Bernie Kerik - NYPD Police Commissioner on 9/11/2001 | SRS #013

in plain clothes in times square was the most  fun i've ever had being a cop you know that time. working as a cop in new york city was like being  in a [ __ ] war zone man with a gun robbery in. progress shots fired somebody got stabbed somebody  got raped somebody threw somebody off a building. somebody pushed somebody on their train all  day long and i don't care if it was a day tour.

an afternoon tour or a midnight tour and  it was the best [ __ ] job i ever had. it was a friday night i got a call from  the mayor um about 11 o'clock at night. you get a lot of calls from the mayor i  get a lot of quotes from the mayor but. you'll notice they're always at [ __ ] midnight  this guy does not sleep you know and he said um. tomorrow morning i want you to be at city hall  at nine o'clock and you're going to take over the.

nypd as the city's 40th police commissioner nine  o'clock tomorrow morning you get all my guys all. my friends all our friends these are cops i was  involved in gun battles with really battle-tested. cops they had [ __ ] medals up to their ears right  they all showed up and the [ __ ] cops loved me. why because i was a cop i think i was a  cop more than i was a police commissioner. all right person transmitting  to mayday where are you okay.

i just told you if you look at the world's  fault there's the north pedestrian bridge. you led the greatest rescue mission  in american history i could hear the. aviation pilots yelling on the radios that  a second aircraft had just hit tower two.

it was at that minute that i  realized we were under attack. in my mind i was trying to think of other targets  that there may be i was also thinking at the time. did they have ground attacks planned the mayor got  to me about three minutes after tower 2 was hit. met me at barclay and west broadway he's watching  all this debris come off the building and as that.

debris got closer to the ground he realized that  it wasn't debris and he was he was like oh my god. let me get to the base of the world trade center  you can see the firemen assembled here the police. officers fbi agents and you can see the two towers  a huge explosion now raining debris on all of us. nobody thought the buildings  would come down we missed. that by 15 to 20 minutes yeah had we stayed  15 or 20 minutes we would have died also.

we got probably over a million million and  a half people out of southern manhattan. over about a four five hour  period without incident. ladies and gentlemen it is september 11th 2021. welcome to this special edition of the sean  ryan show i want to start by saying thank.

you to the massive influx of patrons  that have subscribed to our patreon. from the last couple of episodes it's people like  you who make this show and this entire production. possible also thank you to everybody who left us a  review on itunes if you have not left us a review. on itunes please click the link below go to itunes  and leave us a review even if it's just one word.

with that being said let's  get on with our next guest. on september 11 2001 20 years ago today the entire  world witnessed the deadliest attack ever to. happen on american soil it changed our country and  it changed the entire world from that day forward.

ladies and gentlemen for the 20th anniversary of  when the twin towers the world trade center went. down we've brought you a very special exclusive  guest if you take anything from this episode. look at the ones you love tonight and hold them  tight you never know what tomorrow will bring.

please welcome mr bernie carrick the new york city  police commissioner who was active on that day. mr bernie carrick it's truly an  honor uh to be able to interview you.

for the 20th anniversary of september 11th thank  you um so just for the audience you were the. acting police commissioner when september 11  2001 happened which triggered the longest war. in american history and you led the greatest  rescue mission in american history and. um truly i mean it's it's it's real honor  to be able to sit across from you here and.

get the opportunity to be able to interview you  thank you before i go on i just want to ask you. do you believe in fate or destiny  or things happen for a reason. um yeah i do um you know it's something  i've thought about a lot you know in my. career but i've had some crazy times right uh  you know 9 11 happened i could remember walking.

into the conference room to our first press  conference it was about two in the afternoon. and i you know i was used to the press and  media but there were 200 reporters in the room. international press going crazy and i  remember turning turning around looking. at the clock and it was like 10 after two or  something like that and i thought to myself.

this is one of those days sort of like a day in  infamy right that's gonna last forever um i've had. a couple of those in my life you know when i when  i was appointed by george bush and sent to iraq as. the minister of interior my first press conference  i had to go up into the into the conference center. where probably four weeks before that saddam  was there and he had a big throne that was in.

the middle of the conference center it was leopard  skin or tiger skin or something like that and my. press information officer says commissioner you're  going to go up you're going to sit in that chair. and that's where you're going to do your press  conference and i looked at him i said dude. i got to sit in the throne really you know so  it's it's times like those that i've thought. what am i doing here you know how'd that get  here uh you know i've had some positives really.

really great positives i had had negatives where  you know i thought what the hell am i doing here. so uh but i think i think  your destiny i think i think. where you go and how you get there  is um you know for me it's been. it's been hard work it's been being  in the right place at the right time. it's been a little luck  sometimes it's a little stupidity.

