain he
didn't work in either of the Twin Towers, but I called to
see if she knew for sure, if she had spoken to him. And as
we're speaking and I'm coming across the freeway, I saw an
explosion in front of me. I knew it was in the vicinity of
the Pentagon. I didn't actually see the Pentagon, but I
could see the flames and smoke coming up. I said, 'Mom, I
have to go. I think there's an explosion near the
Pentagon. It might have been another plane." I came off of
the exit and as I was driving down here you could see
across the river, flames and smoke going up. And then we
got a report from a couple of our officers who were right
near there that it had been a plane that had crashed in.
We responded in here. The chiefs, Deputy Chief Winkel,
Deputy Chief Holmes, and Deputy Chief Schamp, myself, Major
Pellinger, several captains, Captain Walters, Captain
Berberich, I believe, all met in there, started discussing
what we were going to do. We immediately realized that we
had to secure the area around the White House, since all of
jurisdiction around the White House is our property and our
responsibility. We needed to secure the monuments and
memorials, make sure that all of the people were evacuated
4
-------------------..
to safety. And Major Fellinger set up in the command post
and he was running the operation from there. I went out
onto the street and I took command of our operations out on
the street.
Q: Where on the street?
A: Just out on, making sure everything was done. I was
physically out there. What we did was we called, we have a
mobile command post and I had that brought out to 12th
Street and Jefferson Drive on the Mall. The Mall Metro?
We set that up there and that was our, basically our mobile
command where we had officers reporting to.
I responded up to the White House area. And our officers,
Metropolitan Police, and Secret Service had the entire area
around the White House secured. Several blocks they had
closed off to vehicles and pedestrians. Went up to the
Washington Monument and we had Captain Berberich, who's the
commander of Central District, who was there with one of
his lieutenants and a number of officers and they had the
area around the Washington Monument secured. They were
making sure no vehicles came up the service roadway and
they were keeping pedestrians outside of the ring of Jersey
barricades that are up there. Lieutenant [Pete) Markland I
5
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believe was at the Lincoln Memorial. I'm sorry, Lieutenant
Markland was at the Ellipse. He was securing the Ellipse.
Captain Walters I believe went up to the Lincoln Memorial
and coordinated the closure up there. And we had personnel
at the Jefferson Memorial. I'm not sure exactly who was up
there, but we had, we knew that all of the areas were
secure and everything was closed.
And that's about the time when we heard that the government
was shutting down and they were evacuating all of the
government offices, which meant that all of the non-
government offices were going to be evacuated also. We had
massive crowds down there. Someone suggested that we close
the Mall, which we did not do. I recommended against that
because basically it was being used as a shortcut by people
getting back and forth to Metro, trying to get across one
of the bridges, trying to get to their vehicles, wherever
they were going. So we left the Mall itself open. The Mall
became pretty crowded, people just wandering around kind of
like shocked, what's going on and all.
One of the problems we had was we had a lot of officers
respond in. And communications, we use the Nextels a lot
and our radios a lot. Because of the number of
6
-----------------
-------- --------------
transmissions, we were having problems with people getting
on the radio. The Nextels, for a while the system
completely went down. It just was overloaded and shut down.
So we had officers responding in, and a lot of them just
responded to locations where they thought they would be
needed. So it took us awhile to get a handle. We knew we
had everything covered, but we weren't, for awhile we
weren't sure who was at which location. We knew what
officials were there. It just took awhile for everything to
shake out and for the officials there to keep track of who
they had.
We were getting constant reports, you know, a bomb at the
State Department. Another plane heading inbound from
Pennsylvania. A truck coming across one of the bridges. A
suspicious package on the Memorial Bridge. It was just
constant for probably 2 or 3 hours. Fortunately, all of
these reports turned out to be false reports and just kind
of hysteria. But we had to try to keep our officers
focused on making sure they were doing what they had to do
to protect their areas.
Lieutenant [George] Wallace, who's in charge of our
motorcycle unit, and who was one of the first officers at
7
--------------------------------
the Pentagon, he came up to me and we discussed, we had a
massive traffic jam trying to get out of the city. And we
have in the morning and in the evening during rush hour we
change some of the roadways, mainly Rock Creek Parkway. In
the morning, it's all lanes inbound, in the evening, it's
all lanes outbound. And he recommended that we do that. I
believe it was about shortly after 11:00, maybe even before
that, when we decided that we would put the P.M rush hour
traffic pattern into effect.
Q: Were there any particular challenges in doing that?
A: Well, the concern was people aren't used to that. They know
in the morning, between 4:00 and 6:00 at night, they can't
come southbound on Rock Creek Parkway, because it's all
northbound. The problem is if we do it at 11:00, there's a
chance somebody is going to get on. We have barricades that
block them, but we were concerned that somebody is going to
drive around.
Q: Sure.
A: So some of the main areas, like Rock Creek Parkway and
Beach Drive, the exit from Teddy Roosevelt, not Teddy
Roosevelt, yes, TR Bridge where it comes on to it, we made
sure those barricades were there and we kept officers there
8
for awhile just until the traffic really started flowing,
to make sure nobody came around the barricades. We didn't
need to have a head on collision in the middle of all of
this.
At one point there was a suspicious package on Memorial
Bridge and until we were able to determine that it was
nothing dangerous, we shut Memorial Bridge. So that
compounded the problem. Now one of the major arteries out
of the city is blocked.
So we were trying to do that. We've got this P.M. rush hour
traffic into effect and started getting traffic out of D.C.
One of the lessons we learned is there wasn't a lot of
coordination between, we work really closely with
Metropolitan Police and some of the other jurisdictions.
But everybody was kind of focused on their own problems and
there wasn't a lot of coordination between agencies
immediately. Later on it got better.
But one of the issues was we can feed all of this traffic
out, but at some point it's going to hit a road block,
which it did. Going up Beach Drive to Rock Creek Park, the
traffic signal at Beach Drive and Park Road was on its
9
normal cycle. It's not on the P.M. rush hour cycle. So
that traffic backed up there. When it got out into
Maryland, those lights aren't set. So there have been a lot
of meetings. The Council of Governments has had meetings
with the transportation people from all of the
jurisdictions to come up with a plan so that we not only
can get them out of the city, but we can get them beyond
that and out to the outer suburbs. So that was one of the
lessons that we learned.
Q: So the metropolitan evacuation plan that the District has
been working on, the Park Police have been involved in
that?
A: Yes, we're involved in that.
Q: Great.
A: Yes, we're involved in that and the Council of Governments'
plans. What I did in my role, I supervised the motorcycle
unit. I was involved with the lieutenant who's in charge of
that unit. So shortly after the 11th, I asked he and his
personnel to come up with one plan which could then, we
knew we were going to be asked this, a plan to evacuate
large numbers of people on our roadways. What roads would
we make one way outbound? What roads could we shut
10
completely? And that's being used and it's being tied in
with the entire Council of Governments' plan for the whole
area.
And the other plan that I had them work up was the plan if
we, sort of like the Capital where they don't allow any
trucks down there, if we decided for whatever reason
because of the threat level or something, we didn't want
any trucks down around the monuments or the memorials or on
the Mall, where would be the best places to shut it down
and post officers to make sure? So we had that plan in
place, too. If we needed to we can quickly decide where to
assign officers.
One of the challenges we faced that day, not only were we
worried about the monuments and memorials downtown, but
because of the Pentagon, we have an MOU with Arlington
Cemetery. We provide assistance in Arlington Cemetery. We
handle law enforcement in there under this memorandum of
understanding. And Arlington County and Arlington Cemetery
requested our assistance in this cemetery to prevent people
from going from there into the Pentagon area. And also on
the roadways leading up to the Pentagon, some of which are
11
ours. We had to shut some roadways so traffic couldn't go,
like on route 110 and some of the other roadways.
At one point that afternoon, I'm not sure exactly when,
they found, at about 3:30 that afternoon they found a piece
of the airplane in Arlington Cemetery. So we had to send
officers out there to secure it as evidence. Eventually,
the FBI came and took custody of it. So we had that going
on at the same time.
We were also heavily involved with evacuating the Secretary
of Interior. She has a security detail which is made up of
Park Police sergeants. And they evacuated her out to a
secondary site, through a continuity of operations.
Q: How smoothly did that work?
A: That went pretty smoothly, because they just took her out
of town. There is a plan, the Federal Government has a
plan to, which I won't go into great detail because some of
it is classified, to get Cabinet officials out of D.C. It
goes back to the '60's and '70's when we were worried about
the Soviet Union attacking us with nuclear weapons. And
it's a plan to quickly evacuate all of these Cabinet
members out of D.C. And we play an integral part, because
12
we have to secure the area and make sure they get out of
there. We practice that probably every couple of weeks. We
get a practice call on it. We have to go and do our role.
I've been on the Park Police now . for almost 24 years and
never once has it actually been called until September 11.
In the middle of all of this, probably around 11:00-
actually, I'll check these notes.
Q: Is this part of that Continuity of Operations Plan?
A: Yes. But this has been in place for probably 30 years. It
was before they even started thinking about continuity of
operations. I mean it basically is, but it wasn't called
that.
Q: For that long it's been clear that the Park Service would
be responsible for that, have a role in that?
A: Right. The Park Police would be responsible to get these
government officials out of--we were not specifically
taking them out. We were securing the area where they were
going to move with Secret Service and other agencies. At
12:30 on the 11th, we were notified that this plan was
being put into place. And that didn't work very smoothly
because some of the Cabinet members--basically what
happened when this occurred, when the attacks occurred.
13
------------- .. -------
Each Cabinet member has their own security detail. And a
lot of it, the security details just took their Cabinet
members and evacuated them on their own. And there wasn't
a lot of coordination between the different details so we
ended up, I believe eventually three of these Cabinet
members arrived at the site.
The method of the way they were supposed to be evacuated
wasn't available, so we ended up motorcading them. We had
motorcycles, and police cars, and worked with Secret
Service to motorcade them out of D.C. So eventually we did
get them out. We did our part. It was the rest of the
system that seemed to break down. But it was pretty
interesting because we got the call to put this plan into
effect. We practiced it for years.
always thought it would never happen.
And, you know, we
When it did happen,
when I was notified because I was the on scene operational
commander out on the street, when communications notified
me the plan was being implemented, there was a momentary
kind of disbelief on my part that we had so much else going
on we didn't really have the personnel to do this. But I
snapped out of that pretty quickly and started directing
units and we were able to get the area secured and get
14
everything in place pretty quickly, so I guess practice
does work.
Q: I think I remember reading in the after action report the
suggestion that one of the lessons learned might be that
because the Park Police were so busy with other
responsibilities, that maybe that mission, that task could
have fallen to other than Park Police. Do you have any
sense of that?
A: I don't think that was the issue. I mean we were able to do
what we needed to do. It was these other teams, the
security details that didn't get the people here.
Q: It was the coordination that broke down.
A: Right. And we had nothing to do with that. Our sole role
is securing the area. And the area is in the parks, so
really nobody else can do it. And everybody else was so
busy. Metropolitan Police had their hands full. Everybody
was busy.
Q: So you weren't saying that the Park Police were stretched
too thin at that point?
A: No, we were able to do it. I was concerned, but we had
sufficient people and we were able to get it done.
15
------ -------------------
Q: What about providing protection for the Main Interior
Building? Did you send people over there right away?
A: Well, see, that building is a GSA building, so the Federal
Protective Service is responsible for it. We did send a
couple of, we sent two marked police cars with police
officers to assist in evacuating some of the senior staff,
other than the Secretary. I believe it was Director
1
Maneilla.i and some of the undersecretaries, evacuated them
' .
------
out for the continuity of operations. We didn't, I don't
believe, I'm trying to remember. I'm pretty certain we
didn't send anybody over to, specifically for the Main
Interior Building. That was, the Secretary's detail was up
there and they assisted in evacuating the people out of the
building. [tape off]
Q: Okay.
A: Also we provide protection up at Camp David when the
President's up there. It's a national park and there are
Rangers up there, but we also send officers up there to
assist. We were requested to send some officers up there
that day, which we did.
16
- --- --- ---- --------- --------
--------------------
Q: I'd like to go back to those first hours a little bit, and
maybe even back to that initial meeting at the command
post. I'd be interested, because as we discussed before we
turned on the tape recorder, there's a real lack of sort of
written records, because you were all so busy in part, and
because we rely so much on electronic communication and
phones. So I wondered if there's anything more that you
could tell me about the kinds of issues that were discussed
in that first hour about what needed to be done and whether
there was any, apparently there was a plan for the
evacuation of Cabinet members. But was there any other kind
of plan that helped you shape, a plan that would determine,
certainly maybe not to the level of which officers would go
to which monument or memorial, but any kind of plan that
you could fall back on?
A: We have a plan for various threat levels which we've had in
place for several years now. I believe we may have done it
right after the Oklahoma City bombing. And that, depending
upon the threat level that we get through intelligence from
the FBI or the Secret Service we, and it's progressive
where normally we have a couple of officers maybe
patrolling the monument or memorial. It goes up in stages
to the point where the monument or memorial is closed.
17
Everyone is evacuated. No vehicles are allowed anywhere
near it.
And we understand that you can go from the lowest level to
the highest level immediately. And this was a case where we
went from the lowest level. Everything was operating
normally immediately to full closure, no vehicles were
allowed in the parking lot at the Jefferson Memorial. No
vehicles allowed in the circle at Lincoln Memorial. We had
vehicles blocking that so no vehicles could get in. And
that was all done almost immediately after the plane hit
the Pentagon and we all met up here. Mr. Carlstrom and I
believe Gentry Davis and Joe Waller both were here. I'm
certain Mr. Carlstrom was.
were here. But they came
I don't recall if both deputies
in, they talked with the chiefs
and we discussed the fact that we were closing the
monuments and memorials with them. He had to give the final
approval. Actually, it's the superintendent.
Q: So it was the regional director's determination?
A: No, the superintendent. From a safety standpoint we had
done it. Technically it's the superintendent who can close
the park. But it's always been understood, I believe, the
superintendent, we work closely with the superintendent,
18
Superintendent [Arnold] Goldstein, and he understands that
in an emergency situation we may take action prior to him
being notified. And that's what we did. We immediately
closed the areas, and as soon as we could we made contact
with him and discussed it with him.
Because of the significance nationally of what was going
on, the attacks in New York and reports of possible attacks
everywhere else, the regional director got involved very
quickly, and I believe the director was involved pretty
quickly. There was a point where there was some
conversations that I was not involved in, but I think there
were some conversations with Director Mainella about
closures and stuff. We did not know.
Q: I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wondered, was your liaison
with the director Major Van Horn?
A: I believe it was, yes. And I believe members of her staff
were also contacting our command post. We thought that we
would probably have the monuments and memorials closed for
a significant period of time. However, the next morning
President Bush wanted to show as much of a return to normal
as possible and we were ordered to open up the monuments
and the memorials, which we did. Once maintenance went
19
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------------------- ------ - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
through and made sure they were clean and secure. We
always go through and check for any possible explosives,
and they were all clear. We opened all of the monuments and
memorials. Obviously, the Washington Monument remained
closed, because it had been closed for construction, so
that stayed closed.
Q: Could you tell me a little bit about coordination with Park
Rangers, Protection Rangers, and maybe address the kinds of
support that Park Police received from Park Rangers?
A: I have no idea who contacted them. I know somebody did, I
don't believe we contacted the Rangers. I believe possibly
Einar Olsen, the Chief Ranger, may have contacted our
headquarters here, our command post, to advise that he had
some, if we needed to, he had some Rangers. We had plenty
of people downtown, but we really didn't know what was
going to happen next. Everybody in law enforcement wasn't
certain what other attacks were going to occur. So I guess
we asked, he offered some personnel. We accepted the offer.
And I believe it might have been 10 or 12 Rangers from the
region came down to assist us. They ended up coming down on
the Mall and we assigned them to some of the traffic posts,
just patrolling in the Mall with some of our officers. And
then at some point, in the early evening I guess it was
20
-----------------------------
when things kind of settled down and we had our schedule
straightened out with our personnel, we had enough people
assigned to various areas, we released them and they went
back to their own parks.
Q: In your experience had that ever happened before, that
Rangers had provided that kind of support to the Park
Police?
A: In an emergency situation?
Q: Yes.
A: We've worked with Rangers. They've assisted us in some
demonstrations, special events. We went to Philadelphia the
summer of 2000, I guess it was, for the Republican National
Convention. We worked with a lot of Rangers at
Independence. We've had Rangers come here and work with us
at various demonstrations. In the past, up until 2-3 years
ago, that didn't happen very often. I think because of
changes in the administration within the Park Police and
within the National Park Service Ranger ranks there was a
lot more openness where we all realized we are one agency
and we need to work together. We're always available to
assist the Rangers and it's comforting to know that if we
need the assistance they're there to help us. Normally,
21
---- ----- - - - ~ - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
there aren't that many Rangers in this region. We have so
many officers here that it really has to be something
extraordinary where we would need that help. And obviously,
this was. So it was nice having them here to assist us.
Q: I think the term Einar Olsen used was unprecedented, the
support measures.
A: That many and the fact that they got there that quickly.
Q: And I'd like to just continue on this theme of coordination
a little bit. It sounds like that was certainly one area
where the coordination worked very well.
A: Yes.
Q: You just touched on this a little bit earlier, coordination
maybe with local officials like Arlington County Police
Department. Can you talk about that a little bit?
A: Sure. What we did, we normally work pretty closely with
all of the local jurisdictions. And in the past 2 or 3
years, there have been a number of major, really major
events, the millennium celebration, various demonstrations,
and the NATO 50th celebration. So we, in special events,
and in the Special Forces Branch where I did work at the
time, we had developed strong relationships with Secret
22
Service, Metropolitan Police, Metro Transit Police, Capital
Police, Arlington County, Fairfax County.
When this occurred, we had some conversations with the
officials from like Metropolitan Police, our counterparts.
What they did pretty quickly, Metropolitan Police has a
command post. I'm trying to find in these notes when they
activated it. They activated that command post, give me a
second. I'll find it in these notes.
Okay. At 10:35, Metropolitan Police, which was less than an
hour after the plane hit the Pentagon. They have a command
post that's normally staffed, but it's just their officers
and they handle citywide problems. When special events or
other things occur, they activate it and they bring a lot
of the other jurisdictions in. They notified us at 10: 35
that they were opening their command post. We immediately
assigned a lieutenant, and he was up there, probably within
10 minutes. So we had a representative right there with
Metropolitan Police.
Arlington County and the Pentagon set up a command post.
And I'm not sure exactly when that was set up, but that was
pretty quickly also and we sent an officer to that command
23
- - ~ ~ - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - ~ ~ - ~ ~ - - - - - ~ ~
post. Secret Service set up a command post up in the old
executive [tape ends]
TAPE ONE SIDE B
A: The Arlington County one was dealing with the Pentagon.
Arlington County Police was the police department and
overall command working with the Defense Protection Service
police.
Q: And no direct representative with the military?
A: The military was there.
Q: Okay.
A: So it was the local police, fire, EMS and the military were
all co-located in that one command post.
Q: Did you feel like you were getting all of the information
you needed?
A: I did. Whenever they got any information about a threat or
something that was happening, they would pass it on to all
of the people in the command post and then those people
would pass it back to their agencies. So we were getting
pretty quick access to whatever came into that command
24
---------- . ------------
post. I didn't actually go there so I don't know how it's
set up, but the Metropolitan Police command post has a
screen where any incidents that occur, any information gets
posted up on the screen that everybody can see. So our
representative up there, anytime something came up that we
felt would be of interest to us, he would call the chief's
command post and then it would get disseminated. So it
worked pretty well.
Q: I read somewhere though that there was a bit of a
difficulty in having to notify at least three different
emergency operations centers as well as individuals in the
Interior Department and Park Service headquarters.
A: I think the problem, that was an internal issue that we
had, because we had a number, and I wasn't up here all of
the time. I was in and out, but from talking to people
that were in the command post, we had a number of, the
feeling that I think they got in the command post was,
we're in the middle of this. We're trying to deal with this
major incident here. We don't have time to be calling
command posts which are 100 miles or more away to notify
them of every little thing we do. And every 15 minutes it
seemed like they were getting a call from somebody else who
needed to know what was going on. I think eventually in a
25
. - ------- ---- ------------
day or so it kind of got worked out where they didn't have
to contact all of these different people. They were just
making one or two notifications. And we didn't mind doing
it for something significant. But it was like every little
thing had to be reported. And it was just taking away from
the other things they needed to do.
Q: There's always a great demand for information during an
event like this, any kind of emergency event.
A: Sure.
Q: Were there any dealings, any communications with the Type
One Incident Team that was in the Main Interior Building?
A: I think that was one of the issues with notifications and
all, letting them know what was going on.
Q: Because they put together the briefings for the director?
A: Right.
Q: Yes, okay. And you showed me the timelines that.
A: Yes, I think that was sent to them each day. I don't know
if it was right from the start, but pretty quickly after
the start.
26
Q: Were there any other missions? You went through them
pretty systematically, the different missions. You
mentioned Camp David. Is there any more you want to say
about Camp David?
A: Just that we pretty much for a couple of weeks after that
had an almost constant presence up there because of the
high level officials that were going up there which. . We
also had our SWAT teams out in the downtown area. We
weren't sure what types of attacks might occur. I believe
it was, and I don't mean to jump around, but I believe it
was on the 3rd day, maybe it was September 13, where there
was a threat that came into Secret Service. Initially, the
White House area had been closed and then the following day
on the 12th, the White House itself was closed, but the
roadways around it were reopened again. They got a threat
and they went to, again, this was another, this was a plan
for closures around the White House that had been in
effect.
I remember I was a lieutenant at the time in 1990 when this
plan was first developed. And since then it has never gone
into effect, the closures around the White House at that
level. And on the 13th, they went up to that highest level
that had ever been because of these threats, the
27
- - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - -
information they had received. And that really took a lot
of our personnel to secure that. We still had the security
around the Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington Monument. We
had officers assisting at the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery
with those closures. And now we had to commit a significant
number of officers around the White House. And that was us,
Metropolitan Police, and Secret Service. And that lasted
for I guess a day or so and then we went down to a lower
level. And it has fluctuated, how many officers we have to
assign up there.
Q: So I read about support to the President and the Vice
President. Is.there anything you can tell me about that?
A: Well, we normally, whenever the President moves anywhere in
the D.C. area, he goes by motorcade, obviously, we have
motorcycles assigned. Our motorcycles, Metropolitan Police
motorcycles lead the motorcade. If he's going outside of
D.C., we put a police car either in the front of the group
of vehicles or in the back and MPD puts a car also. So one
of us takes the front and one of us takes the back. And
going out, Metropolitan is in front and we're in back.
Coming back we're in front and they're in the back. So
that continued. You really can't, there was no way to make
it any more secure than it is with the closures and
28
everything. But the security for the Vice President had
increased where we were assigning motorcycles to his
motorcades also. And a number of heads of state, who are
high threat levels, sometimes we provide motorcade escort
for them.
individuals.
That went up a notch also for certain
Q: How were priorities established for these various missions?
A: Well, basically the number one priority, if it comes down
to it, is going to be protection of the President. But
that didn't take a great deal of personnel other than road
closures in our jurisdiction. Unless he's going up
somewhere up Rock Creek Parkway, if he does that we have to
man a lot of posts. Most of his travels, he's on our
jurisdiction, initially, but he pretty much gets off it
quickly. He's on city streets, so we don't have to commit a
significant number of personnel. We provide personnel
around the gates at the White House when he's either
leaving or coming back or coming back in. We secure those,
and keep people back, and keep vehicles out. And then
we'll provide security at any of the intersections, until
he gets off of our jurisdiction. So that pretty much is
our top priority, but we're able to do that without really
stripping the other areas.
29
Then our next concern is just manning the posts around the
White House and the three memorials. It's actually easier,
when we close down the Washington Monument and the Lincoln
and Jefferson, it's easier than when we have a partial
closure, takes less officers. When you have a partial
closure, you need to have enough officers there to deal
with the crowds and to deal with any possible problems. So
initially, once we got it shut down, we weren't in bad
shape personnel wise.
Your question, which I don't think I answered, if it comes
down to when we don't have enough people, who's making that
call? That would be whoever the senior official was who was
working. At the time it was Major Fellinger who was the
acting operations chief.
Q: In the command post?
A: Right.
Q: So that's where it would be done?
A: Yes.
30
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- - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - -
--- -------
Q: But for the most part, would it be just responding to the
requirements as they came in?
A: Well, what would happen, the Special Forces Branch pretty
much deals with Secret Service as far as the President's
protection and that stuff. A lot of that doesn't even come
up here. That's how it's handled at that level.
Q: Oh, I see. I see.
A: They contact either our lieutenants or sergeants or if
necessary myself or the major. But usually, it's the
lieutenants or sergeants who coordinate with them. If it
gets to the point where the request is something out of the
ordinary or something that we don't have enough personnel,
then it would get bumped up to whatever level it needed to.
Sometimes State Department will ask for assistance and I
think at one point State Department did ask for assistance
at one of their facilities.
Q: I think I remember reading that.
A: Yes, they asked for us to provide security checks around
one of their facilities outside of D.C. and we told them we
would make checks, we would make routine checks. We'd
increase the number of checks we made routinely, but we
31
---------------------------------
couldn't assign somebody there. We just didn't have the
personnel to commit them to that site.
