Bobby Chacon After the Fall, FBI stories from 911

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1:02Jeep gladiator. After 85 years, it's no surprise that Jeep became America's SUV brand. Get a great deal during the Jeep drive into fall sales event. Jeep is one more awards over its lifetime than any other SUV brand, Jeep and the Jeep Grill or Registered Trademarks of FCA US LLC. This is Belie, one network, every topic, everywhere. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Police Off the Cuff Real Crime Stories. This is going to be part of the Law and Crime Author Series, and I have a brilliant, brilliant guest for you today. Oh, by the way, I've got to introduce myself. I'm retiring in my PD Sergeant Bill Cannon, 27-year veteran of the NYPD.

2:05And folks, we have a show that is after the fall, this is an audible original that you can listen to, and it deals with the FBI's investigation in 9-11. And we as NYPD officers that were on the job back in 2001, 22 years ago, which is so hard to believe, when you mentioned it to people today that maybe even in their early 20s or mid 20s, they almost don't believe that 9-11 occurred. And that's why it's so important to keep these things alive. And that's why I brought on retired FBI agent Bobby Chaconis, much more than just a retired FBI agent. He's also, he got a law degree along the way. He's a long Allen boy, two brothers were in way, excuse me, his dad and his brother were NYPD sergeants. And he's now a writer for television. We'll get into that when I introduce Bobby.

3:06But first, folks, hold on to your seats. You're in Police Off the Cuff Real Crime Stories, a law and crime author series. We'll be back right after this. What's all this rWoman, and all's stuff? I don't get it about. We're gonna keep on declaring Giant CG News that, just a long time since I've been away from meat practical enough in havens. Folks, in the lead up to the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, we asked a couple of

4:08dozen current and former FBI agents who were at the attack sites and around the world that day to tell us about the investigation they led. The terrorist had captured and interrogated in the crime scenes they spent months digging through. The result is an original sweeping and active saga of the FBI's 9-11 investigation, the biggest case in FBI history. Many of the stories have never been told much less heard together. The news of the Taliban sudden returned to power in Afghanistan as an unexpected importance to this story. The war in Afghanistan was a consequence of the 9-11. Twenty years ago, the FBI embedded with the military and helped them identify targets to dismantle Al Qaeda and capture suspects. Back then, the Taliban gave us some of bin Laden's safe harbor. We hope that history will not repeat itself. We also hope that listeners will find this series not just riveting, but also valuable as the history of 9-11 as the aftermath continues to be written and understood.

5:09Peter McDonald and Bobby Chacon created as an writer of after the fall. Bobby Chacon is the former FBI agent who worked out of the New York and Los Angeles field offices. Chacon grew up in Long Island, or the Lloyd Degree from Hofstra University, and at the FBI worked kidnappings, bank robbers, and violent international drug syndicates, including investigating a little cheesy crime family and providing counterterrorism security to 2002 and 2004 Olympics. He also led the FBI's underwater forensic program to collect evidence at the crash scenes of TWA 800 and the Space Shuttle Columbia. In 2005, Chacon was assigned to Baghdad, Iraq, to help form the Baghdad Police Academy, where he taught criminal and counterterrorism investigations. For the next eight years, he was full-time team leader of the FBI's Los Angeles Dive Team, traveling the globe, performing search and recovery operations, and training.

6:10After a 27-year career, Chacon retired from the FBI in 2014. In 2015, Chacon became the technical advisor on criminal minds beyond borders, then for season 14 of criminal minds where he also became a writer's consultant. Chacon then co-wrote an episode of season 15 of Criminal Minds. He has since worked on the series for HBO Max and ABC. Without any further ado, I'd like to introduce our guest, retired FBI agent Bobby Chacon. Welcome to the show, Bobby. Hey, it's great to be back, though. Thanks for having me. You know, Bobby, that was a long man. You wrote that. That was very well written, but it was a mouthful there, you know? I never know what to highlight when I'm on these things because I've had a very interesting and fortunate to have a very varied career so far. When you look back and before we get to this story, when you look back on your FBI career and even growing up on Long Island, I believe you got a lot of a lot of the group before you joined the FBI, right?

7:11Yes. So I mean, it seems like a long, long journey, doesn't it? Yeah, it does, but you know, I was, so the FBI, you know, I graduated high school when I was 16, first of all. And then so I started college early and then I finished low school early. So when I went to the FBI, I was 23, I just turned 24 and the minimum age to enter the FBI is 23. The average age of my academy class was like 29 and a half, almost 30. So, you know, I got, I got most of my schooling done out of the way really early in my life. And then I started my career really young, young by FBI standards. And, you know, and then, you know, 27 years flew by. And, you know, I mean, you know, we cover the same time for it. You know, crime in the late 80s in New York City in the early 90s with the crack epidemic. And I mean, it was for somebody like us who likes the action and likes to be out in the street making colors, it was the place to be at the time to be it.

8:13And, you know, I mean, I was working to making drug gangs in Brooklyn in like 90, 91, 92, somewhere when we had that, you know, that 2200 homicides in one year that broke. I think may still be the record. And I was working in the 6, 7, 7, 7 squad, book and South homicide. So, you know, when I look back on those days, you know, those are some of the fondest memories, not because of the work we did, but because of the people Jack Manaine, Michael, these detectives I work with, I still in the touch with the social media, who are retired now, but it's great to keep in touch. And, you know, just last week, I was back in 1pp for the first time in 22 years. I haven't been back to Lohman Hatten in 22 years. I went last week to a bunch of us that worked ground zero, got awards from the FBI director, director Ray. And we had so many of us that we didn't have enough room in the FBI office. So, they borrowed the big auditorium in 1pp. And, you know, I hadn't been back to Lohman Hatten in 22 years.

9:15I certainly probably hadn't been in that auditorium. The last time I remember maybe the only time I was there in 1975 when my dad got promoted to Sargent. And I gave him his Sargent shield as a picture of me as a, I don't know, 12 to 13 year old kid. Next to my dad, you know, outside of 1pp, I treasure that photo. And last week, I had a chance to be back there for the first time in, in decades. And it was probably, it was a pretty emotional trip because I got to see the 911 Memorial Museum for the first time. And, yeah, it was, it was an emotional 3 or 4 days. Yeah, no, I, I've been to the Memorial a couple of times. I was teaching college and I, I brought my class there a few times. And they were, a couple of the kids there had lost family members. And it became a very emotional, a very emotional day for sure. It's a beautiful Memorial. And, you know, we hope that something like that never happens again. But again, this is, it's September, excuse me, because October 9th now, we just saw what happened in Israel.