but i wouldn't change anything for me i i  wouldn't change anything um i'm extremely. proud of my career what i've done what i've  accomplished and and i've had the honor to. oversee and manage some of the greatest  men and women in this country in the nypd. uh you know i had the opportunity  to run the largest police department.

in the nation i had the opportunity to run the  largest jail system in the nation so uh you know. two enormous jobs but i had great people working  for me and people look at me and they say you know. you did a phenomenal job you're a hero and  all that stuff you know what the people that. work for me were heroes um i led them but at the  bottom at the end of the day so to speak they were. the real heroes um that carried the city well  you demand a tremendous amount of respect and.

i think those people respected you and uh and  we're gonna do whatever you ask to them uh because. you've commanded so much respect and we're going  to revisit that question a little bit later in. the interview but when i first asked uh for you to  come on i thought we were just going to talk about.

kind of your timeline and actions  on objective uh when september 11th. happened and the towers came down but after  researching you i've realized how much more. there is to your story both before  and after the tragic event and so. i kind of want to start with their childhood  and what happened when you were three years old. i uh you know i came from pretty  humble beginnings right my father.

was pretty much a severe alcoholic a good man  taught me a lot a great man but he had his own he. had his own problems that ultimately later on in  my life they were resolved um he stopped drinking. uh we became extremely good friends um loved him  to death and he was sort of a hero for me and.

and i say that from a um from a very serious uh  perspective because when i was three uh my mother. my biological mother abandoned me left me with a  family out in ohio and took off and she was later. she was found beaten to death murdered when i was  about nine years old i didn't know this until i.

was about 17 18 when i went to service and one of  my uh one of my uncles one of her brothers called. me and said you know he's very proud of me i won  the military we got into this conversation and. he told me my mother was dead he  didn't say how she died he didn't say. when she died but i knew she was dead  later on many many years later on um. in uh in the year 2000 i was writing my  autobiography about my life my career.

and i started to do some research on my mother  and basically wanted to find out where she was. uh you know when she died i didn't even think of  you know how she died i knew she had passed away. i had one of my best friends an investigator  from the nypd go out to ohio and he came back.

when he came back he said look i found her. but i've got some bad news um and he hands me  a file folder and in the file folder it had. a series of of documents one of which was her  arrest record she had been arrested numerous. times for prostitution and other illegal  activities um she uh she ran you know.

she had four or five aliases and uh and then we  got into her death records and um as it turned. out she had been beaten to death and murdered  um probably by her pimp it was one of three men. i was involved in a now i was involved  in a 27 year old cold case investigation.

with the state of ohio and we determined that the  three men that were surrounding her at the time. um were dead the last one of which had died  about six months before i got involved so uh. i never knew her i didn't know much about  her other than what i got from the family. um but my father pulled me out of that pulled me  out of that life pulled me out of that home with. that woman that she had left me with and uh and  eventually i moved to new jersey with my father.

he got remarried and my stepmother um is the  one that took care of me um you know until. i left home at 18 to go in the service you  went uh to an inner city school which is uh. somewhat famous yeah i um i went to eastside  high in patterson new jersey you know there's a. there's a uh a movie called lean on me morgan  freeman uh played in the movie as as the principal.

of that school his name was joe clark joe clark  came to eastside high to clean it up it was one. of the worst schools worst high schools in america  um well i often tell people i went to east side. before joe clark ever got there and cleaned  it up i was there about seven or eight years. before joe clark showed up it was predominantly  a black high school um patterson new jersey was a.

you know was a rough town um i was  probably one of i don't know 25 or 30. white kids that went to the school i learned a  lot i learned a lot i learned a lot about survival. um got involved in the martial arts at 13 i got  my black belt at 16 and this was when this is back. in 1972 before anybody really knew what karate  was or what the martial arts were you know it's.

i think the the only thing they knew about the  martial arts at the time was bruce lee uh you. know he had a he had a weekly show that's what  people thought martial arts was but yeah i went to. eastside high i dropped out i quit high school in  the 11th grade for the next year year and a half. i humped furniture for a moving company up and  down the east coast to the u.s so i'd go uh. i'd go from new jersey to florida every  week every monday morning i'd leave out of.

patterson new jersey go to florida drop the load  come back home get home by friday thursday friday. monday i'd leave start all over again well i did  that for about a year and a half and i realized. humping furniture was not a long-term job you know  it's a difficult job being on the road is hard. i give the american truck drivers that basically  you know move everything under the sun around.

this country i for one give them a lot of credit  because i don't think a lot of people realize how. difficult the job is but i learned and then  uh then in 1974 i uh i joined the army um. you know i had a bunch of friends that were  becoming cops that i knew from my younger years. i wanted to be a cop at the time i didn't have  a high school diploma so i figured i'd go in.