Q: Okay. So not all of the requests were funneled through that
command post? There were some separate connections.
A: Well what happened, we have, there are procedures and
policies, because we deal with the President every day. We
work with the Secret Service on getting him, and the Vice
President, and anybody else around on a daily basis. So
there's procedures that work that everyone is familiar
with. Unless it becomes an issue that we don't have enough
resources, it would get handled the exact same way. And
that wasn't an issue. We had the resources to handle that.
We had a total force commitment. Every officer, we had one
officer, at least one officer I know of who was on annual
leave, came in off of annual leave because he figured we'd
need him and he came into work. So when we got everybody
in, we had plenty of people here. But we didn't change the
normal routine procedures that we have, because that's when
you start having problems. It works on a daily basis
dealing with the Secret Service with the Presidential
protection. And we didn't change anything.
32
- - - - ~ - - - - - - - - ~ - - - -
Q: I also came across the expression "high alert status". Can
you tell me what that means exactly?
A: What was that?
Q: High alert status.
A: I don't know. Where did that come from?
Q: One of the documents.
A: Well, we were at a pretty high alert, just having everybody
be aware of what's going on.
Q: Maybe that's what you were describing before with the
A:
monuments. I bet that's what it's referring to, the
different levels.
That's probably what it was. And now with the new levels
that Homeland Security came out with we're adjusting our
levels to coincide with that, depending on what level we're
at.
Q: I guess you sort of touched this briefly, but I wondered if
you had any more thoughts on what the impact of the
closures of the monuments and memorials was on the Park
Police. It sounds like your telling me that you were fully
staffed and the impact might not have been that great.
33
---------------------------
A: In the short term it was not that great, but it's continued
since then. What we had to do, we put our street patrol,
because we also have to continue doing the regular routine
patrols in the parks throughout the area, we put those
officers on 12-hour shifts. Basically everybody was on 12-
hours or more shifts. And that gets really draining after a
Q:
couple of weeks, working 12-hour shifts. We tried to give,
initially, have the officers work five 12-hour shifts. In
some cases they needed to work six or seven days. So
officers were getting pretty tired. We've cut back some,
you know, some things have been cut back. But we're still,
we're stretched pretty thin. We have a lot of officers
working a lot of overtime just to make the coverages that
we need to.
Were there any truly unique missions? I mean is there
anything that surprised you personally? You mentioned
being sort of surprised when you first got word about
certain response levels?
A: Yes, the evacuation plan and then the closure of the White
House. We've never had to do either of those, other than
in practice. We've always, I personally, I was a lieutenant
the night that the Persian Gulf War started.
as the overall shift commander that night.
34
I was working
And the next
day, we got these new closure procedures around the White
House. And I remember putting them in, I made up a binder
and it showed all of the posts that we had to man, and what
each post was supposed to do as far as pedestrian closures,
vehicular closures, and stuff like that. And the
coordination we were supposed to have with the Secret
Service and Metropolitan Police. And I put a binder
together because I was concerned that at some point during
this war we were going to have to implement this and I want
to be ready. And obviously, the war ended a number of
years ago. I have that folder in my briefcase from 1990. I
guess it was 1990.
Q: '90, '91, right.
A: It's been in my briefcase and when I got into Special
Forces Branch, since we did a lot of work around the White
House, there was always the possibility that that plan is
going to be implemented. So when they called and said,
'We're implementing this plan," I was able to just reach
into my briefcase, pull it out, show it to everyone and
say, 'This is what they're talking about." So I kind of
felt vindicated. All of these years I've been planning for
this and it finally happened.
35
~ - ~ - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - -
----. -------------
Q: That's right. You were ready.
A: Right.
Q: Well, I'd like to turn tc funding just f0r. a few mir:utes
and ask you whether was fundir.g
that the Pc.rk Police could tap into to fund
the additional hours and that kind of thi11g?
A: We, there's no, it's not like there's a pnt of money set
as.iG.e. This was right at the end of the fisca.l year. So we
didn't have any leftover money. And not a pot of
.'._monev that is used f0r s p.rocedure
w}-.1.'=re yoG request funding fo:: . smergf;nc:y. It.' s caJ.J.ed
you car, as l<: for. That gets approved ot;t -:;f tbe WashL-,gton
Office. And then I believe the money ic taken out of
maintemm.ce funds and other places an assessment is
taken to fund this. So we' l'e used this in the past for
.TLajor demonstrations and. mn.jcr events,
'
._,
When this happened, in an e;nergency si thaticn we're 9oing
to do what we need to do. Somebody is going to worry about
how they're going to pay for it, but 0hoeer is out on
street, which I was that day, that was the' furthest thing
from my mind. I just wanted to make sure we had the people
36
we needed. However, it was the furthest thing from my
mind, but either that day or the next day, I was doing a
lot of figuring because '-ie had one of cur majors, Major
Mike Fogarty, he's our finance, he's in charge of
Administrative Branch, deals with finance and stuff, and he
was working closely with the Park Service and the Interior
as far as how much money, because the President was saying
there was going to be money available for this and we knew
somebody would have to come up with money. Not only our
agency, but every agency was spending a lot of money to
protect the country.
So we had to come up with budget projections. If we stay at
this he.ightened level, how much are 1e going to spend by
the end of the fiscal year:? If we go down to this level,
how much is it going to be? So we had to come up with all
of these different projections. lJhat types of equipment we
need. And all of that stuff was given to Major Fogaxty and
he worked with, I'm trying to think who the budget guy at
Interior is. I can't rereember his name. 11aj or Fogarty
would know. But they coordinated all of that and sent, our
requests and our needs got included v!ith the Park Service's
needs which got included with Interior's and went up
through the budget process. So we, I believe voTe got the
37
~ ~ ~ - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - ~ - - ------.-
funding that we needed. I think it was pretty significant.
We had every officer on 12-hour shifts at least five days a
week, sometimes six days or seven days a week. So that
adds up pretty quickly.
Q: So how long did it take to get back to business as usual or
are you back to that yet?
A: We're still not back to business as usual. I guess it was
about a month ago, we put the patrol units, the regular
street units, back on 8-hours shifts. We've pulled
together, we've gotten volunteers, officers who wanted to
work extra overtime to get extra money that were willing to
do it. We asked for volunteers. We got enough volunteers
to staff the downtown area around the White House and
around the monuments and memorials. So that's being staffed
by these volunteer officers. They're working, I believe
they're working five 12-hour shifts. And we have that
taken care of. The rest of our operation here in D.C. went
back to 8-hour shifts, five days a week.
But right now we're faced with a problem. The sky marshal
program, it's trying to hire a lot of people. We're losing,
we've probably lost 10-15 officers in the last month alone
to that program. We're losing a lot of officers. We're
38
coming up with a lot of holes in our detail where we have
to have officers work overtime just to cover beats, routine
beats. So we're still not back to normal. And who knows?
Maybe this is normal from now on. I don't think we'll ever
go back to the coverages. that we had around the monuments
and memorials. I think we'll always be at a heightened
state, at least for the foreseeable future.
Q: Before we get to some of the final questions I just want to
go back for a minute and ask you to explain to me a little
bit more about the mobile command center.
A: Yes.
Q: Could you explain to me what that is and how it functions?
A: Yes, it's kind of like a large mobile home. It has a
radio, a couple of TVs, a table so that you can have
officials, we can meet in there. That's what I did. I set
that up.
Q: And I forgot where exactly you set it up?
A: I set that up on the Mall at 12th and Jefferson Drive,
right by the Mall Metro. And what we did there, we got a
big map and we had officers, as we were able to determine
where the officers were, that's where we started keeping
39
---------- -- ------ --.- ----
track of who was where, making sure we had everything
covered. Making sure we knew where all of our officers
were. And we had additional officers report there and then
we would dispatch them from there to wherever we needed
them.
It also has video downloading capabilities. Our helicopter
has a downlink, and we can downlink feed directly into
mobile so you can see what's going, whatever the helicopter
is showing, pointing the camera at. We use it routinely on
major demonstrations or special events, and it allows us to
have a place for our operational commanders to meet amongst
themselves and meet with officials from other agencies to
plan out whatever.
Q: It sounded like that's, although you were running around a
bit, that's where you were primarily that first day?
A: Initially, I was just going around to different areas to
make sure everything was set. We got that vehicle out
there pretty quickly. I' 11 check and see when it was
activated. Almost immediately, I think, like 10:12 that
morning so a little over a half hour after the plane hit
the Pentagon we had it out there and it was operational.
40
-----
Q: It's pretty fast. [tape off]
TAPE TWO SIDE A
Q: I'd be interested in hearing, I mean you saw a lot from the
beginning when you were driving across the bridge right as
the plane was hitting the Pentagon through the rest of that
day. Just interested in knowing how it affected you
personally?
A: Well, I grew up in New York City, in Brooklyn. So from when
I was a lot younger the Twin Towers have always been, they
were always there. I mean no matter where you are, from my
parents' home in Brooklyn, you could see them. My father
owns a marina in Brooklyn and we'd go out fishing a lot.
And even if you were miles off shore, that's how you would,
one of the ways you'd get back, you'd look for the Twin
Towers and you would head back towards there. So seeing
them attacked like that really hit home.
I have two brothers who work for the Park Police in New
York, and they were both at the, they were at Fort
Wadsworth.

One was at Fort Wadsworth and one was at ""'"'\j
Bennett when these attacks occurred. They both went to the
Statue and I knew that they were right in the middle of it,
41
so it was really, it was upsetting to see the actual
attack, knowing that two of my brothers were there. I have
a third brother, who's an electrician, who works in
Manhattan. And his wife, my parents spoke to his wife and
she had spoken to him, so we knew he was safe, but he was
having trouble getting out of Manhattan.
So that was, there was a personal side of seeing the attack
and I didn't know the towers had collapsed until several
hours after the collapse. I happened to stop in here at the
chief's command center and I'm looking at the TV. They had
six TVs going, one on each channel, constantly. And it
showed a replay of the towers collapsing. I said, 'What the
heck was that?" That was when the first tower
collapsed." That was the first I knew of it. That really
got to me thinking how many people probably lost their
lives, and the firemen, the policemen who were probably in
that building. I remember at one point going into the
bathroom to use the facilities and throw some water on my
face and just thinking to myself, it's never going to be
the same. Life here is never going to be the same as it
was before this happened.
42
------------- ------
But I think in a way I was fortunate because I had a lot to
do. So there was an immediate feeling of revulsion when you
saw this happen. And then when I saw the plane hit the
Pentagon, that momentary fear oh my god, we're under
attack. It was kind of like, and I don't know if it's
because of our jobs and the training we get, the way we're
taught what we have to do. As a police officer you face a
lot of things throughout your career and you know that if
you don't act quickly and properly, you may get hurt or
lose your life or somebody else will. And I think that's
basically what we all did. We all just kicked into that.
Okay, we're being attacked.
do.
Now let's do what we have to
So I was--I worked until late that night. All of us did.
And I remember at times when I was, a few minutes sitting
down and having a cup of coffee, just relaxing, thinking
how terrible this whole thing was. Most of the time it was
just dealing with issues as they came up and doing what
needed to be done . So I think in a way we were lucky,
because we didn't have the time like a lot of other people
to sit there and just watch this happen on TV.
43
When I got home, when I did get home, I remember my kids
were still up, my wife and kids were all up. They were all
just pretty happy to see me. One of my kids, I have three
sons. My two oldest are in high school. The 14--I' ll
probably start crying just thinking about it, but my 14
year old son called me from school just to check and see if
I was okay. So that was pretty emotional.
Q: It was the kind of day where you just wanted to be around
loved ones.
A: Right.
Q: And it does sound like what you're saying is that to a
great extent the Park Police, they fall back on their
training.
A: And I talked to my brothers. I don't think I spoke to them
that day. I think it was the next day when I called them
and just was asking how, I was amazed at the entire city
how, and I know the people of New York.
how they are, but they're pretty tough.
People joke about
I guess any city
would be like that when they're faced with something like
this, but it was just, it really made me feel proud. But I
kind of felt, in a way I felt like I was, I felt like I
should have been there, because here's the city where I was
44
- - ~ - - - ~ - - - - - ~ - - - - ~ ~ - - ~ ~ -
born and spent most of my life and it's being attacked and
I'm not there helping.
Q: And you're a police officer.
A: Right. But I had enough to do here, so it wasn't too bad.
But I spoke to my brothers the next day, I think it was the
next day, and just talked to them about what they saw and
what they did. And it was good to hear and basically they
fell into the same thing we did. They were worried about
what was going on in other parts of the country. My
brother, Neal, who's a captain up there, said they were
getting reports throughout the day that the Capital, the
White House--they knew the Pentagon had been hit, but they
also got reports that the Capital, the White House, and the
State Department had been bombed. And they had no way of
checking on any of this, because they were so busy with
everything else. So I guess they were glad to hear that it
was just the Pentagon. As bad as that was, it had to be
frightening to them to think that basically the entire city
is wiped out. We knew because we could see what was going
on at the World Trade Center. We knew what was happening in
New York, but they really didn't know what was going on
here.
45
- - - - - - ~ - - -
Q: Were you involved at all in, I'm not sure if coordination
is the right word. But I'm interested in the link between
the Park Police headquarters here and the field offices
both in San Francisco and New York. Were you involved in
that at all?
that worked?
Is there anything you can tell me about how
A: Not really. We have a deputy chief who is in charge, Jack
Schamp. He is in charge of the field offices. And I
believe they were in contact with the two commanders.
There's a major in each field office. I believe they were
in contact with the two of them. And it's really nothing,
fortunately, nothing happened in San Francisco. But they
did have heightened security around the Golden Gate Bridge
and all. I wasn't involved in any of those discussions, but
from hearing other people. I know in New York they were
very involved in everything. They had people down at Ground
Zero helping with the initial searches. They had, our
boats, and hopefully you'll interview the people up in New
York, but our marine unit evacuated hundreds of people from
Manhattan over to Ellis Island and set up a triage area on
Ellis Island. They evacuated the entire field office for
the Secret Service. They were in, I believe it's 7 World
Trade Center, one of the buildings that eventually
collapsed, and they made their way down to the water and
46
----- - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - -
they couldn't get out of Manhattan. Our boats took all of
those personnel and brought them over.
So I know that the New York field office was even more
involved than we were. They did a lot with this.
wasn't involved with any of that.
But I
Q: And actually, I've been given Neal's name. He's on the list
A:
to be interviewed. What do you think the Park Police
headquarters or you as a career Park Policeman, what did
you learn from this experience, this response? I mean what
have we learned about what works really well, or what maybe
needs to be improved?
Obviously, it can always improve. But I was, and when I
transferred from the job I had in the Special Forces Branch
over to my current position, they had a little party for
me. And I remember getting up there at one point--they gave
me a gift and asked if I wanted to say anything. And what I
said to them was I was never so proud to be a Park Police
officer as I was on September 11. We know that we're an
excellent agency. We handle a lot of major events,
demonstrations, and special events. We do it usually with
not enough personnel, not enough money, and a lot of times
without enough support. And we always get it done.
47
---- - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - -
And this was another example where we just pulled together.
Our offices did what needed to be done. There was no
questions about, "Oh, that not really my job," or "Why am I
stuck standing out on this post for 10 hours and somebody
else is sitting in a car somewhere?" Everybody just did
what they had to do because of the pride they have as a
Park Police officer, and as law enforcement officer in
general. And then because they're Americans. They wanted
to help their country. Our country is being attacked. So
most of the things worked well.
But there were little things like coordination with getting
our people in and getting them assigned. There was
initially that confusion as to where people were assigned.
We're working on plans where.
Q: Were there problems because of the traffic congestion, too,
in getting people back in?
A: Yes, what happened, a lot of people, it took a long time
for them to get in. One of the things we did on September
11, that afternoon, we realized that we could end up where
we need to bring people in in a hurry. And there aren't
that many of our officers who have take home vehicles. A
48
lot of our officers and officials have vehicles assigned to
them, but they don't get to take them home. We came up with
a list of probably 40 or 50 officials and officers, who had
vehicles assigned to them, and they were given permission
to take those vehicles home. So we were trying to prevent a
similar problem. If this happened at 6:00 at night when
most of our people are off, other than the regular people
that are working patrol and everything, and we needed to
get a bunch of people in, if they're in their regular
personal car, they get stuck in traffic like everybody
else.
lights
If they're in a police car, at least they have
and they have the radio, they can
communicate. So we figured we could get them in. So that's
one of the things we did. And we're looking at, our chiefs
are looking at continuing that program, possibly expanding
it.
We're working with the Council of Governments and the other
jurisdictions on the evacuation plan. I know you've
interviewed our aviation section. Our aviation section did
a remarkable job. I mean they were at the Pentagon within
minutes. They were the first ones there. They evacuated
people. At one point they were the control tower for
National Airport. It was amazing. In my former job, they
49
worked for me also. So I had them, the SWAT team, and the
motorcycles all reported to me. So it was, I mean
everybody, I told our guys they all, guys and girls, I use
that term. But they, it was just remarkable the way
everybody just pulled together. They did their jobs. They
did jobs that weren't even their jobs occasionally and just
got it done because of the magnitude of the incident.
Q: Is communications something, just even the technical aspect
of communications something they're looking at? I read
somewhere that the Park Rangers and Park Police had
difficulty communicating with each other because their
radios were on different frequencies or something like
that?
A: That's a problem we have with Metropolitan Police also.
They've been looking, there have been studies done and I
don't know if it's every going to get resolved. There's a
couple of programs for, it's called interoperability with
the radios, where they can patch, even though they're
totally different frequencies they can patch us in together
so we'll be able to communicate directly. That's all being
looked at. And I don't know what stage it's at. But those
are some of the issues that are being worked on.
50
--------------------------------
-- -- .. ---- ---
The problem with the Nextels, I think the system just got
overloaded. We rely on them a lot. It almost got to the
point where we would, when we could get an open line we
wouldn't hang up. But you'd end up getting cut off at some
point. But other than that, we were really pleased at how
things went.
Q: I interviewed a couple regional chief rangers in the Park
Service. And they've indicated that one of the difficulties
and I guess I heard this elsewhere too, that one of the
difficulties they had is in the area of intelligence
because the Park Service isn't typically linked--now the
U.S. Park Police might be the exception to this and this is
why I'm raising the question. But typically the Park
Service isn't tied into sort of the intelligence community
to the level that they would get the kind of top secret
information and be able to get that down to individual
parks where a threat might exist. And for example, parks
don't have secure phone lines, that kind of thing.
A: Right.
Q: And I guess my question is did the Park Police during this
event have access to the kind of information, good
intelligence information, that it really needed to be able
51
------------------------
A:
to respond to threats?
way .
And please respond in a general
I' 11 respond some specific and some general. We have a
detective who's assigned to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task
Force. She's since retired and gone to another agency .
We're replacing her with a male detective now. I believe
t hey have clearance, which is (b) (?)(E) . There
are some things, all of our captains and above on the Park
Police have {6) {?){E) clearance. She reported directly,
we have a lieutenant who works--! had a lieutenant that
worked for me who was our int elligence counter-terrorism
lieutenant. His name is ~ b )(6)
J,.;......;....;.......;;..._ __ ____,
You may want to
interview him also. He probably has some good stuff . But
this female detective worked directly for him. But she
would contact either myself or Major Fellinger directly
with any information.
There were times where she got information through the
terrorism task force that she could not share with us,
because it was above ~ 1 5 ) (?)(E) level. So there were
things that she couldn't even tell us. And there were
things that she told us that were at the (6) (7)(EJ level
that we could use in planning some of our strategies, but
52
- - ------ - -------- ---- - -- -- - ----... -- -- ----- - - - - --- -- ---- - - -
we could not put the information out to our p e rsonnel,
because they don' t
And I know there were problems, because people f rom the
Par k Service and from Interior were c all i ng trying to get
some of this information and I think t here were some h e ated
conversations when they were told, "Sorry, you c an't have
this information ." Number one, some o f them didn't have
the necessary clearances. And the other issu e is , even if
you have the clearance, if you don't have a need to know,
the re's no reason f or you t o get it. I think that's b e ing
worked out.
But I don' t know where
specifi cal ly where it is.
That's always going to be a problem. That's not just
Interior. The chiefs of the loc al police, all t he local
juri sdi ctions, have this conference c all. They woul d do it
on a dai ly basi s . Now it's cut back t o a couple of time s a
week. And the FBI would do b riefings . There were s ome
things the FBI couldn' t even say over that phone, becaus e a
lot o f those chiefs didn't have top secret clear ance. So
53
it's not just Interior and the Rangers who were having a
problem. It's law enforcement in general. We only started
this position with the terrorism task force about three
years ago. Prior to that, we had the same problem.
Part of it is they're getting stuff from sources that if
the information gets out, people can figure out who the
source is and then that source dries up. And so they're
very cautious about what they give out. I know it's an
issue and I think Steve Calvary and some of his people are
working on that, trying to resolve these problems.
Q: I can see where it would create some difficulties in truly
developing a unified response at the local, state, federal,
and all of those levels.
A: We went into briefings,
11. This was dealing
and this isn't just for September
with these World Bank and IMF
meetings where we were asking for additional equipment and
additional funding and stuff, because of threats that we
couldn't share with the people we were asking for the
money. We told them. "You just have to believe us the
threat _is so high for specific reasons. We have specific
information that we can't share with you." And that would
really piss them off. You know, we're trying to get them
54
--------------------------------------------
--------.-
to give us money, but we can't tell them why.
just this. It's an ongoing problem.
So it's not
Q: It sounds that the Park Police is in a bit of a unique
position within the Park Service and even within Interior
in some ways.
A: I think we are and, unfortunately, I think it created some
hard feelings because some officials felt, I think, that we
were trying to hold back information. And we were because
Q:
A:
we had to. It wasn't that we, we just didn't want to tell
them what was going on. We, some things we didn't even
know and other things we couldn't share.
Sure. Just to finish up. Is there anything you would have
done differently?
I'm trying to think. Nothing really major. You know, once
everything kind of settled in. The first couple of hours
were very hectic. We realized we were going to have our
officers working extended hours. We got, we have a property
office, and we do this routinely on major demonstrations
and special events where we are going to be working
extended hours. We can't have everybody just saying, "Okay,
it's lunch time. I'm leaving for an hour." We provide
55
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - -
food, and water, and stuff, and that kicked in pretty
quickly, we started doing that.
The thing we need to work on and we are working on, is
better coordination with where our people report to. We had
officers who reported to different districts and there were
no vehicles left, because everybody else had taken the
vehicles. So we had officers sitting around. We had to
send other people back to get them. So we're working on
plans and these plans are ongoing, where they report to,
how we get them where they need to be, that type of stuff.
In general, I think our officers and our officials
responded pretty well. They knew what they needed to do and
got it done. We have a good command group who, at the
captains and majors levels who, a lot of us are very good
friends. We came up in the ranks together. And we're all,
we're just there to support each other and get the mission
accomplished.
Q: And just to leave this whole issue of resources, I mean
personnel resources aside, it sounds like you were fine
that day. Over the long haul, maybe it stressed your
personnel. But what about other resources, too, like cars,
radios? Is that something that you felt was a little short?
56
A:
------------- --------
---------- -----------------
Personnel resources we were find because we brought
everybody in. But we're, I'm not sure. I think we're about
180 positions down from authorized ranks, so that's one of
the things we need to get back up.
Vehicles, we had enough vehicles, but we've had, of course,
the budget concerns. We haven't bought new vehicles in
several years. So we had a lot of vehicles that have high
mileage and a number of them broke down. Using vehicles
like it's blocking vehicles at the entrance to the Ellipse
or around the Lincoln Memorial circle. We have a car
sitting there. You're constantly putting it in reverse to a
let a maintenance truck through or something. The
transmissions were burning out. Cars were just overheating.
So we're in the process now of buying a number of new
vehicles to replace a lot of these older ones. But that's
been an ongoing problem.
What has occurred is we've gotten a lot more, I just think
it brought the Park Police not only into the public's eye a
lot more, but into Interior and the Park Service's eye a
lot more. They always knew who we were, but they didn't
realize some of the difficulties we were facing with
staffing and equipment. And then when this happened and we
57
had to go to them and say, is how much money we're
going to need in overtime to cover this." They said, "How
come?" this is how many positions short we are. If
we were at full staffing, we wouldn't need any of this
overtime." And it really drove it home for them. So we're
getting a lot of support from Interior and Park Service
right now to get the funding we need to get us back up.
Q: Did you get a sense that, and you just sort of briefly
grazed on that. Do you think the way the public views Park
Police has changed at all, the public perception of Park
Police?
A: I think it has. I think prior to this a lot of people
didn't know who we were as an agency. And I don't think
it's just us. I think the Capital Police have the same
problem.
problem.
The Secret Service Uniform Division has the same
There are so many agencies in D.C. people just
assume we're all one big agency. But I think after this,
we were pretty prominent in security around D.C. but also
up in New York. Our offices were in the middle of it.
Q: How about just even on an individual basis that Park Police
officer out there standing in the front of a monument or
memorial? Is the public regarding them more as allies?
58
A: I think so. I mean you hear about it and it's really ..
Q: It's anecdotal.