10:16And Tara is all over, you know, and it's really scary. Anyway, I don't want to segue to that. I want to stay on this story. Let's talk about the idea and after the fall. Sure. Well, the idea is, is very similar to what we just mentioned about the, you know, you taking your classes to the 911 Memorial Museum, right? Because it's a history lesson, not just a museum. It's an important history lesson. And actually director Ray and the FBI has now instituted a policy or every FBI agent, new agent class candidates down a Quantico have to come up. They actually fly them up and then they go, maybe they bust them up. They come up, every class has to come up and go through the 911 Memorial Museum. Every new agent trainee from Quantico does that as part of their training. So just as that is an important history lesson that we shouldn't forget, when I approached this project, it had been, you know, in my mind for a couple of years. And as we were approaching the 20th anniversary, I tried to put it into, into effect. And I did that. And what, what it was basically was, I didn't want to tell a story like the Looming Tower,

11:19which was, you know, you know, fictionalized and things. I wanted to have my colleagues, so I knew work so diligently and so hard and paid tremendous prices, physically and mentally in doing that work in the investigation of 911 of the 911 attacks. I wanted every, I wanted the public to hear from them directly. I knew them. I heard from them directly. So I wanted their stories to be told. Some of them had never been told before, because they couldn't and then are tired. And you have a little more freedom to speak when you're retired. At least one or two of them testified before the 911 commission, but they testified behind a screen with their voices altered and their identities hidden. And so now they were free to tell those stories publicly as themselves in the first time. And so I think it's very interesting. I think people will have a new understanding of what was happening. You know, we often hear like the criticism of the FBI and the FBI got surprised. They get caught with their pants up. Nothing could be further than the truth.

12:19In fact, in the series, you'll hear from Kenny Maxwell. He was a supervisor on the Joint Terrorism Test Force. And let me tell people like the Joint Terrorism Test Force, which was started in the late 70s, was a arm and arm squad of FBI agents and NYPD detectives that worked side by side together all the time. We went overseas that detectives went overseas with us. I mean, the Joint Terrorism Test Force, they were, they, they knew Al Qaeda. The Joint Terrorism Test Force in New York was probably the biggest repository of knowledge and intelligence on Al Qaeda, you know, on 911. And my friend, and Maxwell, Kenny Maxwell, who you'll hear in the store and after the fall, he was at one pp two weeks before briefing the commissioner and some of the chiefs. You know, and they, they all knew him. He's in New York. He's been around forever. And, you know, he told them he said something's coming. We know something's going, we just don't know where or how.

13:21But the assumption was there was going to be another coal attack that was going to be another attack overseas on US interests. Maybe, you know, the FBI was actually still investigating the East Africa Embassy bombings, if you remember, just a few years ago for that. And then the USS coal, we're on the ground, not only us, but our NYPD detectives partners on the JTTF, well on the ground in Yemen, well on the ground, you know, in East Africa. And we were conducting those investigations because we knew Al Qaeda was behind those attacks. All of that information was being fed back to New York. We knew Al Qaeda was planning something. We just didn't know where and when we were little behind on that. Now, some of the mistakes made by the FBI where we had people at headquarters in Washington were a little risk of her. So you had an agent, Minneapolis, you had agent Phoenix. Both had little pieces and said, you know, somebody's taking flight lessons, but they're not interested in landing. I want to be more aggressive going after them and then Washington shuts them down. Because Washington is only interested in risk aversion, right? They don't want to take a chance of being, you know, Islamophobic or anything like that.

14:23So they go, no, no, don't go, no, be too aggressive. Do what you can without going with taking these aggressive steps. And so, you know, yes, there were mistakes like that made in not being aggressive enough in those two instances that I know. But Bobby, could I just stop you for one second? Sure. Does our, does our freedom and does our, like as you say, risk averseness? Does that hurt us in our protection and our view of security and how we maybe way too trusting and we don't go the next step when something like human like someone's taking flight lessons. And of course, now it sounds so ridiculous because we know what happened and they're only looking to fly up in the air. They don't want to learn how to take a full land right away. Now you hear that now you go, oh my god, that's a terrorist, you know, right. But some of the things also pre 9 11 aviation security was a disaster. An absolute disaster. You could probably walk into an airport with a gun and go wherever you wanted to go back then.

15:26It was absolutely ridiculous. I think it's always a balance between civil liberties and security. Sure, you want to be, you want to be completely secure. You go to go to a model like China where, you know, there are no rights. I don't. Okay. Live podcasts. This is some of the, some of the beauty of live podcast, but it's okay. Bobby, you go. Yeah, so, so I think it's always a, this, yes. So our freedoms do put us at risk a little bit, but that we have to balance that as a society. We don't want to be in a police state where you may be safer physically, right. But you don't have the freedoms that we enjoy. So there's always that balancing act that has to be struck. And I know, and I think, you know, as I get old, you know, retired longer, I think I like my freedoms, you know, and I, I, I detest government intervention and the government action into my life.

16:29And so I think that that's always going to be some kind of balancing way you strike the balance between security and freedoms. And, and stuff. And so yes, I think unfortunately, the more freedoms you have, the more safety you sacrifice in some respects, you know, and, and, and, but that's, I mean, that's okay. I think that's okay. I think we as a society, you know, I don't make the decisions, but as a society collectively, we make those decisions to, to say, you know, where we draw that line. But like you said, like, and Bobby, are we, are we forgetting, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Are we forgetting the lessons of 9-11 through a lot of the things that we've been doing. A lot of the things that we're doing, you know, open borders. I don't want to get political, but some of the things you would never have even considered that just a few years after 9-11. I think what happens, I think, like, I think things tend to flux, you know, like right after an incident, everybody's more accepting of a clamp down on freedoms and for our securities. And then of course, over time, when nothing happens or very little happens, you get, I don't know if it's apathy, but you get a little bit more relaxed and say, okay, we can go back to the old way where, you know, nothing's happened in a while.

17:38And you know, we're sitting here October 9th, you know, on, on just on the eve of, not on the eve, but on the aftermath of just what happened in Israel and, you know, you know, how, how seemingly possibly unprepared Israel seemed, right? It seems like they were caught by surprise and we all know Israel as being very vigilant in their own security, but maybe because they haven't had an incident in a while, maybe apathy set in or whatever. But yeah, I think, I don't know that we've forgotten the lessons of 9-11, but I think, you know, the further you get away from any incident like that, the less impact it has emotionally on people. And, you know, I'm thinking like now, we're having a, we have a generation of people that are in college, they're maybe going into the PD, you know, to the FBI who will born after 9-11. So the emotional impact on them is much, much less. They hear about it like we heard about Pearl Harbor, but, you know, if you, if you are living during those incidents, it has much greater impact. So I think that it's not like you forget the lessons, it's just like you're dealing with the generation people that the lessons don't hit us hard. They just don't. And that was one of the reasons why we wanted to write, not only write, but have people hear from the agents that were there on the ground, because when you hear the voices, when you hear the voices cracking, saying, I looked up and I saw the second plane hit, and I was standing at the base of the North Tower.

19:00You know, those were people that were there. This is not an actor. This is not somebody reading a book. This was the people that were there when it happened, and then you'll hear from the people that were working at the New York City more, the FBI agents who were assigned to the more. The FBI agent that walked the first day into Shang's Village and said, you know, look, and he got there a day late, and he came up from Chronicle and he said, who was the plane? And they pointed to a hole in the ground that says, and there was nothing. There was a piece of a plane that you could see, because it had dove into the ground so fast and so deep that you didn't even see it. So, you know, and he was a guy that was at Waco, he was a guy that was out of home city. He had done some big crime scenes, but to hear him describe that field in Pennsylvania in his own voice. This is a grizzled, the veteran guy, been a lot of bad things and to hear him go through that emotional impact journey of him, you know, he was in charge of excavating the Pennsylvania site. And it's important to hear that stuff. And you know, you hear him. One of the stories I hear him tell is every day he would pass by this elementary school on his way to the site from where the motel where they were staying.