the service get my high school diploma get  some experience and uh and take it from there. and that's kind of what i did one of the reasons  i wanted to bring up your childhood is and today. in today's world we hear nothing but excuses  on why people can't seem to find success and. it sounds like you're one step above growing up  on the streets you grew up in an inner city school.

you didn't have the greatest home life and yet  you're probably maybe the most accomplished. person that i've ever met and come from that  background it should show everybody that if. you want something you can [ __ ] go get it you  know what sean that that's that that's a great. question in it and it's a point that i don't  think and i'm not talking about me i'm talking. about you know every day uh around this country  people make excuses people want to be victims.

um for me and and people like me you know i'm  not the only one that's done what i've done. but it sickens me and it sickens me because  i know better you know there were young black. kids that i went to school with they  went to college they had good careers. not many not many because a lot of the a lot of  the kids i went to school with uh they wound up.

in prison they wanted them dead um but there  were there were you know it really depended. on the person you know if you have drive if you  have self-determination if you know what you want. if you think you know what you want and you set  your mind to going and getting it you can get. it done and and i had i don't know i you know  when i went in the service and and i think i. think a lot of guys that go in the military i  think this happens to them as well you you may.

not know what you're looking for you may not know  where you're going but then you get there and you. find a niche right you find something you enjoy  doing you find something that you can do well. you know when i went in i joined to be an mp  military police officer um and that was my. thing right that's what i wanted to do um and  the military gave me the opportunity to do that.

you know my uniforms were sharp i was impeccable i  was you know i i did the job i did it really well. um and then you you move you move ahead you grow  up um but your point i i only wish that people. today in america could take a step back and take  a bunch of examples people like me and others that.

that moved ahead against all odds against all  odds and you know i remember in the aftermath. of september 11th i went back to patterson i  was i forget i think it may have been fox news. was doing a a special on me in the aftermath  of 9 11 or from my book went back to patterson. walked the streets where i grew up ran into people  that were still on the streets i ran into them. and they come up to me and they you know and they  basically said who would have thought who would.

have thought you know it's unbelievable where  you've come from and where you've gone you know. what there's a lot of people out there to do it i  just wish that that the general public especially. especially these the you know the people that you  know they they they call everybody victims or they. you know or they or they basically say nobody has  the opportunity that's [ __ ] everybody has the.

opportunity everybody has the opportunity it all  depends on your mindset your focus your drive um. maybe a little luck maybe some of the people  around you but you know what whether you're. whether you grow up in in an inner inner city  community a ghetto or you know some uh you know. wall street uh arena it doesn't make any  difference you know good and bad right from wrong.

and it's up to you just do the right  thing focus on what you want to do. and uh you know and you can do it that's the  good thing about the united states anybody. can do anything they want if they put  their mind to it and they try and try hard. i'm 100 in agreement with you on that and uh  i wanted to cover that because i think it's. important and and uh you know last night  at dinner we kind of covered that but um.

so moving on you joined the army you became  military police and you went to korea well. i went to korea uh i was in korea for uh 13 14  months came back um was at fort bragg my last um. my last uh year and a half in the service year  i guess a little over a year um finished up my. time at fort bragg i was an mp in korea i  was a dog handler i was an mp dog handler.

when i come back to brag i was a garrison  mp um in the 118th airborne corps and. i was actually i was actually going to reenlist. in uh in 1977 delta had just been put together  i think 76 right um it was just starting up. it was the talk of fort bragg i thought you know  what i'm gonna re-enlist um and i'm gonna apply.

and then i found out no you can't realist because  i was i was involved with a thing where i broke a. kid's finger one time and got an article 15 out of  it and back then if you had an article 15 if you. had any discipline in the military uh you couldn't  apply for any of the special operations teams. um and ironically for me it was uh you know  it was a disappointment because at the time.

i was an mp uh in the 118th airborne court but  i was teaching at the john f kennedy center. at the unconventional warfare center i  was teaching self-defense knife fighting. stick fighting um i was i was teaching there  with a bunch of guys so i basically wanted. to stay in the community but uh i couldn't do it  because of this stupid article 15. and i got out. no [ __ ] yeah there it goes maybe everything  does happen for a reason exactly exactly so.

then you started contracting correct well then i  um yeah i uh my first job um out of the military i. uh i was hired by a uh an independent group  that was doing investigations illegal cigarette. transportation it was a a federal task force  really that was doing investigations on.

untaxed illegal cigarettes out of a seven  state jurisdiction out of north carolina. and i did that for about 10 months and then  one day got a phone call one of the guys. i knew from i think 10th group at bragg um  one of the guys called me up and said listen. i've got a job in nicaragua if uh if you're  interested we can go down you can go down with us.