A: But it's also nice to go to some of these award ceremonies
or even just meetings with the--I think with the Park
Service here in D.C., some of them work with us on a
regular basis. So they know, I think they consider us
allies. We were here, they know what our mission is to
protect the resources and protect the people. I think it
sent it home to a lot of other people. Park Service and
private citizens that, the people in New York, the firemen
and police officers who died in New York are doing the same
job as the police officers here in D.C. and it could, if
the plane had crashed into the White House or one of the,
Washington Monument or something, it could have been our
officers who ended up getting killed. So I think people
respect that now. There is a little more, not a little, a
lot more respect towards the police where people realize
how important the job--it's not just the police. It's fire
fighters, it's EMS, it's the military. I mean the military,
their popularity, the regard that people have for them has
skyrocketed. So it's a little easier.
59
Q: Seeing that police officer there might inspire a sense of
security.
A: I think it does. I think just knowing that there's. . In
the past we've had a tendency where and I've had a few
superintendents at various areas say that, not so much here
because they're used to us, but when we've gone out to
other parks to assist, they don't want it to look like a
police state. They want it as low key as we can do it. I
think that's changed a lot. Obviously, we don't want it to
look like a police state. We don't want it to be
overbearing, but I think the citizens what to see a lot of
police officers. They want to see sufficient numbers of
police officers. There were a lot of vigils, candle light
vigils, and prayer vigils in the days after the 11th. And a
lot of people came up to the officers and they'd say how
happy they were to see us here, and what a great job, and
that makes you feel good.
In fact, it was an anti-war demonstration. The groups that
were supposed to demonstrate against the World Bank and IMF
turned it into an anti-war demonstration. And they were
marching and we were concerned that we were going to have
problems between them and the citizens who felt that it was
unpatriotic to be protesting the war after we had been
60
--------------------
------------ ----
attacked. So we had a large number of officers out there.
And we had people from both groups, from the anti-war
demonstrators and from the citizens who were demonstrating
against them. Throughout the day, I had people from both
groups come up to me and to the officers and thank us for
being there and thank us for the job we do. And that very
rarely happens when you have demonstrators coming up to you
and thanking you for the job. It was kind of interesting.
Q: Well, is there anything we haven't touched on that you
think we should before we close here?
A: I think we've touched on just about everything.
Q: All right.
END OF INTERVIEW
61
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11TH ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with
JOHN D. SCHAMP
Deputy Chief, Field Offices Division
U.S. Park Police
Conducted by Janet A. McDonnell, Ph.D.
April 17, 2002
U.S. Park Police Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
TAPE ONE SIDE A
Q: It's April 17th. I'm Janet McDonnell and I am here with
Jack Schamp.
A: Right. Jack Schamp. Deputy Chief of the Field Offices
Division.
Q: We're at the Park Police headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Maybe the best place to start is just for you to tell me
how you first became aware of the terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center.
A: Well, on that morning, that Tuesday morning of September
11, I was here in my office and I was reviewing some of
the intelligence reports for the upcoming World Bank/
International Monetary Fund demonstration that was to
take place here in Washington, D.C. on September 29. And
that morning, I was going over to the crowd control
training that we were providing to our officers.
This is something that we always do. It's a refresher
course. It ensures that the officers understand all of
the commands, they have been taught these things prior,
and that the sergeants understand the formations that
we're going to be using for crowd control. In addition
1
to foot patrol officers, the horse mounted officers work
with them. And it's a very interesting training exercise
to observe, because "how you train is how you play," as
we say in the Park Police. And this particular
demonstration was supposed to be very violent. But as a
result of September 11, as you probably recall, the
demonstration was canceled. And ironically, starting on
the 19th, the IMF demonstration will be coming back to
Washington, D.C. and we're now gearing up again for that.
Q: Where was the training being held?
A: It was being held over in Anacostia Park in southeast
Washington. Are you familiar with that area over there?
Q: Over by the aviation hangar?
A: By the aviation unit there, we have large fields and we
bring in the officers and the horses and put it all
together, basically. But that was my plans for the
morning when one of the officers who's assigned to the
planning unit came in and said, "A plane just hit the
World Trade Center." And they had the TV on down in the
office. I left this office and went into the planning
office and watching it on the television, and that's when
the second plane hit.
2
I knew a plane many years ago had hit the Statue of
Liberty. I'd seen that in the news and figured, well,
maybe another plane somehow got off course and struck the
World Trade Center. But when that second plane hit, we
all knew that this was a terrorist attack.
And that's when we put everything into gear, all of our
training, and plans for what we do in a crisis situation.
We initiated what we call the chief's command post, and
that's where we activate all of the telephones in the
command post. We have a dedicated staff assigned in
there. We have about eight televisions that we turn on
and we're watching all of the major news stations. And we
also have capabilities where our helicopter has a
Downlink, which means they can fly over a demonstration
or crime scene or whatever and directly transmit that
photograph, not photograph but live pictures, right into
the command post. So all of that was initiated within
just a matter of minutes.
Q: That command post, is that here in this building?
A: It's here in headquarters.
3
Q: What were some of the other things in the first 15-30
minutes? What were some of the other things you were
thinking about?
A: Well, at the planning stage, itself?
Q: It's probably a little early for that maybe.
A: An alert was given to all of the units that there had
been this attack in New York. We made some phone calls to
New York. We were in touch with the New York field
office. At that time, they were actually in route to
Ground Zero. The officers from the New York field office
responded to Ground Zero, itself, and were assisting
immediately.
Several hundreds of people had escaped the debris from
the two towers. You remember seeing all of the clouds of
debris and the smoke. They went into a national park area
called Federal Hall. And they were just trying to get
away from the smoke and breathe some fresh air. And we
had 200 to 300 people, I think, in Federal Hall. Those
people were then kept in that building for their safety.
At the same time, several of our marine units were
involved in transporting people from Manhattan over to
Ellis Island to get them out of there. Several things
4
were just were going on that pertained to security once
everybody knew that this was a terrorist attack.
When the third plane hit here at the Pentagon, we really
knew that we were a targeted area, too. Our command post
was operational, just about operational, when that plane
hit the Pentagon. Our helicopter unit was up and on the
scene almost immediately, was involved in MEDEVACS
[medical evacuations], and we had motorcycle officers
that responded over. We didn't dispatch them. They just
automatically went when they saw the huge explosion that
went off. There again, nobody really knew what other
shoe was going to fall at that time.
Q: When you had those very early communications with the
field office in New York. Was there anything that they
were telling you that they needed from the Park Police
headquarters here, or from the Park Service in general?
Or were they just telling you how they were responding?
A: They didn't request any assistance from us and we
couldn't have gotten anything to them anyway. They pretty
well knew that. We both understood that our areas were
targeted areas at that point. They closed down the Statue
of Liberty. They closed down Ellis Island, evacuated
5
everybody out of those areas. And the Statue of Liberty
has long been an icon and one that we thought would be a
targeted area for terrorists.
still believe that.
And to this very day, we
Q: When you went into the command post, I guess that's where
you met with other Park Police leadership, I mean what ...
A: Two things.
Q: Go ahead.
A: I was going to say, you had all three deputies were in
the command post plus the staff that mans the command
post. Mr. Carlstrom came over. And he is the regional
director for the National Capital Region. And basically,
when he walked over he was surprised. He saw that we had
everything already operational and he said, You've got
it." So it made us all feel good when he said you've got
it.
But at that point, we were then beginning to give
direction to our operational officers and commanders to
evacuate the memorials and the monuments, because those
could be targeted areas, too. So with those people being
evacuated out and moved, at the same the Federal
Government was basically evacuating their facilities and
6
getting people out of the government buildings, which was
a monster traffic problem for us.
What we normally do for AM traffic, we expedite traffic
in the mornings and expedite traffic out, what we call
traffic changes on Memorial Bridge. Rock Creek Parkway
is a fine example. I'm not sure which way you come into
work, but do you ever come in Rock Creek Parkway in the
morning?
Q: No.
A: Well, it's usually two lanes north and two lanes south.
But in the morning we make it four lanes south, and in
the evening it's four lanes going back north. So we
decided to assist the city's evacuation of the federal
employees and all of the employees from even private
industry, if they were released, by initiating the PM
rush hour traffic plan.
Q: Was there an existing plan for that?
A: It's logic to us. It just makes sense to us to do that.
I mean if you have to evacuate the city, you have to get
the cars out.
7
Q: Would you talk a little bit about continuity of
operations and maybe discuss it to the extent that you
can? I realize that some of that is beyond the level of
this interview, but is there anything you can tell me
about implementing the continuity of operations plan?
A: Well, you know that we were involved with the evacuation
of the Secretary of the Interior and her staff.
Initially, she had requested that our helicopter do that,
but we're tied in with the evacuation of Cabinet members.
That's one of the longstanding responsibilities of the
United States Park Police and our helicopter unit and the
officers that secure the landing zones for these
helicopters. We did provide' motorcycles and an escort
vehicle to get the Secretary and her staff out of D.C.
That also included some members of the President's
Cabinet.
There is a plan that's called Octagon, and that is where
military helicopters are brought in. We secure the
landing zones, and the entire Cabinet is loaded into
these helicopters and they go off to a secure location.
For whatever reason, those helicopters never arrived.
And we were involved in motorcading those people out,
also. The overall security plan for the White House was
8
Q:
also implemented. And that's a standing order, an
understanding that's between the U.S. Park Police, the
D.C. Metropolitan Police, and the U.S. Secret Service.
So those plans were implemented also. It has never gone
to full scaled evacuation in my 33 years here with the
U.S. Park Police. I guess the closest we ever had was
probably back in 1970, when we had some major
demonstrations here in Washington, D.C.
You know it's like any good organized plan. There's
always something that fails. And in this case there was
one minor failure, but we were able to respond and make
the evacuation. It wouldn't be as quick as by heJ.icopter,
but we did implement that.
I'm certainly not asking you to discuss details. I am
interested just in your overall perception of how
effectively it was implemented and it sounds like you're
saying for the most part you were satisfied with it.
A: Pleased. Yes, pretty well pleased with the, very pleased
with the actions of the officers and the supervisors.
They did what we expected them to do. They did what
they're trained to do. In those types of situations,
officers are individuals. They're on patrol as
9
individuals, and they make traffic stops, and they're
making arrests, but they also understand how to back up
each other and work together. That's part of the training
I was telling you that we were preparing for IMF. It
takes a team effort. And this was truly a good team
effort.
But all that involves cooperation between the local
police. I'm talking about Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax
County, all of the fire departments, all of the police
departments, federal entities, such as the FBI and the
Secret Service, all working with the U.S. Park Police and
I was very well pleased. They brought up their command
post. Metropolitan Police had a command post. The Secret
Service had a command post. The Mayor's office had a
command post. We ended up sending representatives from
our agency to each one of those command posts.
Q: Would you assess both the advantages and disadvantages to
A:
having so many command posts?
the pluses and minuses?
can you talk about both
The plus side is the exchange of information. And by
having a force representative there from the Park Police
and let's say something comes in to the FBI command post,
10
a possible threat, we'll get it to our troops a lot
quicker. And vice versa, if we come across something,
then that information is shared with the FBI or the
Secret Service.
Probably the down side is that when something like this
occurs, there is a lot of information coming in. You
don't know the source. You don't know how good the
information is. Somebody receives a phone call that
they're going to blow up the Lincoln Memorial. Where did
this call come from? Is this a prank call? Things like
that. And there were a lot of bomb threats that day that
followed suspicious packages. Somebody left their
briefcase and ran off. The next thing you know we're
thinking it could be an explosive device. So then we have
to secure the area. Then we have to bring in the bomb
dogs and just go through that whole routine. I mean for
our own safety.
training.
There again, you fall back on your
There is a move right now. Metropolitan [Police
Department] was very big. They got a lot of money as a
result of 9/11 to further expand their command center.
Some of this money came about prior to 9/11 because of
11
the International Monetary Fund and World Bank
demonstrations where all of the involved agencies can
have representatives there. And keep in mind the
Metropolitan Police, they're the lead agency in the city.
They have 3,000 police officers. A bulk of
demonstrations occur on U.S. Park Police property because
it's federal land that is open land. And that' s where
large demonstrations can take place. So we have a very
good cooperative relationship with the Metropolitan
Police.
I think that when you look at all of these different
command centers, you're probably not going to see them
coming together in one because I don't believe the FBI
would want to be part of the Secret Service, and the
Secret Service doesn't want to be part of the FBI. And
the Metropolitan Police don't want to be part of the Park
Police. Probably the only way you'd ever see a joint
command center work is if there is a real true disaster
and FEMA came in and it became a FEMA command post, where
all of your support services, your fire, police, and
rescue were all working with FEMA. [tape interruption]
12
Q: We're back on the record. Actually what we were talking
about, and I don't know if there is more of this that you
want to get on the record, but the Incident Command
System and the Incident Command Structure. You were
talking a bit about how the Park Police is organized for
that. And if you want to add a little bit more, fine. I
do have one specific question, though, about the Incident
Command Structure and the Park Police. In the Park
Police after action report that I mentioned, there is a
comment that the San Francisco field office has "a built
in Incident Command System'' and then the report goes on
to explain that it's a 24-hour operation. And I wondered.
I'm a novice at this, if you can explain how that's
significant? What you mean by built in incident system
and how the 24-hour operation is significant?
A: All of our operations have a built in incident command.
Within the United States Park Police, our rank structure,
you always have no one less than at least the rank of
lieutenant. There are sergeants, and then the patrol
officers and detectives, horse mounted officers working.
And if something goes down, you have your commander
already in place with a support structure under him.
What the National Park Service does with their incident
command, they bring in their own command structure
13
whereas ours is already in place. And what we do is
whatever additional resources they need or personnel that
they need, we then give it to that commander. That
commander can then be relieved by a higher ranking
official and as the incident grows, it might require
someone with a higher rank to take over.
commander is doing a good job, guess what?
her job to do.
If that
It's his or
And that's how we train, too. We're working on the street
on a 24 hour a day basis and that structure is with us.
No one is out there alone.
Q: But the Park Service's Type 1 and Type 2 incident teams
and special events teams, they have people with different
A:
areas of specialization, like there might be an
operations person and a logistics person. Does your
incident structure provide for things like logistics as
well?
If it's an extended operation like that, yes.
already built in. That is correct.
It's
Q: And communications?
A: Communications is part of that.
14
Q: And that brings me to the whole area of communications,
particularly in the first 24 to 48 hours. I know that
landlines were down in New York City, in parts of New
York City, and here it was difficult to get landlines
out. And I'd be interested in hearing you talk about some
of the challenges of communications both with these other
communication centers and with your officers in the
field. Did you use Nextel?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you use dispatch radios?
A: Yes, besides our regular radio operations from the foot
patrol officers and cruisers to our communications
dispatch, many of our officers, detectives, supervisors,
all have the Nextel as you mentioned. And this has proven
to be a fantastic law enforcement tool. Not only is it a
telephone, it is a two-way radio, basically. I mean I can
key up somebody by name.
Q: I didn't realize that.
A: Oh, yes. I mean if I need to call somebody all I have to
do is punch in the particular name of an individual and
see where it says phone book?
15
Q: Yes.
A: It says I can call all of these various units.
These are commanders, horse mounted commanders,
lieutenants. That's the chief of police right there,
aviation, criminal investigations branch.
[Nextel demonstration]
Q: So that was a major tool that you used.
A: Yes. This was very effective. Officers could deal with
their supervisors. You can even be in the command post
and somebody had a particular question they wanted to
ask, like the deputy chief, they would just go direct.
They don't have to go landline on the telephone or
anything like that. It's a good system.
Q: What about communicating with your field offices like in
San Francisco?
A: That was all done by landline. And San Francisco in
particular, there was not a major problem staying in
touch with them.
Q: Would you talk a little bit about how you coordinated
with those field offices? You talked about your very
early communications with New York. But for example, did
16
the New York field office go through the Northeast Region
at all or did you coordinate directly with them?
how did the system work?
Just
A: They contacted directly with us. They did not go through
the Northeast Region. They know that the command post
that controls any incident was operational and all of the
phone calls came directly into the command post. And
those were recorded. Every call is recorded. And
basically a short statement as to what the topic was and
what was discussed. But you've seen those in our
timelines.
Q: Basically giving you status reports and updates?
A: Information, yes, exactly. And anything that needed to be
forwarded up to the Chief, in particular, or over to the
Department of the Interior, over to the watch center,
then we would at that point then transmit that forward.
Q: Who was your, where was your contact within Main
Interior? I know Major Van Horn said that when he wanted
to talk to Park Police, you were the person he called.
A: Yes.
Q: How did you [communicate]?
A: He frequently talked to me by the Nextel.
17
Q: I just don't mean the mechanism, I mean did you contact
that watch office and keep them informed about what was
going on?
A: Yes we did.
Q: Did you do that through Major [Gary] Van Horn?
A: It worked both ways. He would get information and
sometimes request additional information from me, for
clarification more than anything, because the watch
office had, let's say they had, our dispatch, not our
dispatch, but our command post had called the watch
office and said that there was a suspicious package at
the Washington Monument and that we were responding to
it. And there was, maybe there hadn't been what they
considered a timely follow up as to the result of, was
that a bomb or did that just turn out to be somebody' s
briefcase. And he would call back and ask me a question
like that, is there anything further on it? Of course, I
could sit there and say, yes, because like I say I've
spent many hours in there just listening and watching.
Sometimes there would be information that was occurring
that pertained to basically intelligence issues that
18
would not necessarily go into the command post but would
come to me directly. And he would call me about that.
Activities as to the location of where the Secretary was,
because I think you are aware that the Park Police
provide security for the Secretary of Interior. All that
was being coordinated through the Office of Security and
Management and Gary Van Horn was working very closely
with Mr. Calvery at that time.
Q: Did you have both, I guess the quality and the level of
intelligence information that you needed? I mean you
indicated that you were coordinating with Secret Service,
and with FBI, and all of those centers, so it's ..
A: Yes, we had lieutenants and captains at their command
posts. In addition to the Force representatives within
the respective command posts, we have a detective
assigned to the joint operation task force of the FBI for
intelligence and we get a lot of good information
directly that way. And then we would pass that
information on to the DOl watch center, which ... [tape
ends]
TAPE ONE SIDE B
19
A: You know, in the intelligence arena, if they don't know
you they won't talk to you, so you have an established
rapport. And it's very difficult for somebody new to
break into that bubble because you have to establish
yourself as being one who doesn't divulge your sources of
information in particular.
Q: And it seems like you also have to have the equipment
that comes with it, like secure phone lines.
A: Yes, the secured phones, knowing who to call when you
need good information. You don't find that in a
phonebook. It's all through contacts and experience.
Q: As I understand it was difficult to get that kind of
information down to the parks. Sometimes the rangers felt
that they didn't have the degree or the level of
intelligence information about threats to their parks
that they needed.
A: Yes, I don't know if that's more of a perception. I don't
recall any particular national park being threatened. You
know, we knew that the Statue of Liberty, the icons that
we have here in Washington, D.C., the National Mall, in
addition to the u.s. Capital Building. I mean there's no
20
doubt I think in most peoples mind that that plane that
crashed in Pennsylvania was probably heading for the U.S.
Capital or possibly the Washington Monument. We'll never
know, thank God. But you know, I don't recall any other
threats to any particular national monument outside of
Washington, D.C., New York of course, and the Golden Gate
Bridge.
Q: We were talking a bit about coordination with the field
offices and you talked about New York. Maybe if we could
turn to San Francisco for just a minute. Maybe you could
talk to me a little bit about coordination between the
field office and the Golden Gate [National] Recreation
Area because I understand there was a little confusion
there between them.
A: Well, I'm not aware of any confusion per se. I do know
that the Park Police in San Francisco worked very closely
with the California Highway Patrol, the San Francisco
Police, and Marine County Sheriff's Department. That's
basically on the north side and San Francisco is on the
south side of the Golden Gate Bridge. There's the bridge
authority, which has its own police force. And all of
these police departments interact daily, just like we do
here in the Washington D.C. area, just like the Park
21
Police interact with New York City police, and the Port
Authority, and the New Jersey police up in their
respective areas there in that field office.
But when they realized that a terrorist attack could
occur on the Golden Gate Bridge, the footings for the
Golden Gate Bridge which is a state run bridge, but the
footings are on federal property, National Park Service
property. So we then realized that we had to insure the
security of the bridge foundation. I mean somebody could
come in and plant an explosive device under the bridge.
So the officers, Park Police officers and supervisors,
cleared construction crews that were working on one side
of the bridge out and closed off all pedestrian access.
And they went on 12-hour shifts and this was manned 24-
hours a day. There were some threats to some additional
buildings within the Presidio.
you familiar with that?
Q: Yes.
The Presidio Trust, are
A: They did provide some security for those buildings. They
also, I think, had one or two bomb threats, but nothing
came of those. So what generally happened in San
22
Francisco wasn't near the magnitude as here in D.C. and
New York. Now if there is some confusion.
Q: I guess I read somewhere that, some expression of a need
for some sort of memorandum of agreement or understanding
between the recreation area and the Park Police field
office there. Or maybe it was with some of those other
agencies involved, the need for some sort of
understanding.
A: We do have a memorandum of understanding with the Golden
Gate National Recreation Area, even though it has
expired. It's probably two years old, but we still follow
it as if it were still active. Now that memorandum is
going to be renegotiated here probably within another
month or so.
Q: Maybe that's what the reference was to.
A: Could be.
Q: And that sort of spells out the support that the Park
Police will provide to the recreation area?
the agreement does?
A: Yes, it does.
23
Is that what
Q: Great. Great. I guess in the next category, I was just
hoping to discuss some of the missions that your officers
assumed, the security on the mall, the evacuation of key
officials, and that kind of thing.
A: Evacuating traffic from the downtown area.
Q: Right. And actually, I made a note to myself to ask you.
You used the term full scale evacuation. Was this
considered, you mentioned it had been 33 years. Was this
considered the first full scale evacuation in 33 years?
A: It was close to it, yes.
Q: I want to be careful about my terminologies.
A: Because nobody knew when the next shoe was going to fall
and where.
Q: What were the challenges of trying to bring officers back
in to duty faced with that kind of traffic congestion?
A: Interesting thing happened that day. Many, many officers,
once they realized that this was a terrorist attack, just
voluntarily came to work, or called and said, ~ D o you
want us to come in?" And of course we said yes. And then
the stations, station commanders then started calling
their people in.
24
A plus to the Home to Work vehicle program, which means
officers have cars that they can take home, their police
cars. Rather than having that officer respond to their
duty station, they were dispatched immediately to
particular locations to assist with the traffic
assignments that were needed. Rather than have them come
back which would take, they're fighting the traffic, too.
But when you're in a police car, it's a whole lot easier
when you have red lights and sirens. So that turned out
to be a real plus that day. And we were very, very
pleased with the response from the officers, supervisors,
I mean everybody was just rolling in. We did have a few
officers who got stuck in airports. They were on travel
and couldn't get back for 2 or 3 days. A lot of people
got stranded like that.
and driving back.
And they ended up renting cars
Q: Do you have any sense of what percentage of officers are
part of that program? I mean is it small?
A: It's a small percentage right now. It probably only
involves no more than I would say 25 officers. But the
program is slowly expanding as we get more vehicles that
are available to assign to the Home to work program. But,
25
Q:
A:
you know, as time goes on it will prove again I'm sure to
be a benefit.
Was the Park Police adequately resourced for this
funding,
response,
equipment?
resourced in
Well, it's interesting.
terms of staff,
Personnel-wise we're probably
down about 220 officers. It wasn't quite that bad last
year before September 11.
Q: Down from when, a year ago?
A: Well, our staffing levels are down. And it's, a lot of
people aren't looking for police jobs as they used to.
Officers are leaving uniformed law enforcement and going
to other agencies.
Q: The sky marshall program?
A: Well, back in those days it was more ATF [Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms], that was the biggest
stealer of our officers. Right now, we are, we can't
compete with the money that's being offered by
Transportation and Security for the air marshall program.
Probably within the last two weeks I've had 6-8
resignations, from New York, mostly. I think one from San
26
Q:
Francisco. But back on September 11, we'd been fully
staffed (?). It's always nice to be fully staffed, but I
don't think anybody is ever completely fully staffed.
Resources, you know for an incident like that, I mean we
had the cars and we had the officers, and the job was
done. If we had, and we will have here soon an improved
communications system, I think that will greatly enhance
not only the 24 hour communications, but if there's an
emergency or any major demonstration.
You mean when this new [communications] center is
completed?
A: Yes.
Q: So did you feel like your police force was stretched thin
at any point?
A: Yes. They went on the 12-hour shifts. We still have a
task force out there right now maintaining increased
security on the memorials and monuments here. The New
York field office is on extended hours. Since September
11 we are in areas, National Park areas, that we never
have been in before. This is the Manhattan Sites. And the
boats that go to the Statue of Liberty now require that
27
everybody goes through a magnetometer before they get on
the boat. It used to be that you can take a boat to the
Statue, the island itself, walk around the island all day
long if you wanted to, but if you went into the Statue,
then you'd go through a magnetometer for the first time.
So that has changed. What that has done, it has increased
additional needs for police officers, even though they
use a private security to run the magnetometer, you
always have to have a police officer there in case a gun
comes through or somebody that is suspicious.
require a contact with a police officer.
It could
The same thing has happened here at the Washington
Monument. We have to have two officers on duty now, one
at the magnetometers and one at the Washington Monument
just for the additional security needed there. So--that
does take its toll on your staffing levels.