20:10And there was this elementary school and they had put the students had written things on it and, you know, saying thank you to the first responders and everybody that was working out there. And he's just saw more and more put up on the fence and that fence by the end, you know, he was there, you know, a month and by the yet time that fence was completely covered. He was leaving to go out of town and you'll hear this story if you listen to one of the episodes. And I get emotional, just recounting it. And he said, I had to stop into this elementary school and thank the principal because every day when I went up by there, I slowed down and I looked at the things the students had put up on the fence that the next day. And so he stopped into the principal's office and he said, he wanted to thank the principal. He said, I want to thank you. Can you pass along our thanks to the students and let them know that those of us who are in the field, that those of us that were working out there and passing by to our hotel, everything, we saw that what they did, we saw those drawings, we saw the thanks they were giving us and it meant something to us. And the principal says, hold on a second. And he gets on the intercom and he says, I have special agent, you know, McCall here. He's been in charge of, you know, helping excavate the site and do all this.

21:17And as he was going to leave, all the doors, it was like this one little hallway school and all the doors open and all the students flooded out into the into the hallway and he couldn't get out without them wanting to shake his hand. And these are, he had school that age children at home in Virginia and he had three and he just waited through this sea of kids that just wanted to thank him. And he, he was a guy, like I said, he was at wake up doing the excavation there. He was at Oklahoma City doing that. And so he's been around and he, he said he lost it. He said he held it together. Suzy got out the front door of that school and the fair hit him and he was all the kids of Hider, he just, he lost it, you know, and whole his drive home to Virginia. And like the next day, he's at his kids, literally, game that he had missed for the month that he was there in Pennsylvania. And, you know, everybody kind of knew who he was, the other parents and the coaches and both at the end of the game, both teams blinded up and they sang the national anthem to him, you know, and again, he lost it, you know, so, wow.

22:22So you have these are human beings, you know, people will want to criticize, you know, things, but these, these, I love those stories because I, you know, everybody has them and, and they're emotional and they're impactful. And I'm sure to this day Todd, he's a friend of mine, I'm sure he's still impacted by, by those memories, you know, and, and so it, it, it hit us, you know, I mean, you know, it hit us as an agent. I, I know, I remember crying in my house watching TV because I don't know when it was. I'm a Yankee fan, I'm a lifelong New York Yankee fan and everybody hates the Yankees where the, the, you know, with a dog with dog Vader, right? You know, I grew up with everybody hating the Yankees because we're so good. And I remember like a week or two after when baseball started playing again, the Yankees were in Kansas City and I remember George Brad with the pintar incident and everything. And, and so everybody hates us. I know that. So, but I remember somebody wearing like a Kansas City royals jersey holding up a sign that said, we're all going to be in the same place. And the sign that said, we're all New Yorkers now. This was a week or two after and I lost it. I like somebody likes us, you know, and then, you know, Americans all pulled together and there was this collective unity, but.

23:33You know, Bobby, there was so many, there really was so many heroes to 9-11. There really was, I mean, the fireman that lost 343, I think it was New York City fireman. I mean, that's, that's just horrific. A whole agency, I mean, for generations, they lost, you know, fireman, it's a very, you know, the families come on that job. Father's grandfather. So there were whole families probably like wiped out that would never carry on that tradition of becoming New York City fireman. And you know, the same thing with cops, a lot of cops and port authority. I mean, they, I think they took the biggest hit as far as law enforcement. And then when you see the long term, the health effects that we all have, I think I don't think anyone escaped that. If you were down there a lot of hours, you have something wrong with you from responding to 9-11, whether it's asthma or some kind of breathing issue, nodules on your lung, whatever, or cancer, some of the worst cancers.

24:34And to me, some of the greatest heroes down there, well, I and workers, they are unbelievable. They work incredible. They were cutting that steel so they could remove it in a certain procedure so that it didn't collapse and implode. So I just, you know, I go to the World Trade Center medical twice a year. And I see some of these people that different color now, you know. So I and workers that were like yellow was like, whatever. And the guy was dying. He was dying, you know, I'm enrolled in the World Trade Center health program. I get monitored. Yeah, we lost two agents this year to 9-11 illnesses and stuff. So and the agents association for hard and now we're recognized as they're recognized now, even if they're retarded, I, which they are now, as long as duty injury. So the families get all the benefits they get added to a mortar wall as if they were killed by adversarial action in my line of duty in chronicle. We have a wall that has all of our fallen agents and so those names are added. And we we added two more this year so far and that ceremony that I was at in New York City last week.

25:38My first time back in two decades, I just couldn't emotionally make the trip back until now and they invited all of us that are part of the medical screening program back. And I met a couple of my buddies that I haven't seen in years that I know have cancer that is attributed to their work at 9-11 on 9-11 either with the Pentagon or at crown zero. I lost a friend that worked in Shanksville from came from a rare form of cancer that he contracted most likely from his work there. And so I think we're up to, you know, the FBI lost. I always consider it to the FBI officially lost one person that Lenny happened was the agent that was lost by John O'Neill, who was all boss of counterterrorism for years and years and hunted been modern for decades had just retired from the FBI two weeks earlier and taken over as had a security for the World Trade Center. And John was two weeks on the job and Kenny Maxwell tells this story of John because they were great friends. John had offered him a job as his second in charge of security and the paperwork, his retirement paperwork and his paperwork for put authority to go to work as assistant head of security.

26:43When the Trump was car that got crushed when the North Tower collapsed and Kenny tells that story, you know, they would have spent if they would have delayed that attack two weeks later, he probably would have died in the tower with John because they would have been working together because John had offered him a job the Friday before 9-11 they had dinner in Manhattan and John offered him the job and Kenny thought about it over the weekend called him Sunday night and said, I'll take it. And then Tuesday the attacks happened and John lost his life. I consider John a second FBI agent that we lost that day, but since 9-11 we've lost I think over 20. I think it's 23 now agents have died from illnesses that are attributed to their where there's John great guy was probably the most knowledgeable, okay, the guy in the government, of course got drummed out of the government because of politics unfortunately, but you know, he landed on his feet at authority and was had a security for World Trade Center. And he died when the South Tower clubs his built his officers in the South Tower. And yeah, so after the fall is the story of all these guys that are men and women who just, you know, answer the call and, you know, people will they'll learn that the investigation into the 9-11 attacks didn't start on 11. So, how do you use earlier, Ali Soufan, who was a one of our leading Arab agents and knowledgeable at the most knowledgeable in how Kata was actually in Yemen.

28:02On 9-11 conducting follow up interviews on the USS Colot acts, which was all tied together the East African Embassy bombing the USS Cole the attacks and 9-11 were all tied together they all the same people were involved and stuff and we were on their trail, particularly there's two guys on that screen. Khalid Hamlet Har and Nawatha Homs me, you know, we'll live in San Diego and we didn't know it because the CIA did not tell us that and you'll hear if you listen to after the fall you hear from an agent named Steve Baumgart who later became an FBI profiler but was on the JTTF at the time. And he has to see a no less than five occasions about these two guys he said, who are them do you know them and on five occasions at least they look them in the eye and said no we don't have any information when we know now that the CIA was tracking them and knew that they were living in Southern California. And for intelligence reasons they feel they couldn't tell us the JTTF on the criminal side of the house because there was that wall between intelligence and criminal and Steve if there's anybody as the USS Cole I sent to two of my divers.