and um probably within a month or so after  i got the call i got a call back saying that. wasn't going to work out but there's a new  assignment there's a new job in saudi arabia. i didn't even know where [ __ ] saudi arabia  was i mean like no this is this is like 1978. right nobody in 77 no nobody nobody knew anything  about saudi arabia and me i'm like yeah whatever.

i'm i'm good i'll go you know it was uh probably  four or five times the money i was making. working for this task force so i said okay i'll  uh i'll go to saudi and i remember i lived in i. lived in fedo right outside of fort bragg and i i  came up to jersey and i told my father i says i'm. i just took a job i'm going to saudi arabia  my father's sitting at the dining room table. and he looks at me goes arabia he goes you  know i heard that place he said there's a.

there's a movie lawrence of arabia or something  like he said i think it's hot there it was. [ __ ] hot all right but i uh yeah i jumped  on this job went to saudi but in that time. the uh the saudi government was building the king  khalid military city up uh about 35 miles south. of kuwait uh right outside of uh hafer albaten and  uh i went i was supposed to do an 18-month uh gig.

and i wound up staying about two and a  half years just over two and a half years. was it because they needed you to stay or because  you wanted to stay money was good dude okay money. was good you know it's uh listen it was and i was  a young i was you know i just got out of service i. was i was 22 years old um you know i'm i'm working  in saudi arabia i'm making three or four times.

what anybody was making in the states i came  home at at 24 years old i think 25 years old. i built a house i had a brand new corvette  i like i was living large right it was uh. it was okay and um so i stayed in north carolina  for about a year year and a half after that. and it was you know i i joined the police  department but it was slow it was you know. it wasn't wasn't what i was looking for and  uh and i left and i moved back to new jersey.

i went to work for the sheriff's department in  paterson where i grew up so you know i actually. worked in the passaic county jail so it was pretty  comical i would go to work every day and run into. you know all the inmates most of the inmates  in the county jail were like they were from. my time and i would i knew all these guys from  school i knew ever every inmate you know that.

was in the jail i knew them or i knew their  kids you knew all of them oh it was insane. i'd be walking down i'd be walking down a card and  somebody go hey b what's up man what's happening. and my guys you know i eventually i became the  warden of that jail and all the guys that worked. for me would they be like how do you know how do  you know these guys like how do they all know you. that's it's a long story i said but i actually  i actually lived here and uh and i know a lot.

of them so uh so i stayed i i started in  the county jail i was there about 10 months. and a friend of mine called he said  uh you know i just went down to um. i forget where it was i want to think it was in  nashville or it was somewhere down in tennessee uh. went down for an interview for a job at the  king faisal hospital in riyadh and he called. me up he said they're looking for a director of  investigations they want somebody to take over the.

investigations group at the king weissel hospital  and um they were asking about you you know it's. it's it's uh it's sort of like the contracting  business now right you you you and the guys all. the guys we know right they go overseas they work  in a they work in a certain area a certain job. you know they may they may take off go home for  a while and then all of a sudden a buddy calls. up and says hey there's a new gig over here and um  you know somebody was asking if you were looking.

and uh this guy called me up asked me and i said i  don't know i'm not sure until he told me the money. so i went to the sheriff of passaic county i  told him i wanted to leave of absence for a year. and uh and i took off i took off and i went back  again i went to riyadh i was there for about uh. for about a year and then i extended another  six months what kind of work were you i mean. what do you investigate at a hospital so at the  at the king the king faisal hospital is the royal.

facility it's the where basically all the royalty  is right so all of the vips would come into that. hospital everything from the king the crown  prince on down you know it's ironic today you. know the king of saudi arabia today at that time  in 1982-84 was actually the governor of riyadh. his older brothers fahad khalid i worked for them  when i was when i was there he was the governor of.

riyadh he would be at the hospital all the time so  when you had my job you basically you you ensured. that that the doctors the nurses the staff  especially the american staff they were. abiding by the law and by the policies of the  hospital because there's a lot of corruption.

that goes on there's a lot of prostitution that  goes on there's a lot of a lot of things that. goes on in those areas you know people come  over and they go to work there and they're. getting a lot of [ __ ] trouble and it was our  job to make sure we kept them out of trouble. make sure that the hospital didn't get embarrassed  uh things like that it was an interesting time. it uh i made some good money i stayed about  a year and a half and then i went back home.

in another. um for the most part um all homicides  or rape homicides are rape um. uh i think i've seen i used to know the numbers  i think it's 22 i think 22 b headings i've seen. a bunch of dismemberments you know they  take a guy's hand off i saw one stoning.

uh where they stoned a young girl to death uh  that had a baby out of wedlock with her cousin or. something she was she was stoned the boyfriend or  the father of the kid um he was he was beheaded. and that's the way it's done and you were friends  with the executioner correct well i i wasn't a.

co-worker no he well he worked you know  the king today salman he was the governor. well the the executioner was his senior  bodyguard right one of his his detail guys. so i i knew him from the hospital um you know  we were sort of friends you know i knew him i. would uh you know it's weird i would see him  during the week coming in and out and then on.