Q: So at what point did you go back to, you mentioned there
was still this special team providing additional
security. But for the rest of your officers, at what
point did you go back to the normal schedule?
28
A:
Q:
We probably, I hate to have you quote me on this. It
seems like we went back to 8-hour shifts here in
Washington, D.C., it seems like it was maybe February.
That's something I can check out. How did the response
and the diversion of these resources to responding to,
you know, potential additional threats, how did that
effect the Park Police's other day-to-day operations and
responsibility?
A: It slowed down some of our response time because we
didn't have as many officers out on the city streets, out
on those parkways, patrolling those parks that we have.
Q: I would imagine.
A: I don't think it eroded too much the quality of the
services we provided. If there is ever an emergency, the
sky falls out, the police officers and What
really suffers is the specialized patrols, because when
you have officers dedicated to security around memorials
and monuments, it requires more officers. The same time
you're still providing the basic beat covers. But what
suffers is that horse mounted officers aren't always
riding their horses and providing patrols on those horse
trails. You have what we call crime patrol officers who
29
are your undercover officers that are out everyday
looking for people breaking into cars, any type of
assaults and things like that. They're not there because
we've had to put them into uniform and they're working
fixed post somewhere. So that does effect the overall
police operation and the services that we provide.
Q: As I understand it there was no designated emergency
funding authorization at least generally in the National
Park Service. Is that true for the Park Police? Is there
a pot of money for emergency response that you can tap
into? And if not, what was the impact of that?
A: Well, prior to September 11 of last year, the Park Police
and other parks when they have an unplanned incident have
to apply for what is known as emergency law and order
funding. And there's a process where you make
application. It goes through the regional director up to
the Washington office of the National Park Service. And
that's only good for $250, ODD, which we did apply for,
and we were funded through the National Park Service for
the services that we were providing. Right now, Congress
has provided about $25 million for terrorism. And so
anything related to terrorism would come out of that. So
the overtime moneys that we're now currently spending to
30
provide increased securities around the memorials and
monuments here in D.C. and in New York would come out of
those terrorism funds provided to us by the Congress.
Q: There' s been quite a bit in the news over the months
about the District of Columbia developing, the Mayor
developing a new evacuation plan for the city. The city
took a lot of heat by not having a plan in place to get
people out more quickly and I wondered if the Park Police
was involved with the city in that planning?
A: Yes, we were. I personally was not and I can't give you
any great details on it. But you know, most of our, if
you look at the bridges like Memorial Bridge, it's a
major route in and out of Washington, D.C. Rock Creek
Parkway, which is one of our roadways, is a major route,
along with the Suitland Parkway and the Baltimore
Washington Parkway. And all of that was coordinated
between the National Park Service.
Q: They couldn't very well develop a plan without including
you folks, it sounds like.
A: That's correct.
31
Q: Well, we're winding down here, but it occurred to me-- We
looked at this wiring diagram that I had earlier. And
before we turned the tape on you noted the fact that at
the time of September 11 attack, the position of chief of
police was vacant, and that you and the other two deputy
chiefs rotated in the position. And I guess this is the
real basic question, who was in charge?
A: During that particular event for September 11, it was
Deputy Chief Winkle. He was the acting chief.
Q: And did the directions, guidance come more from Terry
Carlstrom, or did it come more from the director of the
Park Service's office?
A: For what we did? It was all internal. It was all by the
three deputy chiefs.
Q: Okay, making those decisions without,
respond to different situations.
about how to
A: Like I said earlier, when Mr. Carlstrom came over and saw
we were up and running with our command post, he said,
"You've got it."
Q: That's quite a mandate. Again, to finish up here We
covered a lot of ground on various topics, but if you
32
would talk about what was the greatest challenge for you,
either the greatest challenge for you in this response
personally or for you and your officers as part of the
Force?
A: Probably the biggest thing was the unknown, not knowing
if there was another attack coming and where it was going
.to be. Our monuments and memorials are obvious targets.
How do you stop an airplane? As I stated earlier, when
is the next shoe going to drop? Always what comes to
mind is the drain on the officers working extended hours,
no days off. How long can you keep up the level of
alertness for their own protection and to protect that
particular site that they're assigned to? These are all
concerns that all of the chiefs had. We gave them food.
We fed them. We tried to revive them with adequate
breaks. And later as this extended, [we] started
rotating them through to break up the boredom to keep
that level of alertness up.
But probably just the fact that you didn't know what was
going to happen next. And we would sit and talk about
possible scenarios of things that could happen. You
know, the anthrax issue came up. Are we properly equipped
with the chem bio? Those are things that concern every
33
police manager, to insure the safety of their officers,
because police officers and fire fighters, EMTS, are the
first responders.
casualties, too.
They're going to be your first
Q: Is there anything you would have done differently?
A: In retrospect, no. I think we basically followed our
training based on experience and internal police gut
feeling, to do what's right.
Q: I think I mentioned earlier that I had spoken to some of
the officers in the aviation unit, and it seemed like
each one sort of said, "well, you fall back on your
training and you fall back on those relationships you
established with people in other agencies." And it seems
like you're sort of saying the same thing.
A: Same thing, pretty much.
Q: Well, sort of the flip side of that-- What worked
particularly well? I mean what really stands out in your
mind as, "hey, we got this down." Maybe it was just
pride in your officers, however you want to approach that
question.
34
A: I think the professionalism of the individual officers
came forth. Total sacrifice. We'll do whatever has to
be done. Everyone recognized what had happened. I think
like most of us, I was totally shocked to think that this
had occurred. I mean you always think something could
easily happen here in the Nation's Capital. Reservation
One is the White House, belongs to the National Park
Service, that that would always be a target, just like
the Washington Monument. In all of my years of being
here in D.C. we know we're always looking for vehicle
bombs and people possibly trying to detonate a device by
dropping a package at one of the memorials, but we never
dreamed of a commercial aircraft flying into structures,
the Pentagon, the World Trade Center.
I 11 tell you one thing. It showed just how vulnerable
this country is. And to this day, I don't think we've
done near enough to secure our airports, to secure our
borders, in general. Just the fact that, I don't think
we have mobilized as quickly and concisely as we should
be doing. And I think we're still very vulnerable to any
threat. There's not a whole lot that you can do with
officers when an airplane is coming in. They become
victims too. Yes, I think just the fact that I was just
35
shocked. I don't know how many times I sat in the command
post and, like I said, we have all of these. -- I can
take you in there and show you the room if you want --
but all of these televisions around, I'm sitting there
and watching for hours that plane into the tower over and
over and over again.
TAPE TWO SIDE A
Q: We were just talking about some of your impressions and
the positives of what you saw in this operation. And I
didn't want to leave without asking if the September 11
response has changed the way you view your job at all?
A: Yes, it has in that you start looking at the other
possibilities that occur. And as silly as this might
sound, right outside here at headquarters is a main track
from Virginia into Washington, D.C. for local railroad
cargo. I mean you could probably ship an atomic device
right into this town. Be imaginative. You don't have to
try to commandeer an airplane anymore, a commercial
aircraft. They could do it through railroads.
You had mentioned the suicide bombers. Just yesterday we
had a demonstration here in town that was pro Israeli.
36
And look at the issues between the Palestinians and the
Israelis right now over the occupied lands, and the use
of suicide bombers by the Palestinians to kill Israelis.
That demonstration would have been a good opportunity for
somebody, who is willing to give up their life, to go in
and kill as many American Jews as they possibly could. I
mean we had at least 20,000. And there's, other than you
see people that look suspicious and they have backpacks
on or maybe they have them under their shirts or things
like that, it's almost impossible to spot them. And you
look at the security efforts that the Israelis have
implemented over in their country and they can't stop
them. So. .
Q: Do you think the way the American public, particularly
the American public here in Washington and in New York,
the way that they view the Park Police has changed at
all?
A: Yes, I think that has improved the image of Park Police.
Q:
Clearly, the Department of Interior has a better
understanding of what we can do.
What gives you that sense?
that?
37
Can you be specific about
A: When you look at what we did on our own initiative to
secure the memorials and the monuments, to insuring the
security of the Secretary of the Interior and getting key
members of her staff out. And when the helicopter wasn't
available because it was involved with the MEDEVACS
[medical evacuations] and also involved in doing security
around the White House, working with the U.S. Secret
Service program, the motorcades were employed.
Q: And it was also a Park Police officer who helped Fran
Mainella, Director Mainella, get out of town as well.
A: That's correct. The director, the Secretary of Interior,
and like I said key members of the staff, the deputy
secretary, Mr. Griles, he was one of those we helped out.
And like I said earlier, that includes members of the
President's Cabinet we also assisted.
For such a small department that we are, it amazes me all
of the little places that we are and things that we have
done, that we do over the years. I know, when you're in
a city like Washington, D.C., it's absolutely amazing as
to the interaction that we have with the Capital Police
and the Metropolitan Police, a very good cooperative
effort. I don't know a whole lot of area police
38
departments that, talking about other areas in the
nation, that have that same cooperation. You have federal
entities, like the Park Police, working closely with
municipal like the Metropolitan Police and county
departments in Maryland and Virginia, Prince Georges
County,
Fairfax.
Montgomery County, Arlington, Alexandria,
Q: Do you think the September 11 response might lead to
greater cooperation between the Park Rangers and Park
Police? I won't ask you to go back over any of the
ground you covered earlier.
record now.
Since we're [back) on the
A: The Park Police officers and the rangers have always
worked well together whenever they're called in on a
particular incident. I mean I went up for the Republican
National Convention up in Philadelphia and we worked very
closely with the rangers there, and with the Philadelphia
Police, and the Pennsylvania State Police. So I mean
it's tried and true it can be done, and has been done and
it will be done in the future.
We' 11 be working with the Rangers here this weekend for
the upcoming IMF demonstration. It's just, the
39
differences between the rangers when it comes to working
a law enforcement issue are little if none, in my eyes.
It's to provide protection and allow people, if it's a
first amendment right demonstration, to exercise those
rights given to them under the Constitution as long as
they're orderly and not causing anybody harm or
destruction to property. That's why we're there, to
assist them anyway we can.
Q: And I suppose the more you learn about how each other
operates in events like this, the better it will be.
A: Right. What we have been doing, we've been bringing in
rangers from this region, the National Capital Region.
They've been training with us in riot control. They have
been down, their supervisors have been working with us on
demonstrations, to see how we handle a demonstration.
That has been a progression. And as they've seen and
worked with us, we have been incorporating them into how
we do things. So it's a good effort. It really is.
Q: That's great. Now you have some documents there and I
just wondered.
40
A: Got some documents I'd like to give you. Here, this was
in the morning report. Did you happen to get this review
that was put out?
[Refers to printed documents]
Q: No.
A: You can have that. This I think is pretty well
inclusive. It's basically talking about the evacuation of
key government officials, what we did with the Secret
Service, closures around the memorials and the monuments.
Q: Now I would presume that there was a pre-existing plan as
to who would go where. I mean you touched on that
briefly, but just that there is a plan like, which
Cabinet members and where you go?
A: Yes. You'll see a reference in here to Octagon. That's
what the plan is. It's the Octagon plan. Here it is
right here. There is also, I attached some of the
timelines for New York. There is one in here for San
Francisco, too, I believe. Remember I told you they just
kind of do little blips? But this is pretty inclusive.
You're talking about lessons learned. You' 11 see some
references here to, let's see, this Managing Risk and
Public Safety is Steve Calvery's shop basically now. They
have now changed, well, Managing Risk it still has that
41
name, but Steve is now the chief of Law Enforcement and
Security. That was part of the reorganization of the
Department of Interior. Are you familiar with that?
Q: No. Was that in the works before September 11?
A: Yes. I think September 11 sort of gave that a little
more clout. Here's just a little email that Major
[Gretchen] Merkle sent me. She's my major in San
Francisco. Just sort of an update of what they were
doing.
Q: Actually, that just sparked a question. Did you feel that
there had been an increased emphasis on the Park
Service's law enforcement mission under Director
Mainella, even before September 11? Certainly it seems
there has been an increased emphasis since September 11.
Did you sense that before?
A: Well, I guess I'd have to say that Mr. Murphy has been
designated by Director Mainella basically to coordinate
the law enforcement of the U.S. Park Police and the
Rangers. And a lot of this came out as a result of a
study done on the U.S. Park Police, the ICP study done on
the rangers that shows some of the inadequacies within
both of those organizations. And he has since formed a
42
task force, a law enforcement task force, to look at all
of the studies.
One of the complaints is that all of these studies are
mandated by Congress or by Director or Secretary of
Interior, they're done,
somebody's shelf. Okay?
and then they just sit on
And I can almost tell you that
it's true because I haven't seen anything come out of it.
[tape off]
Q: So are you -- ?
A: I'm hopeful.
Q: I was going to say, is the word hopeful, hopeful that
there might be some real change going on?
A: Hopeful is the word. Yes, and I think so. And part of
the mandate is to incorporate more of the ranger skills
and the Park Police skills, because we are the two law
enforcement arms of the National Park Service. We have
very similar missions, but we are distinct in what we
provide. The Park Police provide that urban law
enforcement as any other city police. The skills that
are used, they're very similar training, very similar
things are happening in parks. It's just that ours are
43
happening in cities. The frequency is usually more. And
the types of patrols that we give, provide, are basically
different with those few exceptions that I have
mentioned, like Yosemite National Park. I'm talking about
basically on the floor of Yosemite, not in the outlying
areas around it.
There's a lot of optimism within the Park Police about,
our facilities hopefully will
communications, money provided
be
to
improved,
improve
our
our
communications, money being provided so we can hire
officers to fill the vacancies that we have. These are
things that are lacking. Rangers are facing the same
issues. They don't have enough rangers. One of the
studies that they did, the ICP study, said that they're
615 rangers short. So I mean, it's service-wide, it's
not just the Park Police.
Q: It sounds like it's a commitment to actually put some
resources behind change, [rather] than just studying the
problem.
A: I think we know the problem. We just need to have the
moneys to improve the hiring programs, recruitment.
Diversity is very important to both the rangers and to
44
the Park Police. There has to be a stronger effort made
in that area. Facilities for rangers and Park Police need
to be upgraded. All of this is going to take a large
amount of money. It's going to take a lot of time, too.
One of our more recent evaluations on our hiring is that
it will take us 7 years to come up to full strength. Now
we are exploring avenues right now to speed that process
up to where we can maybe get it down to about 3 years.
Q: And what is full strength? Do you have a figure?
A: The Park Police will tell you that full strength for us
is 806. The rangers, generally, I think they're running
in the neighborhood of, I'm talking about full time
rangers, around 1,500, but their numbers are down.
Greatly down.
Q: Well, were there, are there any other documents?
A: You know, when you look over some of those papers and you
start tying in what the Park Police were involved in up
in New York, the Secretary of Interior presented the
officers in the New York field office with a unit
citation. So there is that citation.
[Continued reference to documents]
Q: That's good to have.
45
A: Those people that were leaving the collapsed towers, many
of them went into the Federal Hall Monument and here is
what a couple, a sergeant, one of our officers, did to
help those people. I just pulled this. We communicate
with our officers at role call. We do video tapes. Some
have email. Hopefully in the future it will be force
wide, that each officer has an individual email address.
But we put out weekly bulletins that talk to our officers
about upcoming events, or there's been a death on the
force, or somebody had a baby. I mean it' s good things
and sad things. Changes in our general orders, these are
our "bibles." These tell us what we can do. This is what
we follow. And if you ever have a question on how to
handle anything, it's in these two books.
Q: The general orders.
A: The general orders. So if there's a change to a general
order then it comes out in what we call the Weekly
Bulletin. But in addition to that, they have this
publication. It's basically referring to safety, but I
just thought you might want to see, this is what was put
out to the force in reference to 9/11 just thanking them
for the good job that they did. It's here and on the
second page here at the bottom where it says chief.
46
here's a thing in reference to the fire fighters and
police officers from New York.
Q: I know they have photographs up in New York and I know
that aviation. . .
A: From the Pentagon?
Q: Yes, they showed me some video footage and I just
A:
wondered if the command post or anyone here in
headquarters building collected any photographs from the
Washington area?
Well, that's a good question. We got several of the
photographs from the New York field office. And earlier
I was looking to see where I had put them, and so far I
haven't found them. I guess I can check with our planning
and development unit and see if they have something for
you. I know New York has them.
Q: Right. And I can get.
A: Major Wilkins, was down here. He came in with probably a
stack, maybe a good six inches tall, with photographs
that they had taken. [tape off)
47
Q:. Well we've covered a lot of ground and unless there's
something that I've neglected to ask, maybe this would be
a good point to [end].
END OF INTERVIEW
48
'V
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11th ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
INTERVIEW WITH SGT. CLYDE E. SOLOMAN, USPP
Conducted by Janet A. McDonnell, Ph.D.
MAY 8, 2002
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
TAPE ONE SIDE A
Q: It's May 8th, I'm Janet McDonnell and I'm here with Sgt. Clyde Solomon of the
U.S. Park Police. We're here to talk about Sgt. Solomon's response to the
September II th attacks. I understand that you responded at Federal Hall that day.
I would appreciate it if you could just walk me through the day.
A: Okay, early that morning I was taking my kids to school - actually I dropped them
off to school - and I was unaware of what was going on. I called the job to
inquire about something and they told me that they was real busy and I said
"What's going on?". They said, 'Turn on the TV' so I turn on the TV and I saw
that the World Trade Center was on fire. So I call the job back and I asked them
if they need me to come to work so they said 'Yes'. I responded to work. At the
time- I can't tell you right now, it might have been ten o'clock. So upon my
responding they told me to respond to Manhattan, Federal Hall.
So I got the police van, me and another officer, we responded. On our way there,
I mean we just - smoke, all over the place. And being that we had an emergency
vehicle, there was a Jot of off-duty firemen and police officers that was following
us 'cause we was en route to Manhattan. So when I responded to Federal Hall, I
mean, Manhattan was smoke filled, people in a panic, everybody's in a frenzy.
Q: How difficult was it to drive in?
I
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
A: Well, being that is was a van, we pretty much had a little clearance through the
smoke. It was difficult but we managed to get through. So when I got into
Federal Hall, everybody was just running. In Manhattan, there was venders just
had abandoned their carts, people were just running, all you saw debris on the
ground -like something out of a war. Got into Federal Hall, there was people
screaming, yelling, they was sick. People just didn't know what was going on.
So, first thing I did, I tried to get people calmed down and I separated people that
needed immediate medical attention from people that were just scared. So the
people that needed immediate medical attention, we brought them to a different
level of Federal Hall because downstairs, where we were it was smoke, filth, so
upstairs on the second floor it was pretty more comfortable, they had air-
conditioning up there. So we brought everybody up there - asthmatics, people
that were pregnant - and first thing we did we tried to get them medical attention.
Q: How did you go about doing that?
A: We went out and sought out ambulances, they had triages set up in certain areas
like the Federal Exchange, and we escorted them there. Went out and tried to get
people food- a lot of people were scared 'cause they didn't know what was going
on. We calmed people down, we got them water and after a couple hours they
had settled down. And the sick people, we had found ambulances that was going
back and forth trying to locate people that was sick. So basically we got all the
2
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
Q:
A:
injured, sick, and pregnant, and we took care of them. So the only people left at
Federal Hall were people that were just standing around that were trying to walk
over the Brooklyn Bridge, and employees. So after we send everybody on their
way, we responded to Ground Zero, which it is known now, and actually, we was
taking firemen, taking police officers, first aid- anybody that needed help, we
was there to provide assistance.
Tell me a little bit more about Federal Hall. How difficult was it to go out and
find these ambulances and f i n ~ o o d ? Where you on foot doing that?
Well, we had the van, it was myself and another officer, Cobaj, so I told him to
try to locate medical attention so he took the van while I was outside on foot. I
did have some type of mask on and was trying to locate masks for some people
who were trying to walk to the Brooklyn Bridge. So, basically I was out on foot,
trying to find, they had- the venders left water behind. So I said 'Well, might as
well make us of it,' people were thirsty, they was hungry, so I made the decision.
I said 'Well, might was well use it' so I brought it inside. People were thankful
that we had gotten them water. People were filthy, they needed the water to wash
their face, something to drink - pretty much to calm them down.
So Officer Cobaj, he located different areas that were setting up and treating
people, you know for the asthmatics, or people that were pregnant, and
ambulances brought them to local hospitals. So after we made sure everyone at
3
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
Federal Hall was okay, employees, and we went around Ground Zero to see who
need our help and different agencies needed supplies moved to different areas.
Firemen needed to get closer to the building so we brought them closer because
we had - actually we probably had the only emergency vehicle in the area with a
light bar. So basically, that's what we did. And later on, we went down to the
areas, we was helping with digging, if anybody needed anything we was there to
provide assistance, so whatever was necessary we did.
Q: So you were interacting with the staff there at Federal Hall, I presume?
A: Yes, yes.
Q: Can you describe to me what the scene was, was it pretty well organized, pretty
calm? I imagine a number of people must have been fairly traumatized.
A: Well, inside, like I said, everybody was in a frenzy, everybody was running
around, and basically that's what our job description is, to respond to these things,
try to get things organized. So with the help of an officer, we calmed people
down, separated people that were scared, people worried about their pregnancy,
breathing in whatever was in the air, the ashes, the fire. So we basically reassured
them that they was okay and calmed everybody down, you know. And whoever
had any expertise - I think there was a doctor there - so he pretty much reassured
people that they were okay.
4
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
But even thinking about it today it's unbelievable that this happened, especially
that night when we saw the World Trade Center, you know, ka-pows- you know,
it was like, pretty shocking. But I was just doing my job, I don't think I'm a hero
or anything like that, I'm just here to do whatever I could do.
Q: So there were the, you two officers, and then how many park staff, do you think?
Where there enough people to meet the needs? There were what, two hundred
and I forget how many people took refugee there.
A: I really couldn't tell you the numbers, but with the help of the park rangers, they
provided first aid kits, little areas where to sit down, I guess they provided
comfort for people seeking refuge there.
Q: And then you stayed around the rest of the afternoon and the evening?
A: Stayed there 'til maybe 9, I 0 o'clock at night.
Q: Sounds like a fairly traumatic day.
A: Well, when everybody's running from the area, we're running back into the area.
Q: Do you just fall back on your training? Is that what you do in a case like that?
A: Well I think you go with your, well, yeah, training takes over but I mean, I guess
everybody that's in this line of work, they're humanitarians, else they wouldn't be
5
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
in this type of work- I guess whatever I could do I wanted to do. It's just the
training I had helped in the situation.
Q: It sounds like there was some gratification in being able to help.
A: Yeah, definitely, when people say 'Thank You', makes it worthwhile. Whatever I
can do to comfort, help make a person feel at ease or [that] everything's gonna be
okay - that's what I did.
Q: Do you view your job any differently now as a result of September 11th?
A: I'm glad that I was part of, well, yeah. I take it with more of a sense of pride now
because they could easily have said "You know what, we're not going to get
involved" but, the job said, "hey, we have to respond so go ahead and do it". I
think I carry a little bit more pride about the badge now than I did before.
Q: What were some of the biggest challenges that day?
A: Urn ... just trying to calm people down, reassuring them that everything is okay.
Q: Did you stay at Federal Hall until the last people were out of there, the park staff?
How long did that take for the evacuees to all be either sent across the bridge
home or-
6
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
A: It took ... I would say by maybe 3 o'clock everybody was gone, including staff.
I'm sure everybody had to get home, wanted to get home to their families, so
pretty much everyone stayed around until about 3 o'clock.
Q: So you felt comfortable leaving at that point and going out and seeing what else
you could do?
A: The hard part also was when you have children and it's twofold. I was worried
about my kids because all you heard was bombs were found in schools. So I was
trying to find out if my kids were okay and trying to hide the fact I was worried
about my kids. But I couldn't let the people see that I was worried because then
maybe they would lose confidence in me. "Hey look at this guy, he's more
worried than we are." So I had to hide that but I was really concerned about my
kids too in addition to showing the people at Federal Hall that everything was
under control, everything would be okay.
Q: Yeah, there was a lot of confusion that day, it was hard to get good information.
A: All day long you listen to the radio also and oh - there's bombs, we thought every
school was being blown up. They're saying 'Oh, there's a report of a bomb here,
a bomb there, we have to evacuate the schools. It's like "Oh my God" it was very
chaotic that day, very chaotic.
7
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
Q: So what stands- is there a moment or person or some actions you took- is there
something that stands out in your mind in particular from that day?
A: Well, it's not, it wasn't positive, it was seeing ... being there and seeing the World
Trade Center. .. seeing everybody pull together as one and trying to do whatever it
took to get the job done. Whatever was necessary to be done, pulling together
and working as one unit. Nobody was saying 'Oh, Why do I have to do that?'
everybody 'Whatever you need me to do ... ' that's what people was doing. And if
a person needed me to drive them somewhere, 'Just hop in, we'll do it'. If they
needed me to bring water somewhere, 'Whatever you need, I'll do it'. So just
seeing everybody work together that day for a common cause.
Q: It's a historic moment in time. Is there anything more you want to say about it?
It must have been very powerfully emotional, and you seem very calm about this.