29:11And I was there we're on scene helping with the diving but you know if there was anybody you know in my mind who could have stopped at least one of the like the this guy going no. No that's me in my diving days and I was actually down in South Carolina we were looking for a little three year old around at the bottom of a lake and when the Cole happened I was deployed with my team down there and I had a few divers that couldn't make it there in New York I sent them over. I was there on scene at the Cole but Steve Baumgartner is probably the guy I thought in my opinion now based on my research could have stopped at least one of those planes if the CIA had told them that Khalid Al-Midhar and Al-Hazmi were in San Diego we would have had teams on them we would have been surveilling them we would have at least stopped that plane from from doing its damage. Steve was the one of the 19 pictures you just showed Steve if you listen to after the fall of his episode he was a Navy pilot he was a Navy fighter pilot before he came to the FBI and he looked up and saw you know a cowling up a plane he knew was out of the minute he was there the collapse towers he was running and covered in dust he was one of those guys and he got back to Kenny Maxwell's office and they called this is two o'clock in the afternoon on 9-11 and he hears from the FBI liaison to the CIA.

30:35He says yeah we have two names that we knew and he tells them the names and Steve's like you got to be kidding I've been asking about those guys you lied to me and he goes well we did everything by the book this is an FBI guy who was the CIA liaison he was signed over to CIA and Steve just lost it and he said the book I hope you're happy with that we just lost maybe 10,000 people this is like moments after we don't know there's probably 10,000 people down the street from right now they're dead because you went by the book and Steve lost it and then his boss Kenny Maxwell put the pause button on the phone and it's at Steve this is not the time or place don't lose it here the skies and headquarters we need to keep focused on what we're doing and Steve had to cool down and you know Kenny threatened him he said you won't you'll be pulled off this case you know I can't have this we'll address this later when it when the proper time but Steve was just steaming he knew at that moment that these were two guys that came out of the USS coal investigation he knew they were out cater hopper he knew they were up to something

31:43and because they tracked them through a meeting in in Kuala Lumpur and and and five times he made a request in June of 2001 August of 2000 with a final two times August just weeks before and they said no we don't know anything about them and and you know Bobby I this is like not the only time you hear about politics getting in the way of sound law enforcement decisions I mean even as recently as us fleeing Afghanistan and leaving a billion dollars worth of millions of dollars military equipment there I understand that I that the 13 Marines could have been saved if a sniper would have taken out the guy that they knew was on the scene that was Obama and they he couldn't get the green light to shoot the guy so it's like his argument right because some boss above that sniper he was probably perfectly willing to take that shot but some boss above him in the chain of command was risk of her didn't want to take the opportunity didn't want to be the one to say who gave the order I did you know the higher they get in government even in the military now the Pentagon is gone completely well the higher they get the less they want to take responsibility for anything they want the guys on the on the street level to take responsibility right they don't want to be say oh I gave that order well that you know Bobby they used to stay in the police department once you when you made sergeant you had to surrender one nut

33:04what I'm telling you gave the other one and then you gave up the other one and big bosses they were uniques you know you just so you understand like guys like us who kind of you know hope career at the working ground level you understand where that mentality where that comes from because you know you did I had I mean I'm much less scale you know my criminal cases I had bosses that I had to you know I especially when we're working drugs you know you have big show money right we had five hundred thousand dollars we're gonna flash the bosses would go crazy oh my god I'm a boss we're gonna take it we're gonna flash it we're gonna take it back don't worry about it but the minute that five hundred thousand left the office they they weren't sleeping at night they were home going you know calling 35 minutes did you do it did you get the money back is in this eight like we're like we do this every day you know it's and well you know I thought you remember that during the Tomkin square riots you know they called it a police right because I think the cops had had it and they just basically get a dance that day the boss took off and what he would

34:06on me all of something like they should put himself out you know like well you all I was on a personal like it's like that's got a fly right you better put your papers into my that's good there's so many and I think it's getting worse well been got to look at Benghazi yeah I think the military you know you always let the military wouldn't go that way and they're they're solidly woke they're solidly there oh my god I see that I see that guy Millie he should surrender all the medals yeah same like yeah I mean I know guys that's what the hooker is the middle there are embarrassed about that now just as I am embarrassed by some of the things that the option out against have been doing and stuff and I think it's it's in faded and infected every every agency every department in the government and I'm I'm a I'm fearful for the next generation because you know they're all they're being raised in this environment they're raised to be woke right that's going to be ingrained in there you know Bobby even in television that new show they put on East New York it was so woke it went off the air it was all it was all bullshit let me taste that I was

35:08personal thinking that because I was I was writing with another writer very experienced writer a new NYPD show and CBS wanted a new NYPD show kind of they knew bluebirds was kind of long in the tooth and they wanted something new and we were in competition with East New York and our show was much better everybody said our show is much better our show should have got green that we should be meant if we did it would still be on the air the great show East New York got the green light over us because on the golf course the head of the network had had a golf outing with like the brother or the the agent of the writer who's writing East New York now these scripts are supposed to be secret but he leaks and stuff we knew their show wasn't very good work well written our show is much better well more well written should have been made but because of politics East New York got made the network love Jimmy Smiths they wanted Jimmy Smiths back on the I understand that but our show our NYPD show was so much better than theirs because you had me I reached out for some of my NYPD

36:10context it was rich it was accurate it was good and and they should have bought us they told us they were going to buy ours but then a last minute golf course deal happened on a Sunday afternoon Monday we got the call and said you're off and I'm like uh I mean right I miss the Screes. Let's let me get let me get back on track with this where were you when the planes hit yeah so everybody has you know kind of this story so at the time and you should you showed the picture me diving I was headed the New York FBI team and it was only the only die team in the FBI at the time and uh I'm about well there's just a thing you see that tattoo so that tattoo if I can show it here is um that's 9-11 so if you see those are the towers there's the Pentagon this is the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania so this is my story of my day at the top I have the NYPD FDNY PAPD FBI I have all of those I have Lenny Atten's initials down on eels initials so that that and I I can tell a story about this came about

37:17but um so on 9-11 about a month before I flew out to Michigan because the Michigan State Police 5 team needed our assistance because the FBI died everything we had some we had trained them and some equipment and we had some equipment they didn't have and it was a particular job so I went out to Michigan I survey I did a site survey about what we were going to need came back we were deploying the week of September 10th to Michigan to do this job job usually takes a week or two and eight or ten of us fly out there my team so I'm the team leader so I'm going on the early morning flight out of Newark with three of my divers the rest of the teams coming on a later flight commercial flight later in the day we're all going to gather in Michigan Trevor City Michigan and do the job so I'm sitting in Newark on United Flight 91 from Newark to Chicago we're going to connect from Chicago to Trevor City we're taking off at a Newark on the morning of 9-11 beautiful day four armed FBI agents on the plane I'm looking out the window my window

38:17see um that beautiful view of Manhattan and the towers were always no towers were built in the early 70s and I used to watch them my dad had a picture of them on this desk at home and I'm looking at them and I see the first plane hit the North Tower from my window seat on my United Flight we're just climbing out of Newark Northbound and we bank left because we're on a way to Chicago and about 10 minutes into the flight I'm listening to I think it was channel nine on the United Audio used to give you the pilots kind of hurt you get here and I could hear the pilots talking and I could tell there was something wrong at the time when I saw the plane hit I just saw like a flash in some spark which I later learned was probably glass falling and glistening I didn't know exactly what I had seen but I looked I turned to my seat and I looked behind me because I had an alcoholic sitting about three rows back and he was on a window outside we we were four all everybody armed on the plane always has to know where everybody else is sitting right that's