[ __ ] friday you know after the afternoon  mosque uh you know at one o'clock in the. afternoon he'd be out in the square whacking  somebody and i'm thinking nice guy you know. two days ago we were having tea like at  the hospital so wow were any of those. executions that you witnessed were those were  any of those a result of your investigations no. no no no they um no mostly there were  homicides that happened in riyadh or around.

i remember and i can't i think  this was the first go-round. because i was there i was  actually in saudi arabia in 1979. when they took the the embassy in iran and when  they seized mecca in saudi and and i remember.

that i don't think i witnessed but i know it  went on in in dahran a lot they took all of the. all of the uh the intruders that went into mecca  that were involved in that seizure they took all. of them they split them up all over the country  and they killed them all in one day wow um you. know there were a bunch of them they put them  in cities all over the all over the country it's. pretty pretty routine over there at that time well  listen you know you know people say you know uh.

you know the death sentence doesn't um you know  it has no impact on crime yeah i don't know. i don't know you know you witnessed some  of this stuff that goes on over there. you don't have an impact is that do they do that  and uh is it like a public oh yeah well it's it's. listen you go to the main mosque in riyadh on  a friday afternoon everybody goes in to pray.

everybody comes out and you know when you come out  of the mosque if they have the square roped off. there's going to be an execution and it's  right after you come out of the mosque. so if you have a thousand people in the mosque and  they all come out they basically form a circle in. that square they have a black you know one of  these i should call it a black mariah it was a. a black minivan will pull up into the square um a  couple officers takes the dude out uh stands him.

in the middle of square puts him on his knees  the executioner comes out they have a cop card. there that reads over the loudspeaker in the  car would read the decree whatever this guy did. and then they'd do them that was it and you know  it's weird we've all you know cops people in the. military you you know there's times you see death  and you you know you see the aftermath of death.

um the first time i ever saw a beheading the  first one i actually you're watching this and. when it happens in your head you're going  all right dude that's that's [ __ ] up like. is that you know is that real like your head can't  comprehend like yeah you know and you're looking. at it thinking [ __ ] that's crazy you know and  uh after a while it just you know i just this.

is this is nuts i used to get new guys that came  into the kingdom and on fridays you know thursday. and fridays was a holiday right it was like our  saturday and sunday so on sunday we would all go. out on what was friday but we would all go out  to the intercon or we'd go somewhere for brunch. every friday might get these new guys and they'd  go out we'd have them go out and grab something.

to eat and then we'd leave right around the time  they were doing the execution and these guys had. no idea where we're going oh [ __ ] so we would  take them to the mosque put them right up front. they puked they'd watch this and get sick of the  dog but um it was it was crazy it was a different. life yeah would you say that's probably maybe the  most traumatic thing you've seen up to that point. in your life up to that point yeah have you seen  have you seen a lot working in the prison or.

no i mean you see you see violence you see things  as a cop you know you you see stuff like that. not not like that though yeah right normally you  see the aftermath unless you're involved in an. incident right you're involved in some you're  shooting or stabbing you know i i was stabbed. in the line of duty i've been shot at in the line  of duty things like that um but you don't see that.

this is the intentional execution  of someone yeah um it's different. you know it's different so you wrapped  up your saudi contract and came home. wrapped up my saudi contract 1984 i came  back i applied for a job with the nypd and. i was working in jersey became 1985 i became  the warden of the passaic county jail so i was.

i was 20 i was 30 years old i was 30 years old  i was the chief of department i had 300 people. working for me i uh you know ironically it was  the actual jail you know the passaic county jail. in patterson is one of the biggest county jails  in the state of new jersey and that's where i. grew up so i knew the area i knew the people  i knew the inmates i knew a bunch of the staff.

and i was in charge how long did it take you to. be put in charge i started there when i came  up saying 1981 december of 81 i was there for. a year and a half went to saudi came  back from saudi worked another two years. and i was appointed warden holy [ __ ] i've  never met anybody that excels at that chase with.

everything i did uh yeah you know it's kind of  ironic if you look at my career you know i always. start on the bottom and i wound up on top and i  get there pretty quickly yeah um and i'll i'll. talk about that in a minute in the pd but um uh  yeah i became the uh the warden of the county jail. i was running the jail i was having a great  time but i didn't like correction number one.