A: You know, I was a part of this, it was ... one time I was just reviewing my life how
I went, I experienced this, I witnessed the bombing at the Olympics, you know, I
was a kid when Kennedy got assassinated, the Vietnam War and I was just saying
'Wow, what I've experienced in my lifetime' and now this, you know ... I just
hope somebody remembers "Hey, Sergeant Solomon did whatever he could do to
help out the day of Sept. 11th I would have given my life to save
somebody or get the job done.
Q: Did you actually see the Tower collapse or did you arrive at the Hall after that?
8
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
A: I think the second tower was on fire at the time, and I was there when it collapsed.
Q: And I understand that the staff at Federal Hall were outside directing people to
come in, is that accurate? I mean people who were fleeing-
A: Well, when I responded to Federal Hall, everybody was inside the building.
Q: They were already in there, okay. Great
A: And yeah, I guess there was people trickling in but basically everybody had
sought refuge by the time I got there.
Q: And you were able to find- you mentioned you had a doctor there-
A: Well, we had made announcements. 'Is anybody ... ?' You try to, you know,
amongst people -we couldn't do it ourselves. We need the help of everybody.
Somebody had a soothing voice, to calm people down. You know, bring
somebody upstairs. You know, a woman who's pregnant and somebody had a
child, they know what they're going through, try to settle them down. So we tried
to get everybody to pitch in.
Q: Is there a woman who you actually transported to an ambulance that was a few
blocks away?
A: Yeah, there was a pregnant woman and at first she said she was okay and then she
got nauseous so we took her to the hospital.
9
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
Q: But you actually carried her to an ambulance?
A: Well, it was Officer Cobaj that did that. I told him to do what he had to do, and I
did what I had to do.
Q: It's very difficult for me to imagine what that site at that moment in time must
have been like.
A: Well, when we thought about it later- at that time you realize what's going on,
but you don't have time to let fear trouble you. You have to do what you have to
do. And I was glad I was able to maintain my composure and help people in their
time of need.
Q: Is there anything you would have done differently.
A: I don't know, probably not.
Q: Just responding as things happened moment to moment.
A: Actually, I wanted to be down here every day but I realized that I needed a break,
give other officers- I didn't want to be that selfish, 'Oh I want to be there
everyday'. I mean everybody wants to, at that time, contribute some way and I
couldn't be selfish.
10
Q: Dr. Janet McDonnell
A: Sgt. Clyde Solomon
Q: You mean digging at ground zero?
A: Yeah.
Q: And as I understand it, it wasn't until later that the park police were allowed to go
in there and do that. Or is that ...
A: True.
Q: Enough said. Well, I really wanted to capture your story. Is there anything ...
A: I just still find it unbelievable that this happened, and I go to Ground Zero quite
often to see it now and that day of September, I didn't ever think that it would
look like it does now. Even when I was digging, you stood there on the bucket
brigade and you just looked ... unbelievable, I can't believe this happened. But to
see even with the bucket brigade different agencies just helping, everybody
helping each other. You get tired you sit down. People couldn't be more
friendly. And it was really nice to see people come together, put their differences
aside, and say "Look, let's just operate as one, not individuals, but one group. To
get the job done."
Q: A lot of pride of that. I'm going to end it here. It's a powerful story.
End of Interview
11
INTERVIEW WITH SERGEANT BERNARD STASULLI
PARK POLICE AVIATION UNIT
CONDUCTED BY
DR. JANET MCDONNELL
DECEMBER 10, 2001
Q:
SIDE A
This is Janet McDonnell. It's December 10, 2001, and I'm
here with Sergeant Stasulli. We're here to talk about the
Park Police Aviation Unit's response to the September ll
attacks. Maybe just to start, if you would tell me a
little bit about what your role is here with the Park
Police?
A: I have a rather unique role in the aviation unit because
I'm one of two members who are not trained as a pilot and
not trained as a paramedic. That's the station commander,
Lieutenant Cholak and myself. We're the only two persons
who aren't pilots or trained paramedics.
My role, I'm the assistant commander and I assist the
commander in his duties and when he's not here, I fill in
as the commander of the unit.
Q: So what does that involve? Tell me a little bit about it.
A: It involves mostly administrative stuff, making decisions
when you need a commander to make a decision. All of the
paperwork that comes out of this unit usually passes either
my desk or the Lieutenant's desk before it leaves the unit
and goes elsewhere.
1
Q: So that includes staffing assignments?
A: It does include staffing assignments, that's correct. It
includes keeping an eye out on the budget, procurement of
property and services, just your usual administrative
stuff. I guess you could classify that as typical.
Q: Okay. Well, let's go to September 11 and maybe if you would
just begin by telling me how you first learned of the
terrorist attacks, where you were, what you were doing,
that kind of thing?
A: It's very strange. I do recall on that particular morning I
was in our electric golf cart, and I was driving out to
where our fuel trucks were, which is located about maybe 75
yards from our hangar. And I noticed, well, I was checking
the amount of fuel in one of the fuel trucks and there was
a radio on the golf cart. I remember hearing something
about the World Trade Center, the plane striking the World
Trade Center. So I came back in and most of the crews were
out cleaning the hangar area, the deck area, they were
getting it cleaned up. And I remember saying something
about the World Trade Center getting struck by a plane.
2
Well, we all came inside and we put the TV on to see what
was going on. And as they were talking about a plane, the
news media were talking about a plane striking the World
Trade Center, I would say within about five minutes of us
initially starting to watch this program, that's when the
second plane hit the World Trade Center. And I do recall
when that struck, then we had a conversation amongst
ourselves that more than likely this was some type of
attack not just a plane going off course and accidentally
hitting the Trade Center.
I remember some of us were saying, "Gee, we should get
ready," because this is the prime area of Washington, D.C.
for an attack. I don't know why, I just had this feeling
that something was going to happen in this area. It
couldn't have been 20-30 minutes after that, is when we got
our first indication that there was an incident at the
Pentagon.
Q: Did that come over the radio?
A: I heard it over our police radio. It sounded like some
officers were stating that they thought they'd seen an
airplane go down within the area of the Pentagon. As soon
as we heard that, we immediately were running out to the
3
two aircraft that we had sitting that were operational at
the time. As we went out there, one of the officers
apparently received a phone call from our crash phone line
from the Reagan tower telling us that an aircraft had gone
down in the area of the Pentagon.
Q: What's a crash phone line?
A: We have a direct line to the Reagan traffic control tower,
so if there's ever a plane in distress, any incidents over
at the airport, we can lift and we'll be over there in a
very short period of time.
Well, as soon as we heard that there was in fact a crash
over at the Pentagon, one of the other officers, and I' rn
not sure who it was, received a message. I'm not sure
where it carne from, whether it was the fire department at
the Pentagon, the tower, but I remember hearing something
about there were multiple casualties, something in the
number of maybe 15 seriously injured people who had to be
evacuated, MEDEVAC'D right away.
The crew from Eagle One, which was consisting of I believe
Ron Galey, John Marsh, and John Dillon, immediately
launched Eagle One, which is a Bell 412 helicopter. The
4
rest of us were getting Eagle Two ready, which is the same
type of helicopter, but we were installing a mass casualty
kit which would afford us the opportunity of transporting
four injured persons rather than the normal two.
Eventually, we lifted and went over to the Pentagon. We
were probably about, I'm going to just take a guess, maybe
about 3-5 minutes getting off the ground after Eagle One
had left, so they were there first. Even before we lifted
you could look from out on our flight line area you could
see the heavy smoke coming from towards the Pentagon. You
can't see the Pentagon from here, but you could certainly
see the directions. So Eagle One had informed us that in
fact there was an area of destruction at the Pentagon. They
had not landed by the time we left. As we were enroute over
there, I believe we were going to be the first MEDEVAC
helicopter and Eagle One was going to stay airborne to keep
control of the airways.
Shortly after we arrived and we landed, several of the
occupants in our helicopter had taken some medical
equipment and ran towards the building.
Q: Who else was in your helicopter?
5
A:
Q:
In our helicopter, I hope my memory is good. The pilot of
our helicopter was Sergeant Keith Bohn. We had a Sergeant
Ken Burchell, Lieutenant Philip Cholak, who's the station
commander, was in there. And then I believe we had either
one or two medical personnel from a group called USUHS.
Have you been explained what they are?
Well, no, but not the acronym.
for?
What does the acronym stand
A: Well, that's an excellent question. It has something--
they're military doctors or medical people.
university, Army university hospital medical
facility. I'm not.
Q: Okay.
A: You'd have to ask Ken Burchell.
Q: So you obviously, it was not your typical crew?
It's a
training
A: Not at all. We had, our typical crews are either a two or
three person crew. In this particular case, we had six
people in this. So once we got over there, I remember, I
believe it was Ken Burchell and Lieutenant Cholak, they had
exited the aircraft with the two medical personnel that we
6
have and they went over to the area where you could see the
smoke and the damage.
I stayed with the aircraft. I stayed outside of the
aircraft. My responsibility during that particular moment
was to secure the landing zone and to protect the aircraft
from people, vehicles, or anything else that jeopardized
that aircraft. At some point in time, I remember hearing
the tower over at Ronald Reagan Airport calling Eagle One,
which was still airborne over top of us, and telling Eagle
One that the tower personnel are evacuating the tower
because the smoke from this incident, the wind was carrying
it over towards the tower and somehow it was getting into
their, you could hear them when they were talking, kind of
coughing and choking a little bit. So they had to abandon
the tower and they turned the control of the Reagan Airport
air space over to Eagle One. Fortunately, a short time
after that, all air traffic was diverted from the
Washington area, so it didn't place a great burden on Eagle
One as far as controlling all of the commercial aircraft.
While we were on the ground, I can remember two patients
being brought over to our aircraft and they were both
loaded into the aircraft, which was Eagle Two. Eagle Two
7
eventually left and transported the two patients to
MEDSTAR, which is over at the Washington Hospital Center.
Eagle One came down and landed, getting ready to transport
whatever patients they needed to transport. And as they
were sitting there, I remember there was another radio
transmission that there was an unidentified, I'm not sure
if I know the exact words, unidentified and unauthorized
aircraft that was headed towards the Pentagon, which was
about forty miles out. And of course, having great
knowledge of what happened over at the World Trade Center,
I think there was a lot of concern for, here comes a second
aircraft coming over.
So Eagle One left that area and repositioned to a safe
area. Unfortunately, they left me. So I was still securing
the landing zone. And fortunately, there was no, the
aircraft that was supposed to be unidentified and
unauthorized apparently was a friendly aircraft. It didn't
pose any threat to us. But we kept that area clear, and a
short time after that, I recall hearing that there were no
other persons needing to be air MEDEVAC' D out of there.
That all of the people that needed to be MEDEVAC' D were
going to be taken in ambulances. And the only thing that
we could assume is being as a possible threat from another
8
aircraft, rather than keeping the patients there at the
scene and getting them into the aircraft, they just wanted
to get them out of there as quickly as possible.
Q: So describe the scene when you arrived?
A: Well, when we first got there and we first set down, I'm
not sure, I'm going to say timeline after the initial
impact of the aircraft, I would say it was no longer than
15 minutes when we got there, probably within 10-15
minutes, I would think. What I recall most about the scene
was right at the initial impact area--it didn't look that
bad as far as what you would now see after everything caved
in. I mean the walls hadn't caved in. And we were kind of
looking like, gee, what kind of aircraft could do this,
thinking maybe it was a small commuter aircraft or
something. There was a great deal of smoke and a lot of
fire. And there were a lot of people coming from the
building out towards where our aircraft was, to I guess
cross the road to get into a safe area. That was one of
our big concerns. One of my responsibilities was to make
sure nobody came close to the aircraft.
Q: And describe to me again exactly where you had landed?
9
A: I don't know the names of the roads. We landed on a
roadway surface. I'm thinking it was just southwest of the
Pentagon and we were probably about 150 yards, maybe 200
yards, from the building, itself, and we were right
adjacent to the impact area.
Q: Maybe on [Highway] 110 there?
A: That's what I heard some of the people say, 110.
they're much more familiar with Virginia than I am.
And
Q: So were there any particular challenges in responding from
your perspective?
A: From my perspective, not at all. And one other thing, the
people and I would there were hundreds of people that were
leaving from the Pentagon, coming towards the helicopter,
most of them were a safe distance away. But there were some
that were coming, if nobody was there to stop them would
have come quite close. And our major concern is the tail
rotor on the aircraft. It's probably the number one hazard
area on helicopters. Fortunately, our helicopter sits on
skids. It's a fairly large helicopter. The rotor blades are
usually high enough where they wouldn't come into contact
with a person. But the tail rotor, very possible that could
come into contact with someone.
10
Most of the people were a safe enough distance away. Most
of them looked to me like they were, had all of their
faculties working for them. There were a few people that
were in somewhat of a daze that I had to basically stand
there and ask them to go back a little farther down that
way. But other than that, to me, the thing that I recall
and impressed me a lot is that everybody was going about
their business. It wasn't like panic city. It wasn't like
maybe what you'd see in the movies.
much focusing on the job.
Everybody was pretty
Q: So how did this compare to some of the other responses
you've been involved in?
A: Well, from the responses that I've been involved in, from
our standpoint, I guess we do enough training. Everybody
just went out, got in. It's almost like we're creatures of
habit. Unfortunately, sometimes that's good, sometimes
that's bad. But in our line of work, law enforcement work,
I think it's good because you don't have enough time to
think. You just grab, get in, put things together, and off
you go.
11
Q: Right. Is there anything that you would have done
differently? Is there anything that you learned from this
operation that you'd maybe apply to another emergency in
the future?
A: I can't see any way we could have improved what we did.
Fortunately or unfortunately, once we got there, we were
really prepared to transport as many people as needed.
Plus, I was prepared to do whatever they wanted me to do.
Of course, it's easy to say now, but I thoroughly had the
thoughts when I was heading over there that I was going to
be running into the building trying to pull some people
out. But it just didn't happen to be that way for me for
that day. There were plenty of people there.
One thing I'll say about the people from the Pentagon. They
were lined up right by the building, right where all the
damage was, and there were plenty of them. They were going
in and coming out. They had plenty of help there. Unlike
if this incident had happened in a non-military building,
things may have been a little bit different, although I
probably shouldn't say that.
trained.
12
These people are just
Q: Part of that was the training is what I was going to say,
right. How about coordination on the scene? Did that work
pretty well? Of course, you were with the helicopter then.
A: Well, right. But there is a major area from my perspective
for the Park Police. Once I get out of the aircraft, once
anybody gets out of the aircraft, we have no contact with
the people inside of the aircraft which is a very
problematic area that I can see, and I brought this to the
attention of my boss, bosses up the line. It's just a
matter of money, which unfortunately rules the Park Police,
to get the proper equipment.
I do remember constantly having to go back to the pilot,
because he kept motioning me and giving me hand signals,
which I'd never seen before, and I had to go back to him.
And I've got my helmet on, and he's got his helmet on. The
aircraft was running. My wife swears I'm deaf in one ear
anyhow. And I just had a difficult time listening to him
and finding out. He was probably telling me they were
getting ready to move the helicopter to get it to a safe
place and I had no clue what he said. So when he took off,
I'm still standing there. Unfortunately after about 30
minutes, realizing they weren't coming back for me.
had to search for the aircraft.
13
So I
Q: So both helicopters took off?
A: One was out of the area doing a MEDEVAC. Eagle Two was on
its way doing a MEDEVAC when Eagle One landed, and that's
when the word came down about repositioning to a safer
spot.
Q: So you were really securing the area for both of them, for
both of the helicopters?
A: Right. We just had one large area for landing either
helicopter coming in. We could have landed both there if we
needed.
Q: Sure, sure. Well, would you tell me about some of the
other missions after the immediate response at the
Pentagon? Did you continue to fly with Eagle Two for some
of these other missions?
A: I did not. Usually my responsibility isn't so much to be
part of the crew. I'm really not trained in certain areas
as a crew member, but unfortunately, I like to lend my hand
and get involved as much as I can. I wish this would have
been in a younger stage of my life, but I'll do the best I
can. And most of the missions afterwards, we had three
officer crews and usually had a Secret Service agent on
14
board. So four people in the helicopters is about all you
need. You can get comfortable. You can do as much work as
you need. When you start putting more people in, sometimes
people can get in your way of doing your job. So for me,
most of my time was spent basically here at the hangar.
Q: But did that role, because there was no third crew [member]
and extra staff, I mean did your role become a little more
complicated in those first couple of weeks afterwards?
A: No, my role certainly wasn't more complicated.
Q: I mean your role as an administrator?
A: No, it didn't become. We have different contingency plans
when we have three man crews, two man crews. Normally, up
until that time, we had generally been using two people
crews. We always wanted to go to a three people crew, but
it's kind of difficult. We have to work longer hours.
There's a lot more involved. But because of this incident,
three people crews really are the ideal, because you have a
pilot, who has to fly the aircraft, you have something like
a co-pilot who's working on the radios. Unless you've been
in the aircraft, there's so many things to do. The co-pilot
or we call him a paramedic rescue technician. And one of
15
the major benefits of the third person is he can do a, we
have [tape ends]
SIDE B
Q: You were talking about the down link.
A: Yes, and that was very important for us in this particular
incident is to get as much on tape as we can. We can talk
about it, but it sure is nice to see it. I'm sure in your
line of work seeing a picture is worth a million words.
Q: Yes. So any general thoughts in terms of what you learned
from this operation from your perspective?
A: It's not so much what we learned.
Q: What about resources? Were we adequately resourced? Do you
want to talk about that for a couple of minutes?
A: Well, as far as resources, for me, I go back to the
difference between a two person crew and a three person
crew. As far as our resources, I think I learned, and I
think we all learned, that certainly three individuals in
that aircraft are much more efficient than two individuals.
And up until that time, we've always had two. We would
16
never fly with one person, but two or three people make the
job a lot easier and a lot more efficient.
I think one of the resources that we did learn is our
videotape equipment, we were using tapes that were, I want
to say maybe 30 minute tapes and we had to end up going to
a 120 minute tape, because in the aircraft, the tape
compartment is outside of the aircraft so once you run out
of tape, you can't hang out the side and stick a longer,
because guys were coming back in and they were anxious to
see what they were taping, and we'd get to a good part and
all of sudden no more tape. So that was a big thing that we
learned out of this, so we've since changed our tapes to I
think they're two hour tapes, 120 minute tapes, because up
until that time most of our missions were very short in
duration.
This particular incident and missions that we flew after
that. . We did a lot of security after that, where we had
the FBI and Secret Service agents flying over the Pentagon.
We did a lot more security flights in the city than we
would normally do, checking all of the bridges and
monuments, memorials, museums. So.
17
Q: It's nice to have the longer tapes for that in particular I
A:
would imagine, yes. Is there anything that I haven't asked
about that you would want to get on tape to get into the
historical record?
job at all?
Has l t changed the way you view your
No, not at all. It's, I guess it's unfortunate in our line
of work, it's just the same everyday, whether there's an
unfortunate incident or if there are no incidents at all.
I mean it's just--I sound kind of cold. But the one thing
that I could see is all of the people here, and there are
16 people here and a lot of times we have your typical
disagreements. We call it "the firehouse mentality'. We're
here more than we are at our own homes. We have our little
disagreements, but when it comes down to it, everybody, it
was a fine tuned machine. I can really say that. I was
very proud of everybody.
Q: Okay. Well, I appreciate your taking the time to talk to
me.
A: Okay.
END OF INTERVIEW
18
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11th ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with
MAJOR GARY VAN HORN, USPP
Conducted by
Janet A. McDonnell, Ph.D.
February 26, 2002
Washington, D.C.
TAPE ONE SIDE A
Q: It's February 26th and I'm here in the Main Interior
Building with Major Gary Van Horn, the national ..
A: United States Park Police.
Q: Okay, national law enforcement specialist?
A: Yes, that's my position, national law enforcement
specialist.
Q: Okay. How and where did you first become aware of the
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?
A: Well, it was. shortly after the planes were flown into the
World Trade Center. I was in my office in Main Interior on
the 7th floor. I can't recall who it was, but someone came
down the hallway to my office very excitedly and told me
that either a plane or two planes, I can't remember if the
person told me both planes had been flown into the World
Trade Center or just the one, but that it was on television
down in the office.
Q: What were your immediate actions then? What were some of
the first things going through your mind that had to be
done?
1
A: Well, one of the first things that initially struck me was,
we've got to get our emergency response team in place in
the event that other incidents were going to occur in and
around the Washington Metropolitan Area. I went
immediately back to my office, got my police radio that I
keep in my office and turned that on, and it was very
shortly thereafter the plane struck the Pentagon and we
were receiving all kinds of reports.
Initially, we tried to establish what could amount to a
command center in the conference room on the 7th floor. But
with basically everybody going in different directions, it
wasn't feasible to establish that kind of an office at that
particular point in time. It really needed to be located
down lower in this building and all of the appropriate
folks had to be contacted in order for them to go there -
basically, the command staff of the Department of the
Interior and the various bureau heads. So there was a point
in time when that needed to take place.
And then I was very concerned for our monuments and
memorials. Being a major with the U.S. Park Police, I went
out to my police cruiser and did a very quick inspection of
our monuments and memorials, physically driving to every
2
one of them to make sure that all of our officers were in
position in the event we were going to be faced with
subsequent attack of some kind. I went by the Washington,
the Jefferson, and the Lincoln.
And I actually positioned myself on Memorial Bridge. And
the reason I did that was because there was a very
suspicious package that was on the sidewalk. It was a box
of some kind and some of the contents had partially come
out. It was quite suspicious, so I called in a suspicious
package and had both ends of Memorial Bridge shut down
until we were able to get a canine unit to respond and
check that package out. So that took place over probably
half an hour or so, maybe 45 minutes, we had to have the
bridge shut down and divert traffic. It was on the bridge
off of it, and then we had to shut it down at both ends.
Once that was established, once we had officers on the
scene and the bridge was secure, I went back to the
Department of Interior and at that point in time we had
established basically a command center down in the basement
at the National Business Center conference room.
3
Q: When you visited the different monuments and memorials,
were you satisfied with what you saw there, the level of
security and of awareness?
A: Yes, I was. There was an immediate response by the U.S.
Park Police who provide security for the monuments and the
memorials and the downtown core area. The shift commander
and the officials responsible for our operations division
immediately stripped our districts of any additional
personnel that they had available and sent them down to the
monuments and memorial area to ensure that we had
sufficient protection, and we did. And there was basically
a call out to bring in officers on their sign off days and
officers who might not otherwise be scheduled to work and
had them come in. So I was happy with the response there. I
was satisfied. I knew we had officers responding to the
Pentagon. We had a couple of our motorcycle officers over
there right after the plane struck the Pentagon.
Q: You mentioned realizing that you, not you personally but
the leadership here needed to convene an emergency response
team. Are you referring to the Type 1 Team?
A: No, not necessarily the Type 1 Team.
4
Q: Is there another emergency response team that I don't know?
Who makes up that team I guess I'm asking?
A: Yes, not so much the team as it is the decision makers. The
decision makers within the Department of the Interior and
the various bureaus needed to get together in a safe
environment, one where there was communications, one where
they could decide what actions they were going to take, and
be coordinated as a group as opposed to certain bureaus
doing certain things differently than the group as a whole.
That did take place, fairly quickly, despite the chaos that
was going on at the time. We had the different bureau
heads. I know the Director of the Park Service was there,
Fran Mainella, [and) the Assistant Secretary. We had those
folks available immediately. Mr. Griles was there. Brian
Waidman [sic). All of the players that needed to be there
were actually there to be able to make these decisions and
evacuate. I mean we had to decide who was going to be
evacuated, what we were going to do for security of this
building, how we needed to get people to certain places.
Roadblocks were put up around town. We had a major
evacuation going on over at the Pentagon. Our helicopter
made numerous emergency evacuations of personnel from the
Pentagon. Those were the injured persons and the persons
5
who'd already been deceased. So we had to figure out where
we were going to continue with our Continuity of
Operations.
Q: At what point then was the department's continuity of
operations plan invoked? Or what parts of it, or is there
anything you can tell me about the plan that isn't
classified?
A: Yes, I don't know at what level I can discuss what was done
and how it was done. But I can tell you in general terms
that I was very impressed with how quickly the plan came
together and those folks that needed to go to an alternate
location got there. The spirit of cooperation and teamwork
was heartwarming. It was truly a team effort. We met
downstairs in the conference room at Main Interior, decided
who needed to be evacuated. The u.s. Park Police responded
and made personal evacuations of key staffers. We had
police cars that came off of the street, loaded up folks
and took them, immediately, to another alternate location.
It was decided that the bureau heads and the Department of
Interior decision makers would relocate there. We assisted
in that.
6
The director of the Park Service, Fran Mainella, needed to
go there and she was brand new at the time. She really
didn't know me. The first time she had an opportunity to
meet me was in that meeting. And I can recall sitting at
the table with her and leaning over and asking her if she
felt that she needed a U.S. Park Police official out there
and she said, "Yes, I think I do. I'd like to have one out
there." And I said, "Do you have any idea how you're going
to get out there?" She said, "No." I said, "I'm taking
you."
She had her privately owned vehicle here and I had, of
course, my police cruiser, knowing where we were going. I'd
been there several times. I knew she really didn't know
how to get there and had no real means by which to get
there other than her own personal vehicle. I had her
follow me in my police cruiser to her home and we went
around roadblocks. Got her to her home, she was able to
grab some luggage. I raced home, grabbed some clothing and
some luggage. And it's funny. My wife said, "Well, you
probably haven't had anything to eat." I said, "No, I
haven't." I said, "But make two sandwiches, one for me and
one for the director." So she quickly made two sandwiches.