39:19here on rules and stuff so I looked at him and he just shrugged his shoulders because he had seen the same thing we're like we didn't know quite what it was but there was an explosion and something looked like it hit now you know we all remember the small plane that went into the FI state building years ago and stuff is New York as you kind of you know the lore and you saw you say oh my god is it in the terrible accident and then halfway into the flus and halfway into the flight just a couple maybe 15 minutes later the female copilot comes out of the cockpit and she motions for the four of us to meet her in the back galley and again Tuesday morning empty planes that's why they chose all the flights on Tuesday morning and the last 10 rows there was nobody in the last 10 rows so we got in the back galley and she said the copilot said look two planes have been flown into into the twin towers there are two dozen planes hijacked at this time remember this we're in the air this is only minutes so all the all the misinformation is happening so there's a bunch of planes not responding you can see if you look at that you're not on the graphic you're showing now you can see

40:22like United Flight 93 right that's the same flight path I was on on United 91 because if you continue that plane and it doesn't turn around it goes right over Chicago United 93 was going to San Francisco so they take of same flight path as United to Chicago would and it's the same plane as the 757 so all pilots were in the pilots lounge at Newark that morning with them you know 93 pilots so she tells us you know what's Armageddon she tells us this planes hijacked all over the country you know they're flying them into buildings and everything so you know we're we're away up here now and we're four armed deputations so but one of my guys outside the cockpit I go into the cockpit to talk to the captain with the copilot she takes her seat and I can hear him trying to raise United 93 because they're they're we're supposed to be one behind them in the flight path and yeah that line right there we're right behind them with the nearest one to them so I think it's Cleveland Center was telling our flight our captain to try to raise them to point to point because you that should be right in front of you and I said well to the copilot I hit he's

41:26the pilot is talking to the on the radio she's talking to me and I said you know where are they she goes we don't know I said well how is that I don't you know and she's they turn their transponder off and I said why would they do that and he the pilot must have been hearing us through you know out is the other year and he kind of snapped back he said they wouldn't like like really like infatically I'm like well okay what and then I look back at her as if you told me they turn the transponder off and he just barked at me that they didn't they wouldn't how I what does that mean and she goes and at that side that point I could see her eyes welling up a little bit and she goes that means they're not flying that plane now every pilot knew from the 70s when we have all of those hijackings the pilots were told don't give up control of the aircraft take them wherever they want to go they want to go to Cuba they want to go to Angola take them where they want to go get the plane on the ground secure the passengers and we'll negotiate the release don't worry don't don't give up control here that was the standard procedure so she knew that they would only give up that

42:30control that aircraft under you know five islands they would have to be physically removed and so she she probably surmised at her friends who she probably had coffee with an hour earlier going over the traffic and the weather patterns that morning because they were flying in the same flight path she probably knew that her friends were probably dead at that point and you know and so I could see how upset she was getting and and so I said we're you know when when are we getting to Chicago she goes we're not going to Chicago Chicago has been closed all our traffic we don't know where they're going to land us they're going to push down somewhere and ultimately we landed in Detroit and as we're coming in to the Troy airport I can hear the pilot going just give me a gate and the guys got there's no gates left we have no gates just put it down we'll send a team over to get you get your passengers out and we literally will like a last plane in and I remember coming in and a plane was like right next to us on the adjacent runway which never happens they don't put the plane closed and we were the last two that landed and then he says I got to get you on the ground and we're closed and that's I could hear an extra traffic telling that in Detroit and I

43:33actually was looking out the window as you were landing expecting to see Detroit on fire like I expected I thought every major city in the country because we're in this little bubble and we're getting first-possed information from the ground and well the only thing I do remember is I somebody heard something that the towers had fallen and I laughed and they laughed out loud I laughed internally going it's probably some non-New Yorker from the Midwest or something they don't know like I'm like that's that's ridiculous the towers those towers can't fall they just can't they're just too big it's just like nothing can knock them down Godzilla could knock them down you know right Yorker that was my thinking I remember thinking that like oh these roofs these country folk don't understand those towers because those towers ain't going to move and it wasn't until you know they brought up stairs over we got off on the tarmac we collected our luggage right there we waited right by the plane for the luggage to come off right at the plane and then we made our way into this very chaotic

44:35Detroit airport and it wasn't until we were wheeling our way I was on the phone and I saw a big screen TV in in a bar and everybody was huddling around it and I saw the repeat it was showing the repeat of the tower it's falling and I just couldn't I just like I can't tell you what that moment was like that was the realization that everybody else had known prior I was probably the last one to actually realize that it really did happen that those people you know Bobby I was leaving the two three detective squad on a hundred and second street and we were told to put our uniforms on and go down there and just as I was leaving I heard some Saajah was watching a TV and I heard him scream oh my god you know and that was when the first one came down and then we got on the FDR drive and we drove south and there was no one on this we literally got down there really quickly and one of the detectives said to me go Saajah we should pocket south and pike because if we try to pull right up he goes we'll get stuck in there I said Billy that's a great idea and that may

45:37have saved our lives it really may have that little decision that this detective employed to me and I said that's a good idea and we walked and when we were crossing house in the street we saw the second building come down I thought well witnessed it and it sounded like a hundred trains coming into a station just seeing it and dropping straight down I think the way it was designed to fall if something like that did occur which was amazing I think you know we were lucky and well I personally so we landed destroyed we got through the airport there were no rental cars left everybody was gone like they're like forget don't even ask so I called my the FBI officer to say there are four New York agents we need to get back we've lost co-workers family members who knows and so they go well you're in luck because the AG I think Ashcroft was at the time was supposed to be in Detroit that day he was supposed to leave Washington well he never left so his advanced detail had two 15 passenger vans and his vans were hidden you know the main team was still with him in Washington so they had like six guys so they were gonna take one van back

46:41to DC and they had another one available so I go okay tell him to bring it by the airport his where I am and stuff and so they come screaming up lights and sirens all you know Pescoot and they deliver this van to us and I remember throwing our luggage Hey Bobby you know something that's great because the NYPD would have said sorry there's no cars available right yeah see how the money yeah yeah well that's funny you say that because so I drove this this van we drove before us to turn stride and from Detroit back to Manhattan and um you know we were we were talking and we were it was a lot of silence but you know like how how many people you think died like and because we now know both towers claps and we're listening to the radio and and um you know I think of the four of us three of it when Native New Yorkers and one had lived in New York for a long time and I think the lowest estimate was 10,000 people I mean I think I said probably 22,000 people based on the path train based on the amount of people that worked in those towers and all that stuff and so you know it's tragic but it could have been orders of magnitude more people

47:49could have died if you know if it wasn't a vacuum if thank god NYPD and FTNY are the best in the world that responding to mass I mean this isn't the first big event the biggest but it wasn't the first big event right we've had big events and there you know I mean just time square on New Year's Eve you know like the city handle big things and and I think that you know if you look at what happened and you look at the heroes that responded man there was no hesitation there was no what do we do there was boom boom boom do this do that do this and all of that action of course many of those people lost their lives in the collapse but all of that action saved so many lives so many more people would have died and like I said the minimum estimate of the four of us was 10,000 I think the maximum was like 30,000 so like I mean many I think people should really many many many many more people would have lost their lives that day if not for the quick action and who calm collectiveness