and number two i didn't like county politics  i worked for a sheriff sheriff is elected. in the state of new jersey i didn't like the  internal politics of what was going on i wanted. to get out and i had applied for the nypd because  ever since i was i joined the military i wanted. to be a new york city cop but i was never around  long enough take the test take the physical take. the medical take the psych i i just wasn't around  well now i'm home i came home from saudi in 1984.

i uh i applied for the nypd i take the test take  the physical take the medical take the psych. and um you know in july of early late june or  early july of 1986 my applicant investigator. from new york city calls and says all right  dude so here's the deal with your military time.

which was three years um the the the maximum date  uh maximum age for the nypd at the time was 29. with your military time you've moved that up  to 32. you're 31. this will be the last class. you can get into so if you don't take this  class if you don't go in the nypd this class. you're never going oh [ __ ] now with that  he says now this was a this was a you know.

old-time detective in the nypd he goes now  now that i said that he said personally. i think you're [ __ ] crazy for you to leave  that job you're at he goes you're wearing a. white shirt stars a skull shield you got a car  sitting outside you're [ __ ] nuts if you take. this job he goes you do realize you're going  to be walking a [ __ ] foot post somewhere.

in the city like you have no idea where  you're going no idea where you're gonna work. i said all right let me think about it and i  thought about it i called him up i said dude. i'm taking the job and he said are you sure you  sure you want to do this and this you know what. sean this goes back to your your your question of  of destiny it's something i always wanted to do. you know a lot of people you know we were  talking about this last night people that leave.

leave the military right you're walking  a fine line do i stay for retirement or. even when you even when you make retirement  when you make that date and you could leave. you know there's this apprehension do i take that  step do i go or do i not go it's easier to stay. you know if i take that step it's the  unknown what i've learned take the step.

you'll figure it out as you go but take the  step if it's something you really want take. the step if it's something you you you know  you've dreamt about you think you you want. to do don't let that apprehension hold you down  you know that's the one thing i've never done. never um and i think that was the biggest example  here i am the chief of the department i've got. 300 people under me and like i said  white shirt dress uniform office.

car county car gold shield people saluting you  all day long nice job clean no fighting with. inmates no gun battles none of that [ __ ] and uh  that's not what i wanted sitting real comfortable. right really comfortable and i said you know what  i've always wanted to be a city cop um and this is. my last opportunity i'm going to take it or i'm  never going to do it so i called the dude up and.

i said listen man i'm going wow and that was a  50 pay cut as well i actually went bankrupt no. [ __ ] like legally bankrupt because i had no [ __  ] money i used i was in the middle of a divorce um. i was getting divorced and i was like you know  taking taking that job cut my salary in half. you know more than half because you you know i  had to buy my uniforms i had to buy my guns i did.

all the new [ __ ] you have to do as a recruit  in the academy you pay for most of that yourself. so it's like not only did i take the pay cut but  i have all these expenditures i have to put out. and um and i did it and i have to tell  you and i i've i've said this many times. went to the academy the academy was a pain in  the ass i think it was probably the third police. academy i'd been to when it was getting annoying  um but the day i graduated and i got sent to.

brooklyn i think my my first actual day in the  street i want to believe was like christmas eve. in 1986 i think that was my first  day on patrol walking a foot post. in [ __ ] bedford stuyvesant brooklyn which was  a a [ __ ] i was i couldn't have been more happy.

could not stay could not have been more happy  i you know it was an after i think it was an. afternoon tour went out walked the footpost you  know in new york city keep in mind this is 1986. this is the height of the the crack epidemic  this is the height of crime in the city. we were doing over two 2 000 murders a  year in new york we had more murders a year. in 1986 through 1993 than the cities today of  la chicago atlanta and minneapolis combined.

wow that's what new york city was  like then i remember going to um. i remember going to my first roll call i was in  the i was assigned to the 7-7 precinct in bed. stein i remember going to the roll call walking  into the roll call and guy said walked in guys. had a vest on they had their revolver on they had  a small backup in their gut and like there's two.

guys standing in line they've got us a side piece  a backup and another backup in their back pocket. like a five shot 38. and i thought where the  [ __ ] are we being not what what kind of. what kind of place is this and it didn't i  didn't realize until we we hit the streets it was. the crime haven of america you know that  time working as a cop in new york city.

was like being in a [ __ ] war zone all day long  so that was my that was my training command i was. there for about six months then i got transferred  to midtown uh i got transferred to what they. call midtown south midtown south precinct it's  actually the precinct that covers times square. and in my first assignments um my primary  assignment in midtown south was a walking.

foot post on west 42nd street between 7th  and 8th avenue one block there were 10 cops. on that foot post on one block on one block 10  cops you had four cops on one side and a sergeant. four cops on the other side and a sergeant  and all you did for eight hours a day was. run from one end of the block to the other man  with the gun robbery in progress shots fired.