I grabbed those and raced back to the Director's house. She
7
loaded in the car and we were off. And we were up there
quickly. And that's when certain decisions and issues were
discussed. Steve Griles was leading those discussions.
Q: Did some of those early discussions involve park closures,
the decisions to close parks around the country? I
understand that it was pretty obvious about the ones in the
Northeast Region. Do you recall any of the discussions
about that, what people were thinking?
A: Well, you know part of the problem that we had to grapple
with, initially, was we really didn't know what was a
target. We had. a pretty clear indication that economic
centers, the World Trade Center, was a target. Pentagon -
military target. But we didn't yet know if any of our, what
I would consider, precious national icons were ever really
on the list. There is certainly probably even more than
speculation that the White House was on that list of
targets. There's also speculation that other institutions
very near to the Main Interior Building here was also on a
terrorist short list of targets.
But I don't think at that point in time we had an
understanding of the terrorists' motivation and whether or
not they considered something that we would consider
8
precious was on their list. And I refer to such things as
the Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge, the Arch,
certain other landmarks and icons that we hold near and
dear, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, I mean we just
didn't know.
So, initially, our response was let's increase our security
at all of our areas for general awareness, and there were
certain areas that were immediately closed down. It didn't
really have a dramatic impact on the function of the
facility, visitor centers, things like that, restricted
areas that might have been open to the public prior to
9/11, but because of those incidents we chose a safer
approach, at least initially, by restricting and/or closing
certain facilities.
Q: I have been interested in the process for determining which
parks were at greatest risk and which were in that category
of "icon," and I understand that the department actually
developed a list in the 1990's and then of course with
knowledge through law enforcement agencies, obviously made
decisions as a combination of that. Is it your sense that
there was something they had to work from initially?
9
A: Well, you know it's interesting, because homeland security
provided us a briefing and we had a couple of hours with
their folks in discussing what we would consider national
critical infrastructure. And we had some icons listed that
didn't necessarily strictly meet the definition of a
national critical infrastructure. And it was an
interesting conversation with those folks because they
said, ~ w e see you have things on there that just
intuitively need to be on there but yet did not strictly
meet the definition of what our folks, meaning homeland
security folks, would define as national critical
infrastructure."
And I had a piece that I presented specifically on security
at the Statue of Liberty. And I think my argument at the
time, and still is, was that what price do you place on the
emotional well being of citizens of the United States? And
indeed if something catastrophic, horrific, were to occur
at the Statue of Liberty, not only would it have a
psychological impact, but indeed it would have an economic
impact on the nation as a whole. And that, it's actually
more, it transcends the symbol of freedom for the United
States. It's a symbol of freedom for the world. So yes, it
doesn't specifically meet the definition of national
10
critical infrastructure but in every other sense of the
word it is, and intuitively it needs to be listed as one of
those icons that need to be protected to the highest level.
Q: Just to continue along chronologically a bit. The director
and other senior leaders, they returned the next day, as I
understand it, or maybe even later that night. I'm not sure
about that. Can you talk, could we move to the 12th then a
little bit? At one point you indicated that you had some
links with the Type 1 team. At what point was the incident
team brought in?
A: Okay. We were up at this other location, and I would like
to say for the record the folks at this location were
extremely accommodating for the crush of officials who
descended on it. And the operation was, in my opinion, very
successful. Hats off to Jerry Land and his group. They
pulled together the resources necessary for that to be a
success, and I personally thanked him in front of the
director for his efforts in pulling all of that together so
quickly.
The thought then was, look, we've got employees who really
don't yet know what to do. Well, how do we get the message
out to our employees? Should they come to work? Should
ll
they not come to work? Is there still a continuing threat?
So we were in the process of trying to gather intelligence
as best we could and get that mechanism kicked into high
gear so that we could collect information, accurate
information, so that we could make educated decisions.
And I can remember that a lot of folks were prepared to
spend the night, at least a night, at an alternate
location. And it was quite a distance from here driving
there. And I remember having a conversation with the
director. In fact, I even whispered in her ear. "I'm fine
to drive back. I don't care what time it is. My personal
opinion, it would send a great message if you were able to
come into work tomorrow at the Main Interior Building." And
we discussed that and she discussed it with other officials
at the Department of Interior. And it was actually her
call, and after we got a couple of hours into the evening
and we got certain things accomplished at the time, she
said, "Let's go. We're going to go back."
And we returned that evening and drove back fairly late.
And I got her back to her residence and then back in real
early in the morning. She made her own way back in. I
believe, I'm not sure if she had her driver pick her up or
12
she was able to make her own way in with her own vehicle.
But at any rate, we were back in bright and early that
morning. And there was still a tremendous sense of
unknown, but we had a lot of employees who were here at the
time on the 12th.
And I can recall that day being in my office working on,
obviously a number of different things all at once, and we
had someone who ran down the hallway and said, "Everybody
get to the basement. Get to the basement as fast as you
can. Just run to the basement." They were doing this up
and down hallways. So I went down to the basement to try to
figure out what was going on ~ t the time, and that's when
all of the employees in Interior were all basically
collecting at the cafeteria. And all of the radio
communications were jammed. You couldn't get a cell phone
signal to save your soul. It just was totally jammed.
Everything was jammed.
Fortunately, I had my Nextel telephone is networked with
Park Police officials and I was able to get out. I was able
to get out and I was able to find out that the reason we
were told to get to the basement as soon as possible was
that Mr. Griles, Steve Griles, was speaking to the
13
Secretary, Gale Norton. And she was advised, while she was
on the telephone with him, that there was the possibility
of a couple of jet liners that were hijacked from Canada
that were heading into U.S. airspace not heeding the
warning to turn around or to stay back on course. And the
fear was
Washington.
they
And
were
that,
heading directly
of course, set
here
into
pandemonium among everyone, all of the employees.
towards
motion
And I was able to get out on my Nextel phone in order to
contact Park Police officials and determine that that
information was not accurate. That there was no
unidentified or airline hijackings that were perhaps coming
toward Washington, and that the Air Force scrambled a
couple of fighter jets that went up to insure that that in
fact was not occurring. And I remember Mr. Griles asked me
to please stand up on a chair in the cafeteria area and
just personally let everyone know who was down there that
this information was found to be not accurate, and that we
wanted to thank them for their immediate quick response and
working together again as a team, to come together. And I
think that went very well. I think the employees
appreciated hearing that at least we were able to confirm
information that we were receiving. But I couldn't contact
14
anybody through my normal cell phone communications. So we
were doing our best to sooth over everyone's nerves and Mr.
Griles addressed the crowd, and all of the folks, and I
believe he said to them that they had an option of staying
and working the rest of the day or they could leave, if
they felt that they needed to.
Q: You were also beginning to address security concerns at
this building and for Park Service employees at G Street.
Is that correct?
A: That is correct. We were concerned about employees in
general, everywhere. And what we decided we would do, at
least initially, we had a couple of Park Police officers
come over, one on the C Street side, one on the E Street
side, in their police cruisers. And then what we did, and I
wasn't immediately involved in this, it came more from the
Department of the Interior Office of Law Enforcement
Security, working to get a detail of folks in to provide
armed law enforcement security for the building. And that
was the same with the dams out west. There was an immediate
response of law enforcement to provide that necessary level
of protection in the short term.
15
Q: Back to the continuity of operations plan for a minute.
Were you satisfied with the implementation of that? I
understand that there are a few things that they're looking
at now as a result of what we learned after September 11th.
Did it seem to work effectively and smoothly?
A: Well, in hindsight, initially, it was not a well oiled
machine. It was not something that everybody was aware of.
We all knew our roles. We all needed to be done. We all
had our own bureau continuity of operations plans that
would kick in. That really didn't happen that way. But what
you had was a group of, I would say, officials and
employees, who were ready to either lead or follow. And a
lot of the folks who were leaders were ready to follow and
it worked extraordinarily well despite the fact that this
had not been rehearsed. It had not been planned for. There
was not something that we routinely would go through every
couple of years to make sure all of the kinks were worked
out of it.
We had some difficulties in the evacuation of certain
officials from this building. We had some difficulties in
communications. But that was pretty much throughout law
enforcement in the government. Communications just
basically came to a standstill because of our reliance on
16
cellular communications. It was a real problem. When we
were at the alternate site, we were able to use [Government
Emergency Telecommunications System] GETS cards which
helped us get through on the telephone lines, and that was
a big benefit. One of the other things that caused.
Q: But you didn't have that in this building, access to that
in this building? Or I guess it's not--it's a card?
A; It's a card that allows you an access ...
Q: So you could have used it here during that time period.
Okay.
A: We could have. But the nature of the incident on September
12th didn't lend itself to someone getting to a telephone.
We all pretty much had to rush into the cafeteria in the
basement, and the only way we were able to get
communications, actually, I used my Nextel Direct Connect
feature to contact our folks at headquarters and be able to
confirm or deny certain information.
I think the continuity of operations, itself, like I say in
hindsight, initially, it was a bit rocky, a little
dysfunctional. We didn't have the smooth sort of rehearsed
response that you would expect if you had had time to
17
prepare. But despite that fact, I personally feel that it
went awfully well, overall. The big picture is it worked
efficiently. Decisions were made. Information was flowing
between officials of the Department of Interior and
throughout the bureau.
The director, the acting director of law enforcement and
security, Steve Calvery at the time, unfortunately was
stranded out at Klamath Falls, Oregon, so he was pretty
much out of communications for a couple of days. I was able
to speak to him a few times on the telephone. But he
couldn't get a way back, because obviously air travel was
pretty much nonexistent for awhile there. He couldn't get
back on a flight. But he did, eventually, a few days later
get back. So it was a combined effort of a lot of well-
meaning, well-intentioned individuals.
Q: And how did that flow of information change when the
incident team arrived?
A: You know, I don't remember the exact day they came in. I
remember having discussions with the associate director of
operations, Dick Ring. And I spoke with, Dennis Burnett and
I spoke, daily.
in.
I can't remember when they actually came
18
Q: It might have been the 12th? It was very early.
A: It might have been--it was early. I just don't remember
the exact day or time. It was very early. And that took a
lot of pressure off of WASO, I mean our office, because
that office itself has pretty much been decimated as far as
any sort of staffing support. I mean a lot of times it's
Dennis Burnett sitting across the hallway from me, and
we're looking at each other going, "It's just two of us.
How can we do all of the stuff that needs to be done?"
Randy Coffman was fairly recent to the office, and he was a
big help.
So the Type 1 Incident Team carne in and was quickly able to
get established and provide that necessary oversight and
.
staff support that needed to be done, with WASO being so,
basically the authority and the law enforcement staffing
has been moved out. It's been decentralized, so we really
couldn't get done all that needed to be done at WASO
without calling in a Type 1 Incident Team.
Q: What was the process from acquiring intelligence
information about threats to parks?
19
TAPE ONE SIDE B
A: Well, it's not just the threats to parks, I guess. More
than that, actually, it was a generalized feeling that we
weren't able to get intelligence information. Certain folks
didn't have intelligence mechanism in place throughout the
different bureaus, not the least of which was the Park
Service. We have interests, as you know, all throughout
the country, and it was spotty how we received information.
The Office of Law Enforcement Security for the Department
of the Interior had someone immediately assigned to the FBI
SIAC (sic).
Q: What's SIAC?
A: Well, basically the ...
Q: It's an acronym.
A: Yes, it's an acronym. Now you're going to ask me what it
means. Basically, what it amounts to is law enforcement
heads come together at the FBI to share intelligence
information. And they routinely get briefings, twice a day,
morning and afternoon, on intelligence gathering,
information of that nature.
20
The U.S. Park Police put folks in all of the area, what
they call JOCS or SOCS, Special Operation Centers, Joint
Operation Centers. We had them with, you know, the FBI, the
Secret Service. We put them in the military. We had like 7
or 8 folks, officials who were assigned immediately to
these different centers for communicating and sharing
intelligence information.
A: They were all over. And in fact, everyday, every morning I
would come in and I would contact each one of them by
telephone to find out what the latest information they had
was. Over at Fort Myer, we had one by the Pentagon,
Metropolitan Police Department. We had them all, in all of
the different ones that were established for
communications. And we shared that pretty well in the
Washington Metropolitan area, but we didn't get the top
secret or what you call SCI, Secret Compartmentalized
Information, that you would get from [National Security
Administration] NSA or the [Central Intelligence Agency]
CIA. That information needed to go only to specific
individuals, and then it could be reduced down to
information that could be shared with others.
21
We have and had someone at the time assigned to the Joint
Terrorism Task Force of the FBI. But that Joint Terrorism
Task Force was not an intelligence gathering mechanism by
itself. They were doing other things. They were actively
working cases. They were actively working terrorist cases,
so they were out in the field. So expecting that that
individual was going to be able to provide us cutting edge
information on a regular basis really was not accurate.
That was not really their role. And that was a source of
miscommunication, I think, between the department and what
that person was able to fulfill, the role they were
actually able to fulfill.
Information from the field, meaning out in the parks
themselves, pretty much relies on the relationships that
are built over time with the local FBI office, Secret
Service, and other Federal agencies, as well as state and
local. I mean the whole infrastructure of intelligence
gathering shifted after September. Much more emphasis has
been placed on developing those relationships and having
that ability to share information, and the frustration is
getting it to state and local folks, or in our case out to
the folks who are providing the protection to the
individual parks. How do you get it from Washington, D.C.,
22
for example, out to where it needs to go? It's great that
a bunch of officials and folks in Washington understand it
and realize that there's a threat, but how do you actually
get it out there quickly, efficiently? And that's still
being worked on today, because it's still not yet been
completely ironed out. Each bureau is working on their own
process by which they're going to get information out to
the field, but we've come to realize that many of our folks
don't have the level of clearances they need to have in
order to share this information.
Another thing we learned was we don't have secure phones
for the most part out in the field or secure faxes. And a
lot of bureaus are rapidly working to correct that, at
least in their key facilities within their regions.
Q: Just to continue on that theme. I would appreciate hearing
A:
your thoughts on what this new homeland security
environment means for the Park Service as an agency and
what it means for the parks, themselves?
The Park Service, having the largest law enforcement
contingent within the Department of Interior, has been
asked to do some extraordinary things since September.
They've been asked to provide a variety of functions that
23
they hadn't necessarily been asked to provide in the past,
at least not certainly at this level. There really isn't
another bureau that could step up with a level of expertise
and proficiency that the Park Service was able to. They've
been asked to immediately respond to dam sites within the
Bureau of Reclamation out West and provide a security
function for an extended period of time. We're doing that
today, and we' 11 probably end up continuing to do it for
some time in the near future here until we're able to
supplement or augment that security need.
I think homeland security for the Park Service has meant
that we need to think more in terms of how we're going to
respond rapidly to several locations with a sufficient
number of personnel to provide immediate protection at the
request of the President of the United States or our
officials within the Department of Interior or our own
bureau, the National Park Service. Different threat levels
mean certain different things. But we're so decentralized
in our own individual parks that outside of a [Special
Events Team] SET team being requested to respond, we're
relying on single resources, in other words available
rangers that are at different parks. And there's a bit of
frustration with our inability to identify individuals who
24
could rapidly respond and at least, initially, provide a
needed level of security until they could get augmented or
supplemented by others.
If we had to deploy to four, five, six different locations
around the country, immediately, we would have to pull on
local rangers at that particular area. We'd have to pull on
our SET teams, as much as possible, yet be aware we can't
strip all of them. We still have to have an available SET
team in each region.
Q: A SET team being a Special Events Team?
A: Special Events Team. Right. The chief rangers pretty much
are able to do that, to call up SET teams. Dennis Burnett,
as the acting chief ranger, would be able to approve that.
We were able to do that, but we would rapidly burn out our
SET teams if we relied solely on our SET teams. I think
what we need to do is realize that at certain times we're
going to need to pull on different resources, other than
just our SET teams. And we do realize that now.
We're trying to get a mechanism in place, that we can
identify single resources to go to certain locations as a
group. I don't think that's been perfected. I think it is
25
coming along, certainly with reclamation being more self-
sufficient here. Hopefully in the near future the need for
law enforcement rangers to go to their facilities will be
lessened, but that will not lessen our need to have a
system in place that we could immediately call up a certain
number of trained law enforcement professionals to respond.
So I think we're still working on that and that system has
not yet been perfected.
Q: Do you see any changes in the training itself or just the
mechanism for identifying and deploying, for want of a
better word, these people?
A: Well, there's a training issue here, and it's also an issue
of sufficient numbers of personnel. I think we had, for
lack of a better phrase, a rude awakening when it came to
September. We didn't realize--r personally did not realize
the extent to which we were desperate for law enforcement
personnel, law enforcement rangers. We're short. And that
hits home. And it really hits home when we're at a peak
time of the year when we need all of our folks out
protecting our parks, being there with the public. And
then to add on top of that a need for an immediate response
by a significant number of personnel, it really drains us
pretty sufficiently. And then we also had the Olympics, as
26
you know, during this month and that's been another big
pull on our personnel.
My fear is that you're going to take hard-working dedicated
folks and burn them out. And we have several incidents of
that occurring where folks, they're just burnt out. I
don't have a handle on the effect that that has had on
families or on relationships, but I know it has to be a
strain. When mommy or daddy is gone for an extended period
of time, you know, it's tough on spouses and children.
Q: Well, just to wind down. Do you have any other thoughts on
what we could have done better, what the Park Service might
have learned about how to respond to national emergencies
in the future? You've touched on some of these as we've
gone through here, but I wanted to see if there was
anything else.
A: Well, I sort of hit the topic with a glancing blow and I'd
just like to just, as I have this opportunity, I feel
compelled to say that I really strongly believe that the
chief rangers out at each individual region need to have
the authority and the ability to call up law enforcement
rangers for an identified need on short notice, without
having to go through a number of different levels in order
27
to get that approval. I mean it's great that we have a
system in place where we're looking for volunteers locally,
and then we spread it out and go a little more broadly to
try to find folks who are willing to do an assignment or
participate in a detail.
But when there's a crisis, we really don't have time to do
all of that. We need to have someone pick up the telephone
and have a certain number of folks identified in a variety
of different parks and give the order. We need to, that
direct line authority in terms of a crisis where we don't
have time. We don't have time to make sure everybody is
comfortable with this. We don't have time to get the
permission or four, five, six, ten people. We have to give
direction immediately. Let's get those folks where they
need to go, right away, and then we can figure out how
we're going to handle it on a longer term basis.
A direct line of authority within law enforcement, at least
during times of emergency, is so needed. We were struggling
there for quite some time with trying to locate folks to go
to the different darn sites and come to here, the Department
of Interior building. And then the whole issue of them
needing to be deputized, it was a real struggle for us to
28
get folks. And I think it would benefit the Park Service
greatly if we all realized that during times of crisis,
that's a needed function. And the folks that need to be
able to put that in place are the chief rangers out in the
region, with the approval and oversight of the chief ranger
himself or herself, here in Washington, D.C.
Q: Is there anything that you're particularly pleased about in
the response, that you consider particularly successful?
It sounds like the implementation of the [continuity of
operations] plan that first day was pretty successful. I
just wondered if there's anything else that, maybe even on
A:
a personal level, that you find the most personally
gratifying aspect of it? I mean, what worked really well?
A lot of things worked really well. I think the thing that
makes me most proud, when I think back on it, is the sense
of unity that I saw. It was not a fragmented, you know,
"We're not going to do that. We're going to do this."
"Well that's not the way we do things. We do things this
way." And, "We're going to go and do our own thing." It
truly was a group of fairly new decision makers within the
Department of Interior. I mean we have a whole new group of
very important folks who are fairly new to their position.
And I was surprised at how quickly they came around to
29
understanding the function of law enforcement and what we
could do to assist and how we could provide what they knew
needed to be done.
And despite the rough start with Park Service being
requested to go in so many different directions all at once
it seemed like, those folks, law enforcement rangers out
there doing the job, sacrificing their personal life, have
done so unselfishly and that's really gratifying.
Q: Okay. We'll just stop there.
END OF INTERVIEW
30
INTERVIEW WITH LIEUTENANT BRYAN WAITE
CONDUCTED BY
DR. JANET MCDONNELL
MAY 7, 2002
Q: What your role is here with the U.S. Park Police.
A: I'm a field commander in charge of a shift, 10 hour shift,
for all patrol activities during that time period. I
supervise, basically, three sergeants at the time,
sergeants supervise officers on patrol, ~
0
marine,
,(y
mount' patrol.
and the
,h,Jo
to horse
Q: How did you first learn about the attack on the Trade
Center?
A: From a radio station, an FM radio station had reported that
there was a fire at one of the twin towers. Report that a
plane had hit it. And basically just listened further and
further and found that units had observed the smoke, and
had observed the collision and got everybody into gear.
Most of the Staten Island people went to the Statue of
Liberty to secure Ellis Island and Liberty Island
locations. We closed down the Fort Wadsworth area and
Norfolk (?) Parks in Staten Island, and secured Floyd
\
Bennett Field proper. And basically all of the marine units
responded over to Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty
Island, to help triage and bring patients from the North
Cove Marina at Manhattan Island to Ellis to be transported
to the Jersey City Medical Center.
1
Q: So you just drove immediately to Ellis Island?
A: I drove, I was out on Highland Boulevard when I heard on
the radio. I drove back to my office over here to Fort
Wadsworth. And then we found out that, yes, all of the
units had been responding to various locations.
Q: Well how did, well then you had to contact your?
A: I contacted my supervisors and we found out that the staff,
those over here, had moved basically to Ellis Island.
Q: No, but I mean then did you then contact your officers, the
ones you supervise?
A: Yes, I responded here and I took care of the Staten Island
operation. Basically, it was determined through the
command staff that Lieutenant Wall would take care of the
Brooklyn District, I would take care of the Staten Island
District, and Lieutenant Buckley, Sergeant Everett Campo
from here and Captain Lauro would respond to take c a r ~ of
activities at Ellis Island. So we kind of set up three
separate entities, instead of having like one operation, we
had three separate worksites under a lockdown mode.
2
Q: I didn't realize that. What were some of the things going
through your mind, things that you know, gee, this has to
be done and this has to be done. What were you thinking?
A: Well, first we thought it was a plane accident. And we
figured if this is a collision. You figure, well, it's
going to be an injury accident. It's going to be something
that really shouldn't have an impact for us per se. But
then when the people who are on the overlook here observed
the second plane, they knew it was no longer an accident.
We knew it was a terrorist attack. Then it was a lot
different. We weren't treating just one accident. We had
two accidents. And then we had listened to the radio, the
report of the Pentagon, we all realized we were underneath
an attack, the United States was underneath an attack. So
again we thought now with all of this, across the harbor
you could see the smoke. You saw the collapse and the
ground just filled up, 30 stories with dust, go from west
to east, and you said, boy this is not just a little
accident. This was a planned, big attack.
What's going through your mind? You figure well, we're
next to a big bridge. We've got a good view of the harbor
for commerce. The bridge could be next. So that's why
eventually we started getting people off of the overlook
3
here. It was unsafe because we said they had fast movers
coming in. You don't know if there are other planes. An
unidentified aircraft, they say there's a fast mover coming
in. You don't know if it was the National Guard, the Air
Force or another hostile attack. So we got people off of
the overlook because everybody in my (?) didn't because
we've got binoculars mounted for permanent display and they
were able to see the collapse. So, of course, a lot of
people here saw the first. If they were up there, they may
have been up there for the second one, saw the second
plane. And anybody who was up there at all saw the
collapse and you saw the dust.
imagine people getting out.
And you just couldn't
And, of course, our boats were going back and forth
shuttling people out. And you were hearing stories and you
were hearing radio transmissions. It was chaotic for the
downtown people, but for us we could just watch in
amazement and just feel. It's like, gee, could they hit
here, because the bridge would be an ideal attack, knock
out commerce. We're right next to the bridge. You could
see it out the window. And again, the Statue could have
been an attack. People said the second plane may have been
to hit the Statue of Liberty. Since the first plane didn't
4
Q:
take out both towers, maybe he diverted from the Statue to
hit the second tower. No one really knows. So I'm sure
people at the Statue, they were more concerned than anybody
else was, because they were at Ground Zero also.
Sure. So tell me, what were some of the other things that
you, I mean you obviously indicated that you needed to get
people off of that particular site, off of the view site.
What else, what other measures were you thinking about at
that point? Were you calling in staff?
A: Well, we called everybody in. At communications dispatchers
were calling any available person that we could reach at
home to respond back. The midnight people had gotten off at
8:00 in the morning, so they were on their way home or had
just gotten home and we called them back. So the
dispatchers without little direction they did what they
were supposed to do. They called all of the people that
went home, called them back to the district and the
district supervisor would give them their assignment,
whether it would be to close the front gate. I dealt a lot
with the Park Service, the Coast Guard, and the DLA,
because DLA was very fearful of attacks.
5
So I worked with the Coast Guard, the Park Service to get
Jersey barricades up. We had to close off the entrances as
best as we could. It took a couple of days to get things,
but I negotiated where we could obtain the necessary items
to form a perimeter to close the back gate. We used an Army
truck and Reserves to close the back gate, the only
entrance was from the front gate. So it took time, but
during that day that's what we were arranging. We were
arranging how to secure the place, make sure everybody had
ID coming and going.