48:50of the New York City responders that just did their job most of whom lost their lives and just did what they do they just they stayed calm they responded to this enormous event with professionalism and and I think they saved tens of thousands of lives doing that I think Bobby I think you're right you know one of the reasons one of my favorite pictures from 9-11 shows 4 NYPD cops going towards the towers and other people running and it's the white others ran away we ran towards the towers and it that said everything yeah that one fly and the agent that we lost you know Lenny Hatton who lived in Jersey he was a volunteer fireman in stown in Jersey he went into fireman mode you know and the FBI is trained to do this right so he I think the reason he and he made several trips down into the mall helping people up through the smoke and he kept going back and we found witnesses who identified him as the guy that helped them out he made several trips down and unfortunately one of them is when the collapse he

49:55was down underneath you know when I went to Lenny's funeral and we did the drive by his house he had five kids and I could hear them crying and they were they all came out on the steps and when we drove by his turn out here was at the end of his driveway his his boots his his his his coat his big fireman coat his big fireman helmet and I tell you I was it was it was it was it wasn't a dry eye in this procession as we all drove by his house and pay tribute to him and and it was in large part because he was a fireman because he had that he had that run toward danger help people right right and danger and and Lenny lost his life and you know he's one of those heroes and that's why I have his initials on my arm but yeah it was amazing and again it was one of the reasons why I wanted to tell the story of the people who spent weeks and months doing the job at the morgue at ground zero at fresh kills landfill you'll have a rich in marks who was the FBI agent who whose best friend is the DI that was assigned to him and him and the DI worked hand in hand at the

50:57fresh kills and they they built Jimmy Jimmy Luongo was yeah yeah yeah and Richard Marx are like this to this day they're like brothers because they have that share experience they built the city on top of a landfill they built you know you know Bobby that I did all kinds of different duties as did all NYPD guys during 9-11 my least favorite was going to fresh kills because I knew that was a toxic cancer site from every time you went there you were risking more of your life because the ground was bubbling with methane gas coming out of it yeah and in the beginning it was funny it's typical NYPD shit oh god all right guys keep your cars down the hill we'll take a bus up here you're gonna get you know do you gonna get he washed it all that lasted one day it was all right bring your cars up yeah yeah he the same which on the pile it was it was nuts well that was my experience at ground zero the first day I was on the pile working um they had like a mask

51:59okay where this mask in the next day they would come with a new mask oh the mask we had just that you aren't sufficient where this one the third day there was a third mask I'm like so you telling me the mask I was the first two days weren't sufficient so whatever I breathed in the last 48 hours I'm probably gonna die oh and and the mask kept getting bigger and heavier and hotter I don't remember looking over and guys had them hanging down here but there's you know September 20th 21st whatever it was still hot in New York and those things were impossible to breathe you know and and and so some of us would pull them off and breathe for a few and put them back on and then I you know we rotate it through the morgue through ground zero and fresh kill now we got the fresh kills and work with Richard's team um and you know what you put on that big white tieback suit and weighed out into this toxic environment um but Richard tells he tells such grits there is him and and and Jimmy the Longo are such good friends because basically there was no there was no game plan for something like this they they just had to create it like there was no like book there was no book to go by on building a small village that can process this amount of material coming in and

53:03they they did a tremendous job and and the thing is they came in like ridiculously under budget I heard too yeah yeah well people on understand like initially they were putting everything into into trucks and they would truck you know down the of course you know stand on on on trucks and the stuff was so hot the trucks were catching on fire because the stuff was still still that's all right they were getting bino crime family trucks that's all right but they look out that because they put it on the barges and they would float it across on barges thinking all right if it's on fire at least it's in the water so then they floated everything by barge because they couldn't you know and it was that learning experience that Richard talked about in this series that we that we did and you hear from him directly on how him and Jimmy Longo came up with this plan on what to do and how to do it and they were they were inventing the we they were building the train as it was running down the track you know they were putting some on okay well now this happened we didn't expect this we have to respond and and he stayed and to Richard fought because there was a time shortly after 9-11 I'm not sure how month two three where Mary Jo White who is

54:10the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and Manhattan said it's no lower we're not we're not really considering this a crime scene we know about the nineteen hijackers we kind of know about but but this we're not going to really find any evidence right in this wreckage and stuff and so there was a thought that the FBI was going to pull out of you know and Richard fought powers that be in Washington we can't we are partners in this thing we started it and we're going to stay till it's over whether it's a crime scene or not whether US Attorney thinks it's a crime scene or not and he fought and put his whole repeat professional reputation on it and they they backed off and they said okay yeah and so Richard marks kept his team at set island for the Long Hall was there right through the end they had the closing ceremony he was on stage with the I the Longo with the mayor and I think the governor was even there and and stuff and and Richards on that stage with them and he did a phenomenal job and his team the way he built he had to bring in people from all over the country every two weeks two to four weeks they were rotating people in but you'll hear from Richard you'll hear his stories about the things that they found in some of those cars and how

55:13they they got it back to the families and the families would come and want to see Staten Island they would want to see there was a whole you know just a whole section of all the crushed cars and then all the different things that they would kind of separate and and the families would come they had time set aside for the families to come and visit and things like that and and so you know you'll hear these stories and then I think they're just amazing from Shanksville from the Pentagon from fresh kills from ground zero from the the more Jerry Cucuso who's a friend of mine he was in charge of the FBI pressure at the more he was he was very good friends now with the investigator the medical examiner office who he worked months with on that and they would stand on either side of the table and and unzip the bags that were coming up from ground zero with human remains and try to do identifications and stuff and and Jerry tells the story of how they did that again they were mass casual the incidents before but never on this stage right never on this scale well you know Bobby uh Barbara butcher who was the chief of staff uh for the OCME she was like a the head medical legal investigator she had said that um because of 9-11 DNA technology grew

56:21like two or three generations uh you know better it got better at identifying things and of course now with investigative genetic genealogy they're taking all the credit but I think 9-11 had a lot to do with them reaching where they are in investigative genetic genealogy I think you're right I think because when when you have something like that these are incidents that don't happen often they're generational once in a generation maybe sometimes once in a lifetime and what happens when they do happen is people say this is so important we're pushing all the bureaucratic rules aside we need to do this we need something that gets us to hear and everybody goes okay the rules are out the window the bureaucratic uh hoops that you have to jump through we're going to push all that aside and just get to the mission and get to the so so they push things down that normally would take so much longer because you have this horrific once in a lifetime event and people put all of that other crap aside that usually holds up innovation it holds up creativity because all of these bureaucratic rules

57:23and and stuff that's in place and so I think you're right I think at 9-11 all of that went out the window if somebody said I need a piece of machinery that does this there were no rules we're going to make that machine we're going to throw everything out we don't care about the rules we don't care about the laws we're going to you need this we're going to make it and that's that was the attitude so innovation in those periods of time really gets pushed out and then you know like we said then time passes and those bureaucratic rules come back in things aren't as extreme and so they come back in but but there's the small windows of time after these kinds of events certainly if the 9-11 it was probably even wider open and for a longer period of time that innovation can flourish because people are willing to step out of the way with their arcane rules and bureaucratic regulations and and it's like it's like the emergency exception to a search warrant yeah yeah you're gonna make jump through all these loops when I'm chasing a guy through a grocery store you know