somebody got stabbed somebody got raped  somebody threw somebody off a building. somebody pushed somebody on their train all  day long and i don't care if it was a day tour. an afternoon tour or a midnight tour times  square from 12 at night to 8 in the morning. you couldn't tell the difference between  then and a detour same amount of people.

the city was always lit always awake thugs were  everywhere and uh thugs and guns that's all you. did wow and that's and it was the best [ __ ] job  i ever had it was if you like that kind of work um. i was on uniform patrol for about uh a year  just over a year and i got i got transferred to. plainclothes in plainclothes in times square was  the most fun i've ever had being a cop rode around.

in a yellow cab you know three people in a car  right you have a driver you have two passengers. in the back seat they're all cops um yellow cabs  everybody sees yellow cabs all over manhattan. but many of those yellow cabs they're cops they're  plain clothes anti-crime cops and your job as an. anti-crime officer is to respond to everything  in progress all the hot jobs so it's you know.

man with a gun robbery in progress burglary in  progress shots fired those kind of jobs that's. what you do all day long that's all you do what  kind of area were you covering as a foot cop. your was one block yep what kind of area were  you covering when you went into plain clothing. you're you're within the precinct boundary  so midtown south the precinct was from 29th. to 45th street so it's you know it's 15 blocks um  from 10th avenue to lexington avenue um you know.

it's it's a 15 block square radius so to speak  but keep this in mind 15 blocks square radius. during a day tour you probably had 8 million  people within that area wow coming and going. people that live there work there went to  school there visited there tourist in a day. tour you could have 8 million people in that  you know that 15 20 block square area so it was.

[ __ ] there's a big sign in the midtown south  precinct i don't know if it's still there today. but there was a sign above the desk you know it's  it looked like a typical nypd police station right. had the you walk in and on your left you had this  big ass desk and you had the sergeant lieutenant. behind the desk they're about you know five feet  above you right but there's a sign that hangs over. that desk and that sign said this is the midtown  south precinct it is the busiest police station.

in the world wow so that's where i went i uh i  went there as a patrolman went to plain clothes. and about two years after i was there i got  transferred to narcotics as an undercover. um and and i went from from  midtown south where you know. you had the best food in the world you  had all the girls you could look at.

you had the most fun you could have being a cop  and i got [ __ ] transferred to manhattan north. narcotics which was harlem spanish harlem  and washington heights the gun capital. of new york city and that's where i did my  narcotics time sounds like a beautiful area. well before we get into the narcotics.

and uh undercover stuff let's take a quick  break and uh then we'll come back and hit it.

thank you.

all right so we'll pick up where we left off  you're undercover now and uh you're working harlem. scene so i get transferred to uh to narcotics  as an undercover there's two ways you can get. your detective shield in the nypd you can go to  an investigative route which means you're in a. precinct you go to anti-crime plainclothes then  you go to a precinct detective squad and you work. in an investigative capacity for two three could  be four years and then you get your detective.

shield and then you go to a detective bureau you  may go to narcotics but in the investigative track. usually it's an another investigative command or  you can become an undercover and you can get your. narcotics your detective shield in about 18 to  27 months it's expedited but it it's expedited. because you have a completely insane job  and that job is to go out and buy drugs.

every day that's all you do as an undercover there  is no enforcement you don't do any enforcement. as an undercover you don't make arrests you  only make arrests in extreme circumstances. um you know if there's if there's a shooting  if there's something happens during the course. of your undercover buy well then you make an  arrest and then you're you're sort of back.

you know in in your normal capacity  as a cop but as a uc as an undercover. all you do is buy drugs so i get transferred to uh  to manhattan north and uh my bi-aries was harlem. spanish harlem and washington heights and i can  remember getting up uh my first command was in. the 2-3 precinct it was spanish harlem and i can  remember standing in front of the [ __ ] precinct.

listening to gunshots like down the  street like on this you know two blocks. from where we're at gunfire going off and  the cops standing outside going which which. direction is it this was down here no it's that  corner yeah i know where it is and i'm like. nobody's [ __ ] like this place is crazy  it's like uh it's like a war zone right um.

so our job every day um we would suit up  the investigators would load up in a van. a couple cars you would put a tracking device  on you and you would go out and do buys. so there were two types of buys you would do  outside buys you know walk up on a street corner. and say yo hook me up give me give me two give  me five give me you know give me an eight ball. give me whatever did you have a specific drug you  were targeting or well it depends on the location.

depends on locations you know if you you know  110th street in lexington avenue it was a big. heroin spot you know we knew that so you'd walk  down the block walk on the set you know give me a. dime give me a 20. give me uh you know whatever  and you'd buy heroin there were spots this was. big in the crack time you know you'd buy vials  of crack or you'd buy hard cocaine or whatever.