Miller Field was utilized by NYPD for a staging area and
for a possible morgue. So that day I worked 7: 00 in the
morning until 11:00 at night working with other agencies,
because they needed space. And as the event grew longer,
again, they needed more space so they utilized the hangar
for a possible morgue, but it didn't work out to be needed
as a morgue. They had used a site, a location in Manhattan
and they put them in trailers. So it was all basically
coordination, shutting down, making sure Great Hills (?)
was close, Miller Field was closed, and making sure Fort
Wadsworth was a secure site. We controlled people coming
in and out. We had visitor checkpoints. We had car
6
checkpoints, so people had to show ID. If you drove in you
had to have your vehicle searched.
Q: At what point was the fort actually closed down?
A: As soon as it happened, we shut it down. You had to have a
Government ID, you had to work here to have access into it.
Q: So how smooth was that? You just indicated that you had to
coordinate with a number of other agencies, Coast Guard,
DLA, Defense Logistics Agency, how smooth was that
coordination?
A: It was remarkably smooth, I think. You don't have all of
the assets that you think you would have available. Like
the Jersey barricades, we don't have them sitting in a
storage yard to say, "Can I use ten Jersey barricades," and
then go and find a fork lift driver. So thinking back, it
took a day to get everything in place where we wanted to.
We didn't have the supplies, but everybody was willing to
help. The Reserves that got activated, they provided me
with access with a deuce and a half, and operator for a
bigger forklift. A small forklift couldn't handle the
Jersey barricades that were over 10 feet long. The 8
footers, we had a forklift for. But again, we don't
7
necessarily have a forklift sitting available for any use
other than like a warehouse use.
So looking back I think everybody worked. Everybody pitched
in. Coast Guard, they helped patrol here. They gave
assistance on the 4X4 on the beach areas making sure nobody
came by shore. I went up to the command post for the Coast
Guard and I gave them one of our radios, so in case of an
emergency if they had any tracking they could advise us
over the radio. It goes around to what we were doing, but
one of the biggest things was the injured. Again, I had to
go over to the Coast Guard station at Rosebank Station in
New York and ask them to see if they could get me a chopper
with the flight surgeon because we needed doctors over at
Ellis Island. And again, that was coordination. They don't
always have a surgeon available, or they don't know where
the helicopters are that are stationed in New York, because
the helicopters come from a different location.
So again, I was going back and forth with different tasks
all day. But again, they were willing to say, "We have a
helicopter, what do you need now or later?" so it worked
out fine. I mean it's not like going to the cupboard and
getting the can of soup that you needed or pasta that you
8
needed. But everybody knew what your needs were and you
were abl e to accomplish it when they had their personnel
advised. But everybody had got to get per mission. You
j ust can't get a helicopter automaticall y . I mean I know
we ' re underneath an attack, but they couldn't commit a
helicopter. But they said, "We ' 11
again, they'd call back a nd say,
try to get it." And
"I ' ve got a helicopter
available . " And I said, "I need these supplies," because
with the boat guys they said they were needing gauze pads,
trauma kits . So that ' s where a lot of people got
coordination through and it was ..
Q: But you were calling the Coast Guard .
A: I went there .
Q: Or physically went over there to, that 's how you gave them
those requirements.
A: Right, because phones also went down, because when the
towers went down we lost telephone conversat i ons.
Q: Okay.
A: So a l o t of the thing was like line of sight, you had to
actually talk to the person. Coast Guard activit ies, the
(b) (?)(E.!.,__ ) ~ - - - - ~ - - -
9
they had one of our radios and they had a command meeting
there with outside agencies to discuss shutting down the
harbor, because the harbor was shut down. They had one of
our radios for here. The station in Rockaway, the
substation in New York was a little different. They didn't
have any communications so I had to go there in person and
say, "I'm Lieutenant Waite. I'm going to have a little bit
of authority. I need to have a helicopter at Ellis Island.
I have people that need to be treated. Do you have a doctor
available?" So, again, I used their doc to help get my
people back and forth also. Get permission for my boats to
come into the station, offload, and take other personnel
up. So that's where my role is, just administrator. I was
the go to. "You make this happen," I had to make it happen.
They would tell me their needs and I would make it happen.
Q: So were there some real advantages in being co-located with
the Coast Guard here?
A: Oh, definitely.
Q: It sounds like maybe there were.
A: Oh yes, because they have docs here, so we could get our
personnel here, because when you shut down the bridges,
people couldn't get in and out of the cities either. So we
10
had people here. Our people from Jersey, they were able to
get across. We could get them to the Statue by our own
boat, or by Coast Guard boat, or by personal craft. So we
don't have any dock space here, but the Coast Guard does.
So that was one good thing with the Coast Guard here.
The Coast Guard police also helped with the housing area
here, because they have something like 300-400 units there.
So they can help keep their people safe. And they're
concerned about the safety of their family also. so it's,
NYPD, basically, didn't interact with us as you might
imagine. It was all Park Police and Coast Guard operations
at Fort Wadsworth because the city was involved with the
other operations.
Q: Well, it sounds like there were a lot of requirements and a
lot happening very fast. And I'm wondering if you can tell
me anything about how you set priorities or prioritized
your requirements I guess is a better way to put it. Can
you tell me anything in general, what was going on in your
mind or what process you used to do that?
A: Well, it sort of like it comes natural. I don't know
really what, there's no check off list. You always think,
you're always looking up. You hear planes, you always
II
look. You don't know what's going on. You want to make
sure everybody was off of the overlook. That was one thing,
because we figured this was a threat, so we wanted people
off of the overlook. We wanted to keep the operations for
NYP, which was over at Floyd Bennett Field, so we shut down
Floyd Bennett
responsibility.
Field. But that was within Lauro's
I made sure Staten Island was safe as far as Fort Wadsworth
locations for the housing and for the government tenants
here, and just basically support for everybody who was
downtown. I mean we weren't a threat. We don't have any
icons here, but the icon is in the water there, the Ellis
Island statue, which we are responsible for. So whatever
they were asking for on the radio, we would accommodate
them. If they wanted a helicopter, we tried to get them a,
I know how to get a helicopter. If they needed property.
The home port was giving out supplies, the Home Depot gives
a lot of products out for recovery issues. And we figured
how to get things that we need. People needed respirators.
We had to organize search teams, who'd be available.
And again, we had to prioritize believe it or not for the
next day. This was not a one day event. We said we have
12
to figure out who's got to go home tonight because again
for the troop effort, I got to figure out, the next day
we've got to put a detail up. Who's going to come to work
tomorrow? Can't work people 18, 20 hours and have nobody
tomorrow, so we had to figure out how to cut people off and
say, "Go home today because you're going to have to come
back tomorrow." So we started to give them a rotation of
24 detail with 12 hour shift, so we cut the place in half.
Instead of having three 10 hour shifts--well, we have a
work we go through for a press week, four 10 hour days. So
we changed it to 12 hour shifts. You have two shifts. So
it gave us an extra squad of men to perform security at
Federal Hall, of course, at the Statue and Ellis.
But prioritizing here was just basically physical security
and providing the resources to people who were going
downtown, whether it be first aid kits, respirators,
gloves, BDUs, because people were needing clothes.
Doesn't sound like much, but you just did whatever you had
to do. If you were there, people, everybody was trained to
do what they were supposed to do. But it's.
Q: Were there any operational plans that you could pull out
and use or was this event so unique that?
13
A: This was unique because it wasn' t a track, like we have
track flow plans for things at this park. We have
evacuation plans, fire alarms, bomb threats, but again,
this wasn't on our property. So r eally we didn't have any
plans in that aspect . We do have, since t hen, done
different levels of like a DEFCOM like the mi litary uses .
They have I think five or something where they use colors .
(b) (?)(E)

We have steps now so in case we have any other
national threat what our assignments are. I t ' s clear cut
now exactly who is going to have access, where they're
going to have access from and to. You have your right gear
available, any resources that we have enabl ed. But at that
time we didn 't have any say we ' re going to implement level
1 or level 2 or level 3. We just said secure the areas,
and what you see reasonable, you would do .
Q: Well, what was most challenging about all of this?
A: Getting things in place. You would think you woul d have
certain thi ngs you could just go to and get things done,
but things don' t happen that You want an ambulance,
things don't happen that fast. You want to have like the
J ersey barricades. Like I said, we don't have them
14
available. So you've got to figure where I saw things last
and then where do I have an operator to move these, I mean
a construction person? So those were some of the things
--
.-.:.1":...;
place. That was not a problem. I had communications. My
radio was working. That was, but the lack of telephone
service, that was something you never really planned on.
Nextel is not working. A lot of things were done by line of
sight or by the radio, so that was a thing that was unique.
And of course, you're thinking what's going to happen next?
This is the first wave. Nobody knew how long it was going
to, you know, you heard there were three planes, four
planes. No one knew exactly how long the day was going to
be before you saw an end. For me it was just long because
I worked until 11:00 that night, so it was a long day.
Q: So how has September 11 affected day-to-day operations,
some of the other traditional missions that you and your
team?
A: You take, well, as always you take, everybody values the
American life and our liberties, because that was what was
under attack. So you value the freedoms that we have that
other people don't have. But that's more or less like a
political statement. The thing that has really changed us
15
here is now you've got to worry about are we going to have
package bombs? So people can be blowing things up with,
this is the Statue of Liberty. Now are they going to be
trying to blow it up? Are they going to come by a smaller
plane, like the kid in Tampa, where he flew into the bank
building? You have to think that could be a legitimate
threat now.
Everybody always said you had these threats you never
recognized them. I think you have to recognize that
anything could be a threat now. So some people are a
little bit more cautious with the visitors, the questions
that they're asking. People say, "Why are you asking these
questions?" It. could have been an innocuous historical
question, "How do you build the World Trade Centers?" "How
do you build the Verrazano Bridge?" But now they could be
saying, "I want to figure how to knock it down." "The
Statue of Liberty, does it have a fire suppressing system?"
"How do I take it out?" So the questions now, you're a
little bit more hesitant saying, "Why are you asking this
thing?"
And also the biggest burden right now is the fact that the
protection that we have to deal, we didn't plan on having
16
to add eight extra personnel to a shift. And it's
diminishing our resources. And people are getting tired
and people leave to be federal air marshals. So that's
really crippled our agency, but again, that's I think every
agency now is probably seeing people leaving for another
agency, because the air marshals are hiring 3, 000 agents.
The money is there. So we're double taxed with more
responsibilities and fewer and fewer resources.
Q: I guess another way of asking that is have the day-to-day
law enforcement functions suffered in any way as a result
of this emphasis now on security and?
A: Yes. Our patrol activity is. Your activities instead of
being directed for patrol are directed towards security of
the Statue, really. Most of our resources are going to the
Statue of Liberty. Battery Park inspection site, the
Liberty State Park inspection site, the Statue of Liberty
proper, Ellis Island proper, Federal Hall proper. We're
basically keeping those icons and monuments safe as opposed
to patrolling for resource management violations,
patrolling for traffic violations, criminal investigations.
That's the biggest impact.
And the people that live in the area, a lot of people get
used to planes going overhead. And those are the AWAX (?)
17
Q:
and the other fighter jets. But it was a constant
remembering. We never had these noises before. Why are we
hearing these supersonic jets going through? Because
there's a threat and no one knows when it's going to end.
So people are on edge, but I don't think that anybody is
paranoid but I think everybody is realistic.
happen again very easily.
Has it changed the way you view your job at all?
view your work differently in anyway?
It could
Do you
A: Well, it seems that patrol can be put aside. But it seems
that protection of the big monuments and anything else is
really what the job is now. So instead of worrying about
things happening in little parks, which are the recreation
areas inside of Gateway, our biggest emphasis is on the
Statue, and rightly so. It is something that is typical of
all America. You see it on every commercial. I don't work
there per se. But my men that are detailed there because
they're short staffed, I know what they're going there for.
They're going there for a reason, to keep the threat away.
We have laser protection, so we're trying to make sure it
is as hard a target as possible, and that's why a lot of
the officers from Staten Island are being detailed there,
to help support the Statue because their staff level was
18
only able for the normal daily activities. Now with the
high risk it's not adequate, so we have to send more
resources. So the job is changed, right.
Q: It sounds like you're telling me the force is stretched a
bit thin, is that correct?
A: Yes, but I don't think that's the purpose of historical
portions. It's really, yes, we're stretched now where
we've lost 10-12 people, and when you lose that out of 100
people, that's a lot of people to lose. We're very
stretched with what we cover. Federal Hall, covering it on
a midnight shift, day work shifts. Inspection sites.
A lot of officers are very tired. They work six days, 12
hour shifts. Sometimes they work seven days, because they
work back-to-back so they can have a day or two off in a
row. They don't know when the end is, so they' 11 get
bitter. They understand, but they all go to work. They go
to work and understand it's important what they do, but at
the same time they wish they had more time with their
families. Because again, everybody wants to be nurtured
and protected, and you can't. Your wife and kids are home
and you're at work and they want to know what's going on,
because you mean no more than they do. Oh you can't go
19
home and comfort them in their times of need because you're
at work. So now they're looking back and saying, ~ Y o u know
I came here for three or four months," whatever, and it's
like they feel like they haven't been given anything in
return, because they're working for the government.
But hopefully there will be a time when we look back and
say it was well worth it. And people will be more
reasonable as far as understanding you know, you have a
vacation and it's maybe pushed off for six months. But
again, that's a time when you're called and you arise to
the occasion.
Q: Well, on a positive note, what is it about the response
that you're particularly proud of?
really stand out as?
I mean something must
A: The guys that went downtown that day. They didn't know what
they were going to and they went. The boat guys, they were
shuttling people back and forth and I'm sure the water was
rough that day. Oh, the fact that people were trying to
get on a small boat, you know, hundreds of people trying to
get on a small boat. I'm sure they had to--I think they
transferred 112 people that day for triage.
20
And of course, we had people that were friends in federal
law enforcement in that building also downtown. We met one
of them and he said, "Glad you're here. Take me and my
office across." So that was nice, to be able to see we got
some of our friends. You want to make sure your friends
were safe in law enforcement. We have a friend in ETF, a
friend in Secret Service, and they both were fine. And I
asked them, "Why were you running?" And I said, "I could
see the dust." He says, "Yes, we were running, because it
was a black wall." And I said, "I'd be running, too." He
said him and his staff, they ran as fast as they could,
because you didn't know what was behind that wall. All you
saw was black dust. So he ran to the water's edge. And I
said, "Well, our boats were there. You should know they
probably would have been there," but he got out safely.
I would think the people on the boat, it was a remarkable
response. We got every single boat. We had a sergeant, who
was off duty, came in a personal boat, motored in to work,
got on a police boat and continued that day working. I
think that shows dedication. He was home. He could have
said, "No one has called me. I'm going to enjoy my day at
home," but he saw the need to respond. So there were a lot
21
of people that came to the plate and did what they were
supposed to do.
People down at Federal Hall, breathing in that dust and
dirt. It was there for weeks. You could smell it, the acrid
odor of burning glass, concrete, the plastic on old pipes,
and, of course, decomposing bodies. It was a gruesome
somber experience when you went downtown and saw what used
to be 12 0 stories tall was only 5 feet tall now. And the
rubble and it really, nothing recognizable. It was all gray
like mashed potatoes.
''>
You'd see reed bars sticking out.
But you would expect to find toilets, desk furniture,
things you would think would survive but didn't survive,
because everything was compacted. One floor was three or
four inches thick. So that was kind of.
And days there when you heard the whistle, which meant to
stop, and you waited to hear in case anybody, and you
tapped and waited to hear if anybody tapped back, and
they'd blow the whistle again and you started digging
again, you kind of feel like you're there to help the
person, but it's like you know, gee, how are we ever going
to hear anybody in all of this mess?
22
Q: Did quite a few officers from here go down and volunteer
and dig?
A: Everybody, a lot of people wanted to dig, more than we
could spare, but we probably sent 6-8 people everyday to
dig. And a lot of guys, they dug every single day because
they knew firemen. They came back dirty, dusty. They
looked like they were rolled in flour.
Q: I hadn't heard that. For how long, over a period of weeks?
A: No, it was probably about, I'd say seven days and then NYP
changed it from a rescue mission to a recovery mission to a
crime scene. So they kicked out the outside agencies,
because then they figured there'd be no chance of anymore
survivors, so they were collecting evidence. So they had
everybody else move from the crime scene. But it happened,
I think it was that Monday, Tuesday, and by the following
Monday it had kind of gone down to a crime scene
investigation.
So we sent people down to assist, but they really didn't
ask for much assistance at that point. They kind of
utilized the fire department and the NYPD to conduct the
crime scene investigations.
they were getting pilfered.
23
They had to organize because
You didn't know if you were
going to use a black box or other important parts of the
investigation. But solidly these men and females were going
down there digging. And you'd just see them come back
exhausted and depressed, because they weren't finding
anybody, because people in the neighborhood that worked in
the world financial area or the law enforcement wings,
whether you were New York City, federal, or whatever, they
were all in that building.
Q: Is there anything that I haven't asked about that you would
want to add? It seems like there might have been some
historically new missions for the Park Police in this. It
seems like some of the things you described are.
A: Federal Hall was never part of our purview. It was handled
by the Rangers at Manhattan sites. But we have boats, so
boats can travel. The Rangers came to assist from Fire
Island. They came with their boats. Again, it wasn' t a
Park Service location. Manhattan Island, but again, the
interaction you can't say you're federal, you're state,
you're city, you're local. Everybody works together for a
group disaster. Everybody came together. I don't think the
Park Service wants to spend their resources doing other
people's jobs, but at the same time in a national emergency
I think it is right we did go that and help anybody in
24
Manhattan because you want to save everybody's like and at
the same time protect the Statue and Federal Hall, across
from the Stock Exchange.
And that's changed our jobs a lot. We're in downtown
Manhattan, before we were only at the national recreation
areas and the Statue of Liberty and Ellis. And again, we
went from a patrol operation to really a security mission.
Just like the Secret Service around the President. They
make sure the White House is protected. And that what we're
doing that right now, where before we were maybe doing
resource management. We'd be doing traffic laws, criminal
investigations, the other things that occur in the parks.
But now those are all second base and the first base is the
Statue, is the icon.
Q: So it's like the Park Police really functioned as a true
partner with these other entities
A: Yes, we worked as a partner. The OEM works in emergency
management. I mean they were in that building also. And
the telephone lines. We sent people down to One Peace Plaza
also so we could network and coordinate resources. So
that's where we all got together and helped, because One
Peace Plaza is on the East side and the other command and
25
control center. So 4 July, another and other big events,
every agency sends a rep with a phone in case they need a
resource or location, they can just walk across or yell
across the room and say, "Park Police, can you handle
this?" "EPA, can you handle this?"
It's sort of like the Joint Terrorism Task Force issue, you
get all of the heads together of all of the agencies and
they work together. That was one thing. We also had a
person at One Peace Plaza. Say if it happened on that
Monday or Tuesday, it might not because that day we were
trying to get everybody in and trying to just respond to
where we had to go. Organization may have taken 2-3 days.
But. it was something I don't think anybody will ever
forget. The planes, you still here them overhead. You
learn a difference between an aircraft going to Newark
Airport or a military jet. As far as suspicious packages,
people who come in here and they have things in the
neighborhood which they think are unusual, they report it
to the police now. The same I see a group of foreigners
and it's like you don't want to do racial profiling, but
[tape ends]
26
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 11m ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
Interview with
MAJOR THOMAS WILKINS, U.S. PARK POLICE
Commander, New York Field Office
Conducted by Janet A. McDonnell, Ph.D.
May 8, 2002
New York, New York
Side A:
Q: I'm Janet McDonnell and I'm here with Major Wilkins to talk about how the Park
Police responded to the September [11th] attacks up here in New York To start, if
you would just explain what your position is here. Give me a general idea of
what your responsibilities are, and how the Park Police up here is organized.
A: Okay, I'm in charge of the New York Field Office- I'm the commander of the
New York Field Office. And the New York Field Office of the Park Police
provides law enforcement services at Gateway National Recreation Area units,
Jamaica Bay, and Staten Island. They also provide law enforcement at the Statue
of Liberty and Ellis Island. We work with the superintendents of those units but
we have our own line of authority back to Washington, D. C. I report directly to
the deputy chief of the field offices division for the Park Police. At the Statue of
Liberty, we have been providing law enforcement services there since about 1995,
I believe, was when we transitioned from law enforcement rangers. There are still
three law enforcement rangers that work at the Statue of Liberty that have been
integrated into our operations there.
Q: How and when did you first become aware of the attacks on the World Trade
Center?
A: On that Tuesday morning- I live in Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, and we
were scheduled for a housing inspection, so I was still home. I was dressed and
ready to go to work but I was waiting for the housing inspections which we were
scheduled to begin at nine o'clock that morning. And my wife and I were
2
watching the morning news shows when about quarter of nine they broke in with
reports that a plane had struck one of the World Trade Center buildings and
showed a clip of it with smoke pouring out of the building. And at first they
didn't know the nature of what had happened, just that a plane had struck the
building. I grabbed a pair of binoculars and my wife and I went up to the
overlook, which is right at the end of the street where we live and has a view of
downtown Manhattan.
And this particular day it was a clear bright sunny day because we had rain
showers the night before so it was just crystal clear, a beautiful blue sky, and we
could see the smoke and fire pouring out of the one building. And I had my
police radio with me, I also had a New York City police radio so I was monitoring
some oftheir radio traffic, but there really wasn't anything significant being said
other than routine words and messages. While we were standing there watching,
Captain [Neal] Lauro, who is my district commander who's office is on Staten
Island, and Lieutenant [Dave] Buckley, who's the station commander for the
Staten Island office and also the SWAT team commander, came up to the
overlook when they had heard the news. And they were standing there, and we
were watching, looking out over the city.
And at some point I looked over to the left and I could see a United Airlines
plane, appeared to be fairly low but it really didn't strike me at the time because
that's where Newark Airport is located. And I just assumed it was a flight coming
3
out ofNewark, taking off, and making a turn to head up north and either go up the
East River or up the Hudson and head north, so it really didn't strike me as being
out of the ordinary. But as the plane continued, we noticed it wasn't climbing
very quickly and again that didn't strike me particularly at the time. But then we
could see that it made a turn and headed straight into the other tower and then we
watched it strike the tower and once we saw it strike the tower, then absolutely we
knew something really was going on that was not an accident and immediately
started taking different measures. Captain Lauro was contacting the Statue of
Liberty and we were making arrangements to call people in back to work and it
was a delay of a couple minutes when we finally heard the explosion, because of
the distance, and actually heard the explosion ofthe plane hitting the building.
So at that point we immediately went to work doing what needed to be done. I
went back to my house briefly for a minute and the Park Service crew was there,
and wanted to start the housing inspection. I said "Absolutely not. We've got
something going on here and we just can't do it today. " So Captain Lauro and
Lieutenant Buckley eventually headed out to Ellis Island. And I went back to the
office first, took some measures there, started working with the Coast Guard in
setting up security because their offices were located at Fort Wadsworth, that's
the headquarters for the Coast Guard in New Y ark harbor.
Q: You mean security for Fort Wadsworth?
4
A: Shutting down Fort Wadsworth. We immediately closed the back gate, that's our
so that you only have access, coming in and out of one gate,
and put officers on the gate. Normally during the day there's no one on the gate.
We have a guard that' s on the gate overnight but during the day the gate' s open.
We immediately put a police officer on the gate and started instituting security
measures. We assigned one of the lieutenants, Lieutenant Waite(?), to be a liaison
with the Park and with the Coast Guard because Lieutenant Buckley, who
normally would to that, would have to go out to Ellis Island as commander of the
SWAT team. And at the same time, over in Brooklyn -
Q: I'm sorry, what park do you mean that he was liaison with?
A: With the superintendent at Staten Island unit, which is located at Fort Wadsworth.
He would work with them because any of the security requests the Coast Guard
had would bave to be coordinated with the superintendent. We can't just
arbitrarily start doing things without working with the superintendent, so his job
was to work with the superintendent and the Coast Guard security liaison to
institute whatever security measures were going to be taken. At some point I
called Washington, D.C. to advise them of what we were doing and we were
getting reports over the radio, eventually, that things were happening in D.C. and
again the timeline there is .. . I don' t have a good recollection ofwhat was
happening in what particular order. Eventually, I went over to the Coast Guard
command post Actually, one of the first things I did - I went down to the gas
station and gassed up my car because I didn' t have a full tank. I didn' t know what
5
was going to be happening and I wanted to have a full tank to get around. Then I
ended up at the Coast Guard command post and checking in there to see what
they were doing and to see what was going on. While I was in there they were
conducting a briefing for their personnel, their command staff, and that was when
the first Tower collapsed. By then it was probably around 10 o'clock in the
mormng.
I left there, went back up to the overlook. You could see all the smoke and dust,
it completely obliterated lower Manhattan. At some point, when the second tower
collapsed, I decided that things were on track with my operation at that point and I
headed into the city to go to the NYPD command post at One Police Plaza.
Q: Did you have some sort of existing plan that would lead you to do that? How did
you decide to do that?
