Remembering September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001, was the day the World Trade Center Towers in New York were destroyed by fanatical, Islamic extremist who commandeered commercial jet liners and crashed them into the Twin Towers. Both towers eventually collapsed, killing thousands of people and literally stopping the world, if only for a moment. The attack was well planned, as another jet liner crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth jetliner crashed into an empty field in Pennsylvania. The passengers on United Flight 93 attempted to regain control of the jet from the terrorists and the jet crashed before reaching its target, which experts surmised was the White House.

I was familiar with the World Trade Center because brother Joe worked there in 1993, when Islamic extremists detonated a car bomb in the underground parking structure. I seem to recall he was in one of the upper floors, perhaps the 60th or something similar. At any rate, when I talked to him after the bombing, he said everyone was told to evacuate, but he really did not know what was going on until he exited the ground floor and saw the news media.

In 2001, I was assigned to the Traffic Unit with the Garden Grove Police Department. I was supervisor of the unit and working day shift. Officers assigned to the Traffic Unit were allowed to take their motorcycles home with them and I fired up my Kawasaki KZ1000 and headed east on Pitcairn Street from my house in the City of Cypress. It was September 11th, approximately 7:00am and I headed over to Patton Elementary School to monitor a crosswalk near a stop sign for the kids. It was my morning routine at the start of my shift and I drove over and parked my motorcycle along the north curb line of Santa Rita Avenue, just east of Wild Goose Street.

I had been there for just a few minutes when a gentleman came out of his house located on the south side of the street with a cup of coffee and came over to talk to me. He identified himself as a Los Angeles Sheriffs Deputy and asked if we (the department) had been placed on tactical alert. His question took me by surprise, because our agency only had 165 officers and only the large agencies, like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, etc. would place their personnel on tactical alert and then only in extreme emergencies. I told him I was not aware of any tactical alert and he said his entire agency was on alert. I guess the look on my face indicated I had no idea what had transpired early that morning and so he told me the World Trade Center in New York had been attacked and was on fire. He told me terrorists flew a commercial jet into one of the twin towers. At the time, the magnitude of the incident still had not registered with me. I thanked him for the information and told him I was going to head into the station to see what emergency measures we had initiated.

As I drove toward the station, I listened to my police radio and it was quiet, but that was not unusual at this time of the morning…on a normal day. Everything indicated it was just another morning with business as usual. When I did not hear any emergency radio transmissions or anything to indicate a tactical alert, I asked the dispatcher if we were having any meetings because of the attacks and she told me there were none she was aware of. I decided I would continue to the station and meet with my lieutenant and so I told her I would be in route to the station.

When I arrived, I walked into the small, Traffic Office where there was a small group crowded around a television. They watched the news coverage, trying to decipher what had occurred. The news media replayed the first jet liner crashing into the building over and over and then to everyone’s horror a second jet liner struck the 2nd tower while on live television. Then reports of an additional attack on the Pentagon and a possible jet liner “missing” were broadcasted on the news. It appeared as if the United States was under attack for the first time since Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, and the targets, so far, were on the east coast.

The image of the commercial jets as they flew into the Twin Towers was almost numbing. It was hard to grasp that it was not a movie or television show, but we were actually watching people being murdered. I was mesmerized and could not take my eyes off the television. As more information became available, it became more and more surreal. Who would do such a thing and why? Why would someone kill so many innocent people? Reports came in of Islamic terrorist.

Garden Grove had Orange County’s largest Muslim Mosque down near 13th Street and Brookhurst and so I decided to drive to the location to determine if there was any activity. The Mosque had an elementary school on the grounds, but had already cancelled classes when word of the attack took over the news. The administrators at the school feared reprisals from misinformed and angry people.

While in route, I heard on my police radio officers had arrived at the mosque and were chasing two suspects with guns. I thought the whole world had gone mad. The responding officers caught the suspects and I returned to the station. I heard later the suspects were Hispanic and wanted revenge for the destruction of the World Trade Center and attack on America.

At the end of my shift, I normally drove westbound on Chapman to go home. For the next several nights, I saw small and large groups of people and sometimes one lone figure standing on a street corner waving American flags and waving to me as I drove by. Although it was very touching, it was also very alarming. It was a reminder that America had been attacked. That had never happened in my lifetime.

Ironically, I had purchased airline tickets to fly home to Minnesota so dad and I could celebrate our birthdays. I would normally have a friend drop me off at the terminal, but when we arrived at LAX, it was completely shut down to vehicle traffic. Passengers had to park or be dropped off in lots along the 405 freeway and bused in to the terminal. As I rode the shuttle bus, I was shocked to see how empty LAX appeared without the usual thousands of cars that one would normally see. It was a scene from an apocalyptic movie where civilization had been wiped out by some rogue virus or nuclear attack. Gone were the taxis, buses, limousines and passenger cars. It was eerily quiet and the multi-story parking structures stood empty. And the silence was unnerving. Even inside the airport, one could sense a difference in ambiance. Where once there were thousands of travelers, now there were merely hundreds and their mood was somber…cautious…frightened. It most certainly was different.

Once inside the terminal, there was an abundance of police officers and military personnel armed with automatic and semi-automatic weapons. It reminded me of photographs of European airports where police routinely carry automatic weapons. Flight regulations did not permit active duty law enforcement to carry weapons on commercial jet liners, unless they were in a special container and stored with checked in luggage. Looking around the airport, I suddenly felt very naked without my own weapon.

I was able to fly to Minnesota to spend time with my parents and family. We sat and watched the continuing coverage of the attacks from September 11th and learned more about Flight 77 that struck the Pentagon and Flight 93, which was headed toward the White House. We learned of the many acts of heroism by the men and women of New York’s police, fire, and emergency services. We heard of sacrifices made by people inside of the Twin Towers and countless, heart wrenching stories of death and survival, last minute phone calls and lost loved ones. An endless stream of video and live reports inundated the television and I could not turn away. It was history in progress and I wanted to absorb it all.

I flew back to California without any problems. Life in Garden Grove and the rest of the United States eventually returned to a routine of different levels of alert, but September 11, 2001, changed our entire world.