58:25yeah and that's what it is it's that that exception and then you're right I think that you know I know Jerry talks about the Morgana member that that kind of mini city again that they built on you know with all those refrigerated trucks and stuff again we've had mash cows with the incense but never and Jerry actually was a cost of all for the those big body digs so he was used to being around he was all part of de-mort the disaster mortuary team and I mean he he knew mass casualty events but never he you know you're here in directly from him how they did that operation you know it was such a scale you know and I mean in a way it's a good thing that happened in New York because there's no city like New York to handle big things it's true hope is it the umga every year the UN General Assembly I mean New York handles big things that you know um and so I think there's not a better group of people you know whether it be the PD the fire medical time like anybody to you know and you know this I'll get in trouble with some FBI events I say this but like the New York office of the FBI is considered the flagship and Washington field office kind of

59:30they kind of protest when I say that but but they always say like if you've done a year in the FBI office in New York it's like doing five years and an FBI office anywhere else because of the thing you're exposed to in the case you work and the people you work with and stuff and and so New York was you know answer the call and and I'm in a way I'm glad it happened in New York because New York handled it in a way that I don't know that and a lot of other cities could have um and and you know you probably would have had a lot of people from New York going to Chicago if it happened in Chicago going to Miami if it happened in Miami type of thing um but yeah I don't mean to say I'm glad it happened I'm saying that New York has handled it in a way that probably I don't know if anybody else could have and when you see stuff like that that village that they set up at fresh kills or that that operation at the more you know with those refrigerated trucks and and things um you know Bobby you know what it's what killed me too was I don't know if you it's spent any time that I didn't spend a lot of time on is there a couple of times was the bereavement

1:00:34center which was like horrible it was right shortly after 9-11 people were reporting their family missing and they were in the towers so they would come there and detectors would interview them and to determine whether or not they actually did have a family member and whether where we were if they were recovered in the identification process so you can imagine there was nearly 3,000 people I think killed in the in the towers right I don't think it yeah quite hit 3,000 but 29 something yeah yeah and some of them were just were bone fragments right some of them were skin some of them were just pieces of yeah of DNA I mean Lenny hat and our agent we never found any DNA or anything of it but he was gone he was completely you know incinerated and I think that I got a VIP tour last week of the museum in Memorial and they say they're still finding DNA there's a whole operation behind a wall at the museum that's off limits to everybody and it's the medical examiner kind of controls it and they're still doing DNA testing because as you said

1:01:39every couple years there's this new technology that can glean like the M-Back in 2016 or 2015 when the M-Back was invented right now it can get DNA off the stuff but previously we would just push the signs that you can't get DNA off of that but now there's a machine that makes it possible so that there's still operation going on to identify people and yeah like they have the names of the people that died but they haven't matched DNA to all of them and I think as I think March of this year there was another identification through DNA of a victim of 9-11 and so I think that's important for the families in fact in fact Dr. Charles Hirsch who was the chief medical examiner then I attended a lecture of his after 9-11 and he said that the reason we haven't found that we may never found is because many of the people were basically turned into a gas you know they were vaporized right he goes and they'll never be and he took a lot of heat for saying that because of course the families don't want to hear that but he was trying to tell the truth and he had given

1:02:42lectures all over the world in fact he was talking about some lecture he gave I forgot what country with those a couple of thousand people there and he got a standing ovation at the end of it oh yeah yeah his team I mean look that's the thing there are like you said earlier there are so many heroes in this thing and not just the ones that were there that day but the people that spent months and now years working for the victims and doing that and you'll hear in my series you'll hear from Katherine I mean it was right there just Katherine Terman she was our victim witness person at the FBI and she tell her whole team was all about dealing with the victim she had done locker but she had to pan M103 for the victims and stuff and so she she was a veteran of these type of events and dealing with and she says for years after they would get you know she tells a story I'll give you this quick story of one or and you'll hear this in after the fall she gets a call

1:03:42from our contractor in Texas who was recipient of a lot of the things that we didn't have anything to do with anymore but they're they're basically a climate controlled storage facility and and they process things and they've been for law enforcement and and they have these huge huge facilities in Texas and so he she gets a call in her Washington DC office from her contact down there and says look we found something it's a letter written to a husband from a wife we've rehabilitated they have ways of kind of rehabilitating material and stuff and gleaning what's that well this thing was a small slip of paper folded up tightly put in a credit card slot in a wallet the wallet was folded tightly put into a purse the purse was tight and put into a seat back pocket well they found it and they took it out and it was of course it was partially charred and then it was wet and it was so they unfolded it carefully and they spent many months chemically rehabilitating it and they got it back and he read it to her over the phone and it was basically you know go on with your life you

1:04:50know it was a letter from a wife who knew she was about to die on one of the planes and she said okay can you get that to me and she actually she the flu there or they flew it back up to her washing she had it and she had already previously been in contact with the husband who had one child they had one child they believe again if you want the more accurate details listen to the show but um she says she she read it to the guy over the phone and they both she couldn't get through it you know she took her five times uh five calls to get through because they were all crying and then she actually flew to him and gave him the representative to him in a preserved form and he called her later I don't know how long later and so look it was two years I think after 9-11 that they found this this is how long it had been going on and he said my son was in therapy I was in therapy we were having the hardest time you know dealing with this and it was like my wife from heaven sent us a message through that letter and you delivered it to us and we're both much much better we're fine now we're on a road now we weren't on previous to getting that letter um we are

1:05:55doing so much better and he was thankful and he called her and told her that she's young up and started crying again you know and it's like um that like that's a sign that that little thing never would have been found it was this little piece of paper and somebody worked at that somebody sitting in Texas in a warehouse two years after 9-11 took the care to unfold this thing and then subjected to the processes that they needed to do to kind of get those words back on that paper and it meant the world to somebody it meant the world to that person in this and and and they looked at it as mom reaching out from heaven she probably saw us not having a easy time of it and she made that happen somehow and her words came to us and now we are able to go on with our lives and those stories are blitted throughout the after the fall um you know Bobby the the just me hearing you talk about that's where I get a little emotional and it's like the human element to this thing and the humanity of law enforcement and not just law enforcement of other people uh that survived 9-11

1:07:00other people at work 9-11 I mentioned earlier the the iron workers and the e-mail like everyone the EMS court officers NYPD, Port Authority, Fire Department, Losolos people and anyone I'm leaving out I apologize but there was definitely this human element and the sense that this city this cold and forgiving city all came together and uh you know I mean we goinged up the street NYPD and now people are throwing shit at you know and it's it's like for a while for if it was after 9-11 a month a month and a half weeks whatever it was it felt good to be appreciated at that level you know and I don't think there was any feeling like that ever again or since but it it definitely felt good and it's so important that these stories get told it's just like we we spoke before we went on the air about the Holocaust and how I think Steven Spielberg made some recordings of the survivors of the Holocaust uh to convince people yes this really did