A Well, normally, on a major event we have command posts established and will
routinely send people to them. Because of the magnitude of what was going on
here, everyone was pretty much busy doing stuff and I felt that I could still carry
out my responsibilities yet start the liaison with the city police by going to their
command post. The other command post would have been the Office of
Emergency Management command post which was in Number 7 World Trade
Center and that was right next to where the buildings were. So that was not a
possibility. I ended up driving into the city. As I left Fort Wadsworth and I went
to get on the Verrazano Bridge and they had all the traffic stopped on the
6
Verrazano Bridge and the only traffic going across the bridge were fire trucks,
off-duty firemen, and off-duty cops coming into work. So I got across the bridge
and was heading towards the city -
Q: Were you in your police vehicle?
A: I was in my police car. There's a section of elevated roadway called the
(Prospect?) Expressway. It goes through Brooklyn and it's just south of
Manhattan. And as I was driving down the ____ I was seeing ash just fall
out of the sky almost like gray snowflakes, just hitting the windshield and
dispersing and it just struck me as very surreal. As I got down the ____ _,
there are two ways that you can go at that point. You can either take the Brooklyn
Battery Tunnel which takes you right into lower Manhattan or you can go up to
the Brooklyn Bridge which takes you and dumps you out pretty much right at One
Police Plaza. Most of the traffic was going into Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, but
because that went right into where the Towers had collapsed, I felt there was no
point in me going that way because I would have just gotten in the way. So I
went up, took the Brooklyn Bridge in and pulled into One Police Plaza and went
into the building.
At that point they had the elevators shut off- I guess they had some power
outages - and somebody else who I met up with in the building, we walked up the
eight flights to the command post and settled in. When I walked into the room, it
really was pretty chaotic with what was going on, with obviously a tremendous
7
loss of life, both civilian and members of the Police Department and Fire
Department. No one really had any numbers at that point. It was obvious to
everyone that many people had died.
Q: You, in effect, represented the Park Service there. Were there other federal
agencies [represented]?
A: Not initially. Primarily it was state and local agencies, mainly NYPD because it's
such a large organization, each borough, each specialized unit has it's own
representative there. EMS from the Fire Department was represented and there
were some other people that eventually showed up there from New Jersey Office
of Emergency Management eventually showed up there. But it was primarily
police - transit police, housing, just the different people from NYPD.
Q: Did you have a command post, maybe you didn't call it that, for your own field
office?
A: No, because we continued operating under our normal structure, where we have a
dispatcher, Captain [Marty} Zweig was in Brooklyn and he was operating there.
He was in charge so he was really taking the requests and calls that came in to
Brooklyn. At some point I guess we got a request from Federal Hall to send
people down to Federal Hall and he took care of that request. I was trying to
make calls to D.C. and eventually at some point I called Philadelphia. I spoke to
Dale Ditmanson who is the assistant regional director for operations, to let him
know what we were doing. People were asking if they needed any assistance
8
from the Park Service and at that point, the resources of the city were such that
they could provide whatever they needed. They were getting donations from
commercial construction companies to get the equipment but they were setting up
different staging areas and one staging area was Floyd Bennett Field, which is in
Gateway National Recreation Area. So we were working with them. NYPD
Special Operations is located there so they wanted additional security there so
they placed some of their officers at the front gate and we placed some of our
officers there since it was Park Service jurisdiction just to make sure we could
help control the access in.
Q: How useful or valuable do you think it was that you were physically present in
that operations center, your liaison role? What effect did that have on
communications?
A: Well, I think it was important to have someone there because it was really the
only direct point of communications with the city. The normal channels that we
would use to communicate with the city by phone to their dispatch or to their
borough commands really were not effective because they were overloaded. So it
was important to have someone there. It didn't necessarily have to be me- but at
that point I felt that my two captains could handle their roles and that T could
function just as well there as anywhere else and fill that liaison role. I felt that at
that point, it was significant or important to have someone with decision making
authority right there to make decisions right on the spot if any need to be made.
And as it was there weren't many to be made. Still it was important to have that
9
liaison with them. And it still was very difficult to hope to operate there because
there was just so much chaos, just so much going on, they were completely
overwhelmed by what had happened. And then eventually, later in the day, they
started losing phone service. The main phone switch for Lower Manhattan was
right next to the tower and got damaged when the tower collapsed and apparently
they started getting flooding in the basement and starting losing phone service.
When one of the towers collapsed, we lost all phone service at Ft. Wadsworth
because the AT&T switch was located in the basement of one of the Towers. So
we lost all our phone service at Ft. Wadsworth and the Coast Guard lost their
phone service, so it really hampered the operations in that respect, but using our
cell phones and land lines as much as possible. But there were a lot of technical
problems.
Q: I do want to ask you a bit more about communications and radios and such in a
minute. But before we leave that first day I'd actually like to go back to the point
where you were standing at the overlook at Fort Wadsworth for a minute and just
ask you some of the things that were going through your mind. Did you have a
mental checklist of 'This needs to be done, and this needs to be done,' and did
you make the decision to evacuate Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island at that point -
-or I guess maybe that was the superintendent's decision.
A: Well, it was but it was sort of a simultaneous thing. We made the decision that
we were going to do it and I believe the superintendent had already made the
same decision and our staff were already in the process of doing that. Luckily,
10
the Statue had not opened or received its first load of visitors yet. At that time
they were able to turn the boat around and send it back because we usually don't
receive the first visitors boat during those hours, during the fall until 9 o'clock so
the 9 o'clock boat had not arrived yet so we were able to turn it back. So we did
not have any visitors on the island. We had just the staff and contractors and
those types of people on the island. And I believe they had already initiated
evacuation procedures by the time the second plane hit. We were talking the
same thing.
Q: Was it just obvious to everyone that Statue of Liberty could be a likely target?
A: To us, it was. We knew that the Statue of Liberty has been a focal point for
political protests in the past and we knew that these people - well, not these
people because we didn't know who had done this at the time- we knew that if
they were attacking the World Trade Center that the Statue of Liberty certainly
could be a target.
Q: Because it's symbolic value is so great?
A: It is an international symbol of American values.
Q: You mentioned that you quickly contacted the Park Police headquarters in
Washington. Was that contacting the chief command post or had that been
established?
11
A: I don't think that had been established yet, just calling to the division commander
and telling him what was going on in New York.
Q: Did you receive any guidance or was it just a matter of reporting 'this is what
we're doing'?
A: No, we didn't get any direction or guidance from D.C. We just did what we had
to do and really, we didn't have a checklist, per-say, we just started doing what
needed to be done.
Q: Well, let's go on and talk about communications for a minute, the problems with
the land lines. You mentioned that you and your officers and staff had to rely
more on cellular- I guess Nextel proved to be fairly valuable- but can you talk
to me a little bit about radio communications? I understand there were a couple
systems, two different radio systems:
A: We operate on different radio systems at the Statue of Liberty than we operate on
in the rest of New Y ark. Park Service operations at Gateway are on a VHF band,
meaning it's not compatible with the UHF band that the Statue uses. So, I'm not
really sure- it certainly was difficult to communicate between the two though we
did have the capabilities to operate on the UHF frequency from Brooklyn so we
could -the dispatcher could talk to anybody at the Statue and Ellis, though
individuals couldn't necessarily. Where I was, I couldn't use a radio inside the
building, it wouldn't operate in there. I was pretty much restricted to trying to use
the Nextel and the land lines.
12
Q: To carry on with that in a more general way, how effectively were you able to
communicate with that with your station commanders?
A: I would say I was able to get through to them about 50 percent of the time.
Q: And with the Northeast regional office. You mentioned you called Dale
Ditmanson ...
A: I was able to get through to Dale with a little better success.
Q: With cellular, not with land lines.
A: Yeah.
Q: Okay, and you also mentioned that the U.S. Park Police headquarters. I'd like to
hear a little bit more about coordination with other agencies. You mentioned the
Coast Guard and then there were the Metropolitan Police. Were there any other
federal agencies?
[Tape interruption]
A: There was a little bit of coordination, at that point it more reaction. A lot of the
coordination was going on, on the ground, at Ground Zero, and really didn't have
a role there. Our main role was at Ellis Island serving as an evacuation point so I
was relaying information I would get from them. If there was a firefighter or a
police officer standing over there, then I could provide that information to the city
so they could keep track of where their injured people were going. I did some
13
liaison with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. There was a question
about planes that were in the air and whether or not they were authorized and
there were some FAA reps at the command post. But, beyond that, I made them
known of the availability of the resources of the Park Service but again it was
very minor compared to the availability of the resources of the city itself could
muster.
Q: Would you just assess how effective or how smooth the evacuation process was
from the Park Service sites, both the evacuation of Park Service employees and as
well as the public? Do you feel that went fairly smoothly?
A: As far as I know, I wasn't there to see it actually take place, but I know it was
accomplished fairly quickly as far as Statue of Liberty, they took everybody off
the island. There was nobody left on the island and then we just maintained a
secure perimeter with boats. We sent all our boats up from Rockaway where the
Marine unit is located that controls Gateway, and sent them all up to the Statue of
Liberty. The Statue of Liberty went well as far as I know. The Ellis Island
operation, from what Captain Lauro was telling me, was going smoothly. There
were time they needed certain equipment and I would pass that along to the
representatives of the New Jersey Office ofEmergency Management that were
there at the command post but really that was about it.
Q: Where you involved in the decision to use Ellis Island as a triage site?
14
A: No, the decisions were being made there between Captain Lauro and the
superintendent. They would inform me that was the case so I ~ o u l d pass that
information along that they were prepared to use it as a temporary morgue and
transmissions were being passed back and forth. There were a lot of different
channels of communication going on and there wasn't always a good overlap. So
things that were being decided- it really wasn't necessary for me to be part of the
decision making process - but things were being decided that I was finding out
about which was fine, it worked out that way.
END OF SIDE A
TAPE 1 SIDEB
Q: I'm interested in learning about any historically new missions. It sounds like
there were a number of them, including Park Police involvement in Manhattan
Sites, maybe some unique activities/roles for the Marine units. Would you just
talk about that for a little bit?
A: Well, prior to September 11th, our role at the Statue was limited. There were
some initiatives but really were somewhat limited, particularly in the role of the
Marine unit there. We had received authorization and funding to buy a boat for
law enforcement purposes at the Statue. We did have the boat, but it was not
manned by a dedicated crew. It was manned by what we call "incidental
operators", people who were trained and could be pulled to do that. Since
September 11th, the Marine patrol has become very significant at the Statue of
15
Liberty in order to maintain a security zone around it. Of course, things that we
had been trying to do in the past to enhance security at the statue, such as moving
the screening off site, prior September 11th, we have not been able to do because
of the obstacles in accomplishing that. Of course, after September 11th those
obstacles were very easily overcome or at least were ignored. So we have pushed
the perimeter out, we do the screening before the people get on the Circle Line
boats.
We had supported the Federal Hall site in the past on special occasions when they
needed additional law enforcement presence. Now that they need a continual
presence, we have been there since September 11th and sent people down on
September 11th to assist there. It has expanded our role here in New York. The
number of posts that need to be filled on a daily basis has increased significantly.
So it's put a strain because we haven't gotten any additional personnel.
We have, I think, followed a very carefully thought-out plan for the Statue.
Certainly the basis for that plan was known before September 11th -we knew
what we'd have to do to provide enhanced security - and then September lith
being the catalyst for moving on with those plans- so it wasn't something that we
had to just create from nothing. We had the general ideas in mind, so it was must
a matter of filling them out more specifically.
16
Q: How have these expanded responsibilities affected the other missions, the day to
day operations of your police force - investigating crimes and other security
measures?
A: Up until this point it has had a minimal effect because the fall and winter seasons
are very slow in Gateway, there's not a lot of action activity. But starting in the
spring and through summer we get a lot more activity, outdoor recreation being a
major part of the activities in Gateway. So it's really hindered our ability to
provide the level of service that we have historically for those events. We're
hoping that with additional people that we're getting that we'll be able to maintain
at least the level of service that we provided last year. We probably won't be able
to increase that level of service. It will still be a bit of a stretch to provide the
same level as last year.
Q: I understand that you're still running extended hours?
A: Extended hours. Officers are working 12-hour shifts, they're working 5-6 days
a week. Right now we have a temporary detail from DC for this month that will
allow us to grant some leave and to cut back the number hours people are
working. And then next month when this detail leaves we'll have some new
bodies on board, people who have been transferred in who will hopefully help us
to reduce the number of hours people have been working.
Q: So what impact has the sky marshal program had on your [operations]?
17
A: Significant. I've lost about 14 people in the past two, two and a half months.
Starting in March is when they starting hiring, and because our officers have all
been through Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) they can move
on to the second level. Any federal law enforcement officer has to go through
there for their basic training. And because our officers have already had that
training, they can lateral into sky marshal jobs and just get one week of additional
training when they're out on the job, working in the airplanes. So that's had a
significant effect on us.
Q: You mentioned new security measures at Statue of Liberty. Are there new
security measures at the Manhattan sites as well?
A: We have instituted screening with magnetometers for visitors coming into Federal
Hall and providing security there 24 hours a day.
Q: Did you feel, both in the immediate aftermath and in the past six months or so -
well, we've talked about staff shortage, and but I'm not talking about that- but
that you were adequately resourced in other ways? Equipment, budget - I don't
know all the things you need to support your operations.
A: Certainly, I think we were in a fairly decent position prior to September II th as
far as our equipment and supplies. What's really changed is the degree of security
that we need provide for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and so that's driven
the demand for more sophisticated equipment. We gotten supplemental funding
for those things and that has helped. Not all those things come on line yet but
18
they are coming on line. The difficult thing - and this was difficult before
September 11th but it's been made much more difficult since September 11th- is
that my staff up here is very operations oriented in that I don't have a very large
administrative staff. I have three civilians that work for me, supporting 115
officers. One's my secretary, one's our records clerk, and I have a temporary
administrative officer that we brought on the first of this year. And I have a
couple civilian dispatchers, but they're supporting operations.
But everything else has to be done by people that have other jobs, that have
operational jobs but they all have collaborative duties. So one of my lieutenants
who is supposed to be a shift supervisor, supposed to be out supervising the
operations on the street, is also responsible for radio communications. He's also
responsible for fleet maintenance and fleet management, including ordering the
emergency equipment, getting the vehicles to and from where the equipment has
to be installed, and he's also in charge of training. So, he's got three full time
jobs in addition to his regular job. And that applies to almost everybody that
works for me. They have a tremendous amount of responsibility and really not
very much support in order to accomplish what they need to accomplish.
So it's been quite a challenge for them and they've all done an excellent job but
it's very difficult and we've had to back off on some things that we would
normally do, such as in-service training, and even our semi-annual firearms
qualifications have fallen behind and these are all things we need to catch up on
19
but we're going into our busy season so it's not going to be any easier. But, the
workload has increased quite a bit. Developing the security plan at the Statue of
Liberty I had to bring over an additional lieutenant to assist the station
commander and that took somebody off the street. That lieutenant also had other
collaborative duty responsibilities so something is always suffering. You turn
your attention to one thing and something is being neglected, being ignored until
that reaches a crisis point that you have to turn your attention back to it.
Q: I was going to ask you what the greatest challenge has been in not only the
immediate response but in the whole heightened security response that came after
and it sounds like maybe you've just described that to me.
A: For the most part it's people trying very hard to do their job, but having a lot of
jobs to do, and sometimes not feeling that we're not getting support from our own
organization. I think we've gotten pretty good support from the Park Service but
prior to September II fu, the relationship between us and the rest ofthe Park
Service wasn't particularly good. The NAP A study had come out, the
superintendents at recommended either doing away with the Park Police up here
and replacing us with law enforcement rangers, or integrate us into the Park
Service structure which is a very decentralized structure as opposed to our
centralized structure. So there was a lot of friction going on and I think that
September II th hasn't eliminated that but it has certainly pushed it very deep into
the background.
20
Q: Has the visibility of the park police or awareness of the role of the Park Police
increased within the Park Service? Is that part of what you're saying?
A: Not necessarily as a result of September 11th. I think certainly we've had a more
direct, a more visible role certainly within the Park Service here in the Northeast
Region, working with Dale Ditmanson and Marie Rust and also directly with the
Director and the Secretary of the Interior. They've all had very direct interest in
the Statue of Liberty and the security plan and what's going on there. Certainly,
an awareness, but at the same time the Director was brand new to the job when
she came in. She came in in the middle of the summer, so she barely had her feet
on the ground. And Park Police didn't have a chief at the time so we didn't have
a lead point of contact there. There were some real problems at least in focusing
on what was going on.
Q: Focusing ...
A: Well, because of the way that things operate -just from a budgetary standpoint if
nothing else - there was some specific language that come out of Congress a year
or two ago that said that the Park Police and the Park Service would have separate
budgets. And, when we developed the security plan for Statue of Liberty and
Ellis Island there's the Park Police component and then there's the Park
component of that plan. The Park component goes right up through the regional
director. My component has to go up through the Park Police and if I can't
convince the Park Police that -
21
(PHONE RINGS- BREAK IN TAPE)
Q: What impact did the fact that the chief position had been vacant for some time
have on this response?
A: I don't think it had an impact on the response in New York on September 11th.
I'm not sure what impact it had on the response in D. C. on September 11th, but I
think that in the aftermath, in the planning for how we are going to do business
after that, that it had a fairly significant impact. The lack of continuity of
leadership that they were going through, 60 day rotations with an acting chief, and
there were some of those that were acting were also candidates for the position - I
don't know whether that affected how they operated- but certainly the Jack of
continuity I think was a problem. I don't think it was a fatal problem but I feel it
created additional friction and difficulty in getting things done, getting things
accomplished.
I ended up going to a briefing for the Secretary of the Interior on the Statue of
Liberty security plan. At that point I had been working directly with the park up
here with the superintendent, with the associate regional director, the director of
the Park Service, without ever having anybody above my rank in the park police
have any interest in what we were doing, other than the fuct I would tell D.C. 'I
need these things'. I got the budgetary side of it but I needed more a commitment
in personnel that I didn't get until this last month, when finally it got to the point
when after I lost almost 15 people-
22
(PHONE RINGS- BREAK IN TAPE)
Q: What impact did the fact that the chief position had been vacant for some time
have on this response?
A I don't think it had an impact on the response in New Y ark on September 11th.
I'm not sure what impact it had on the response in D. C. on September 11th, but I
think that in the aftermath, in the planning for how we are going to do business
after that, that it had a fairly significant impact. The lack of continuity of
leadership that they were going through, 60 day rotations with an acting chief, and
there were some of those that were acting were also candidates for the position- I
don't know whether that affected how they operated- but certainly the lack of
continuity I think was a problem. I don't think it was a fatal problem but I feel it
created additional friction and difficulty in getting things done, getting things
accomplished.
I ended up going to a briefing for the Secretary of the Interior on the Statue of
Liberty security plan. At that point I had been working directly with the park up
here with the superintendent, with the associate regional director, the director of
the Park Service, without ever having anybody above my rank in the park police
have any interest in what we were doing, other than the fact I would tell D.C. 'I
need these things'. I got the budgetary side of it but I needed more a commitment
in personnel that I didn't get until this last month, when finally it got to the point
when after I lost almost 15 people - a significant percentage of my existing staff-
22
and what was difficult to convey to them is it's not that I'm losing from my
existing staff, it's that my workload up here for my officers is significantly higher
now than it was on September 11th. We have to provide a lot more service than
we had to provide September 1Oth, and we only had enough people on September
1Oth to provide the level of service we were providing.
Somehow that message wasn't getting through until finally two weeks ago I told
them I was unable to support any of the special events that were scheduled for this
month. We have a five-borough bike tour through Staten Island that ends on Fort
Wadsworth on Staten Island. Thousands of bicyclists and it takes a detail of
about 20 to 25 officers and I said ' I can't support that'. We have an event at Ellis
Island this Saturday night that doesn't take a lot more people but it takes more
people and when your people are already working 12-hour shifts they can't work
anymore. I told them 'We cannot do anymore. I cannot support reopening the
Statue, I cannot support special events that are coming up, we can't do it.' And
until I sent that to the chief, I'd ask for people, they'd say no, I'd ask for people,
they'd say no. My officers were working five or six days a week. I think that it
was sort of a problem due in part to the lack of continuity of leadership.
Q: As I understand, Director Mainella has tasked Deputy Director Murphy with
focusing in on some of these law enforcement issues. Have you seen some sort of
improvements as a result of that? I mean, you're sort of talking about an
23
education process, educating the leadership to what the needs are. I just
wondered if you had started to see any results.
A: I haven't seen any on our side from that. I know that we have people that sit on
that committee, that task force. I know that the park, the superintendents have
sent in comments and such, but I don't know that that's going to have any direct
impact any time soon, that's at such a high level. I'm not even sure of all of the
things that they're looking at. I've seen some comments but ...
Q: I think we've been focusing on the challenges in responding. Let's tum it around
and talk about what worked really well. What are you particularly proud of in
looking at your staff and your operation or maybe personally, what did you find
most gratifying about this?
A: Well, I think what worked well was our ability to pool our resources. I could
reach out and take all my extra people from Gateway and direct them to the Statue
of Liberty, that our structure was such that it wasn't one superintendent asking
another superintendent - I have control over my personnel. I could do that, the
officers responded tremendously, we had resources on what I used to call it the
Gateway side of the house that I was able to pull. My Marine unit was stationed
down there - and that the officers, when asked perform, stepped up to the plate
and did a tremendous job. There are things that they did that I'm still fully not
aware of until I see the commendations that come in that people have written and
with any organization, particularly the Park Service and the Park Police, your
human resources, your people, are your strength. They are what make the
24
organization. The rest is not of as much significant. Anybody can drive a truck
or a backhoe or a front end loader but you get the person that can step up and do
the job under difficult circumstances. That's how I think my officers responded
and continue to respond for a significant period oftime.
Q: It sounds like you're saying the centralized structure of the Park Police made it
easier for you to allocate resources.
A: Absolutely. Because I'm sure that, on September 11th and the days immediately
following it, if we had a structure similar to the rest of the Park Service - three or
four co-equal superintendents that at that time there wouldn't be any problems.
We're now 6- 7 months later and I know that there are problems trying to
allocate law enforcement rangers throughout the Park Service and the
superintendents rightfully are questioning that. I think that in the short term,
maybe it didn't make a difference- I had rangers from Fire Island that responded
on September 11th -but that's only good for the immediate emergency. Within
two or three days one of the crews wanted to go back. That's understandable.
But our structure is such that we have to use our critical mass of people and move
it around and adjust it as necessary and because of our structure we can do that.
Q: How, if at all, has the way you view your job changed as a result of this?
A: Well, I think because of the increased importance of security I have a little more
prestige- I don't know if prestige is the right word- a little better sense of
importance perhaps than in the past. There are a lot of different things that have
25
gone on in the past year or so with our independence from the Park Service
budget. Whereas in the past I could be held under the thumb of the
administrative officer for Gateway, it was difficult because the superintendent at
the Statue controlled my budget there I didn't control it, it was always a difficult
time trying to control, allocate money for training and things that may have
crossed park boundaries. It's helping. The change in the budget has helped. I
think that hopefully law enforcement as a program has gotten some attention that
perhaps it has needed. Its certainly unfortunate it come at the expense that it did,
and I think I'm looked at as of a little more of an equal of the superintendents.
Q: Is there anything in the area of training that you're looking at or did you feel that
your officers' response indicates that they had all the appropriate training? Are
there some gaps that you're looking at now?
A: I think the training they had was adequate for the immediate events. The bigger
problem as far as training was the anthrax scare afterwards. They had some
anthrax here in New York City, of course Washington, D.C., so there might have
been a little of a gap. Though they had some basic training, I don't think anybody
in the country was really prepared to deal with anthrax on the level that we've had
to. My biggest problem now is that I can't send anybody to training because
everybody's working. And there may be some adjustments in training but I don't
see that we're going to need a significant amount. We've already done counter-
terrorism training. We hosted last April a seminar at Ellis Island to talk about
terrorism and tourism and things of that nature and had people from throughout
26
the New York metropolitan area there. One thing is that I think I do have a little
better relationship with the city police department. I do sit on some
subcommittees that have been established since then, counter-terrorism in the
New York metropolitan area, so I think we're getting a little more recognition
from the city.
Q: Do you have an actual counter-terrorism unit in your field office or just that your
officers have some counter-terrorism training?
A: Well, we did have a SWAT team. Unfortunately almost all ofthem have gone to
the air marshals. Beyond that we are looking at providing a higher level of
training to the officers, as far as giving them some rifle training which normally
we don't. But other than that I don't have a specific counter-terrorism unit
because I think it's something that everyone has to be aware of, certainly those
places that are more of a target than others, probably concentrate that at the Statue
and Ellis Island.
Q: I realize that in you're position you probably don't interact with the public very
much. So this would be based primarily on what you're hearing anecdotally from
your officers, but based on that I wonder if the public view of the Park Police has
changed at all since September 11th?
A: I don't think in New York there's a wide recognition of the Park Police. The
Park Service usually has a problem getting their message out in New York. I
think that in general we enjoy the same appreciation that the rest of law
27
enforcement and fire fighters have enjoyed since September 11th after seeing what
we have done. And it sort of raised the importance of the job but specifically for
the Park Police, no I don't think there has been any significant change. I think
professionally a little more recognition within the city and we're trying to get
more recognition and be more of a player in the things that go on but our role here
END OF TAPE/END OF INTERVIEW
28