1:08:02happen for the naysayers that are saying it didn't happen and for 9-11 just look at this podcast see you look at a two of them that responded there and not just responded to it but are acutely affected by it that no people had died there and have some health effects some ill health effects from all work there but you know something that happened tomorrow I do it again I lost six people and I lived and I lived in Hoboken at the time Hoboken to Jersey right across the river and I was in a four four floor walk up and and I lost six people from my building just my building six neighbors I didn't know I don't kind of one of them but six neighbors you know 200 people from Hoboken died Hoboken is only one square mile right and and so yeah everybody knew somebody but yeah what touched me like I said I still get choked up when I remember sitting there because I was my wife wasn't working on the Olympics and so like city at the time she so I was doing those 12 hours of crowns there and I did the same thing when we went up to the Javits Center to kind of sign off

1:09:03you know grab a sandwich and go home you know like a 14th street or wherever that opening was people couldn't come any further south and then you get through that there was this phallax of people wanting to give you water or give you a sandwich or just say thank you and it was never happened to me and like I always my brother and I always have have this little ongoing thing on competition because you know in uniform you do get recognized sometimes you get to build parades and you get to go to the ballgame if it's law enforcement appreciation I you know those of us who are in law enforcement that don't have a uniform we don't ever get the good stuff we don't get to be in parades we don't get to be recognized at the ballgame because you know like you know because we're you know the silent service kind of thing and you know and so that was the first time anybody would like you know because usually like my brother even I didn't say farm and always they always help people right they get cats and trees and you know but even the cops sometimes you can help a little lady who's the house got broken into whatever we whenever people interact with the FBI it's almost always bad news for them it's always bad news for them right and then I ran the dive team for 19 years which meant I was going to get kids that kids out of lakes

1:10:06and rivers and stuff you know making sure the family got the bodies back and then so so it was never you know when when I had a good day somebody else is gonna have a really bad day that was this the career you know you didn't have that but when we got to like 14th Street or 24th 23rd Street whatever the you know because they kept moving it south and going up at a jabbit center and having all those people waiting for us and they saw us in the you know in our suit you know covered dust and coming up you know but yeah it was it was that was kind of the first time that we were allowed to really be recognized publicly you know because nobody knows who we really are and for where in those FBI yellow windbreakers it's not good news nobody's like thank you yeah there was one time right I will say that in 1990 we did a large gallery we took a whole building down a block and in bedstied down and the people cheering at us from out the windows because we liberated this drug infested neighborhood but but that's rare and and and it really it was really amazing that people were doing that and like I said I still get choked up when I was

1:11:08sitting there in my house by myself watching the Yankee game zoning out and seeing somebody hold up that sign as it's we're all New Yorkers now and this was Kansas City you know and then the white double Yankees were in town and yet that sign choked me up when I say we're all New Yorkers now I just you know I still think you're like that was one of those seminal moments like you know the other was coming you know I had a warehouse in New Jersey where I had the diete and I would drive I live in Hoboken which is east so I would drive eastbound home every day and so a couple of months after maybe six months five months after 9-11 my boss had gone to the warehouse clear your desk you know clear your email take a day just to be out there and not get here on the city and so I did that and then some driving home that night it was sunset and driving back towards the city to Hoboken and I came up over the cross use the one and nine has this little rise there and in Jersey I think it was like in sea caucus it kind of kind of comes up and it's the first time you're high enough to get a little view of the city and so I came up over that rise a drive I had done a thousand times before

1:12:14and for a moment I I remember going oh where's this towers like the towers are always a fixture in that and just for a moment I don't even know how I can't even tell you how what a fraction of a second it was where my mind or said like where's the towers and uh though I snapped out of it of course but that night I couldn't sleep and I had so much guilt that like how do I cut it you know and it's one of those things you're on auto pilot you've done the drive the commuter a thousand times you don't see things and and and I had such guilt that I had forgotten even for the slightest fraction of a moment where the tower that the towers weren't there anymore that I went out and I contacted a couple of cousin of mine and we had a fire department and friends at the Warner Fire Department and um and they had gotten tattoos already and they there was this artist this very famous tattoo artist that had already retired moved to Connecticut it was a painter now came out of retirement to do 9-11 tattoos and he would only do them for our first responder degree and so I

1:13:16worked with him for a couple of months on the elements that I wanted we'd send drawings back and forth on email and um and then I got the tattoo I wanted you know FBI NYPD FD NY PUTH already police or all represented there Lenny Hatten and John O'Neill are represented there the three sites of the Pentagon I have the Pennsylvania of Flight 93 and I have of course the towers I mean and the smoke is coming out of the towers but Lady Liberty is holding her torch coming out of the towers because that's not going to be defeated so it was really an emotional thing and and and so I I got that um just because I never want to forget again and so every time every morning I look in the mirror it's there every every night it's there it's a it's a visual reminder because I had that one little tiny experience that I said where's the towers like not to myself in the car by myself but it was such a feeling of guilt like oh my god are we going to forget uh you know are we you know and look life has to return to normal at some point and it

1:14:17does and we go on we do move on um but I think the 9-11 I like I said last week I got through about three quarters of the 9-11 museum before I had to I got a little too emotional and my wife took me out and um but I'll get through it the next time but it was it 22 years and 20 years that I hadn't been back to Logan Hatten you know and and we had this ceremony at one pp one police positive police headquarters and and the FBI has a water all of us there in the medical screening program that are potentially dealing with illnesses from 9-11 um got this pain they they designed this pain and the FBI directly came up from Washington and with I got to see a bunch of old colleagues some of four six some of whom are not sick yet um and it was it was really a great journey I got to see the city again I took my wife to the the main branch in the Yelpup Library and and and Brian Park and uh which boy you couldn't use to go through now Brian Park's beautiful I remember Brian yeah yeah it was thank you there was cell and loose joints and all kinds of stuff and Brian Park you couldn't believe my wife's like oh there's a park behind I go like when I go in a park and then

1:15:18we kind of walk around the bus I'm looking I'm like oh my god this is beautiful this is not pretty nice you know Bobby Weta um an hour and 14 minutes this was fantastic I mean I think we could talk forever if you want to come back and do another episode on this you're always welcome sure I want I want to remind everyone that um this is after the fall uh the FBI it's an audible show the FBI response to 9-11 and Bobby Chicoan's told us some great stories from the from the fall from the audible and uh you can get this on Amazon right Bobby yeah Amazon now owns audible so yeah if you have Amazon you probably have a subscription audible if not I think there's a 30-day free trial you can go on and listen to and if you're like I love audible I'm in the car so much uh you know I listen to a lot a lot of the audible projects I'm like this um you know there's we did another one called Brooklyn North uh about uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh case in Brooklyn North uh and there's an audible project there but the audible projects are great

1:16:19they're very easy let's do with the gym with the car and stuff and and like I said you hear directly from the actual people that did the work and were there on the ground and uh there weren't enough you know there's millions of people probably uh and millions of stories but you know we have to slim it down for time and I think we picked some some good ones some entertaining ones um and I think some eye-opening ones both on the investigation side and the human side um that tell tell great that's fantastic Bob each cone thank you so much for coming on folks this is the police off the cuff the law and crime series um and of course the audible get after the foregone Amazon listen to it Bob each cone is retired FBI agent 27 years lawyer now he's a writer the guys living he's living lodge now he's living the life but uh he paid his dues to get there folks have a great day and we'll see you next time thank you Bobby thanks George