i can remember my first buy now keep in mind  my entire career i've been a cop correction. officer i'm in uniform everybody knows who i am  my first undercover by was up in manhattan north. they sent me into a park they sent me into  a park it said see the guy in the middle of. the park he's standing in the middle of the  park it's [ __ ] cold outside he's got a coat. on people keep walking up to him talking to him  you're gonna go up you're gonna say give me five.

he's gonna hand you five vials you're gonna  hand him 25 bucks and you're gonna walk off. okay that's it yep that's it give me five hand  them the money and take off okay got it so. i'm dressed down i dress like  a bum i walk down the street. i walk up to him it's a weird feeling because  you know you're always used to being in charge. now you're not in charge now you're you're  worried whether the guy's going to make you.

whether he's got a gun you may not have a gun on  you um you know you don't want to get searched. and have a peace on you so so i'm walking down the  street i walk up to the dude i'm like give me five. he hands it to me i get back i get in the  car i'm all excited and [ __ ] i got this. all right confirmed by sergeant goes all right  give me the script huh what do you look like uh.

i don't know i i'll get right back to you  i had to run to the [ __ ] corner i was so. focused on getting the five vials i  forgot what the [ __ ] guy looked like. i had to go back to the corner look in the yard  get the script come back to the car and go okay. he's got a green jacket you got blue jeans  got this got that um outside buys are easy. outside buys are in the middle of the street um  the worst part of being an undercover in the nypd.

is one day a week you have inside bars and  basically what that means is you know people. you know they'll call 9-1-1 and they'll say the  guy next door to me is buying selling drugs the. guy next door to me is selling this is doing this  doing that well those complaints get transferred. to the narcotics division and once they get  so many complaints on a certain location. it goes into a file that goes to the undercover  units and then all of a sudden our lieutenant.

comes in and says okay we're going to 160th street  and this locate this building this apartment. you're gonna go in and the guy's doing you  know he's doing crack all right i [ __ ] hated. inside buys and i hated inside bus for a couple  reasons a bunch of my friends got shot inside um. bad bad stuff because when you get in those  buildings your transmitters transponders.

don't work because of all the concrete nobody  can find you so i used to you know i used to. you know a sharpie right you know what  sharpies are i just take a [ __ ] red. sharpie and i'd have it in my pocket the big  thick ones i had my that red sharpie in my. pocket so when i had to do an inside buy i go  in the building and i take that [ __ ] sharpie. and i'd run it along the wall i just ride on the  wall right along the wall and when i got to where.

i was going right outside the door i was going i  put big letters b k like a graffiti artist right. why graffitied the [ __ ] location i was going  to because i was always worried if i get inside. and something goes bad at least when they come  looking for me they're going to be able to find. where i'm at you know if they take my transmitter  if the transmitter doesn't work if i get into a. gunfight inside and i'm down there's nobody to  call you're not calling you're not calling for.

help had you developed a cover story by this point  oh yeah i was from jersey um i had jersey plates. on my car when i rolled up on a set i had jersey  plates in washington heights this was the heart. of this was a heart of crack and and cocaine for  all of manhattan right it was a heavy dominican. population um just insane insane drugs at the  time we had a bunch of cops that were killed there.

um i came into that unit in nineteen early 89 in  october on october 18th of 1988 we had two cops in. separate incidents killed on the same night up in  the heights um michael busick was shot and killed. around uh nine o'clock at night shot in the chest  and then chris hoban was shot in an undercover by.

just like i was doing went into an apartment  with another kid um they're in the middle of. doing a buy and a [ __ ] dude walks in behind him  and says yo you know these guys and they're like. no we saw him outside they're looking they're  looking to buy and they're like well there's a. [ __ ] shitload of cops about four blocks from  here check them and they started to search him. and uh and i i think mike germain had a a gun down  at a belly band in in his lower abdomen they found.

it they touched it then they got in a gunfight  in the [ __ ] apartment and chris got killed. yeah um so it was that kind of stuff you know  that's the kind of stuff you're worried about. um so i was an undercover for about a year and  a half no almost two years got my shield uh my. detective shield got transferred to major case  started doing some major drug investigations. um and uh we had a big major case a drug thing  a guy was doing heroin and cocaine a dominican.

um took him down on and during the course of  of one of the takedowns of one of his salesmen. um got in a gun battle he shot my partner um i  i shot him um and then right after that i get. transferred to dea to the dea task force  how long did that gunfight last um it was. it was sort of a run and gun battle so we we  watched this guy we were doing a surveillance.

we were up on a wiretap on a phone and the  guy called he was from massachusetts he. said i'm coming down to pick up five so five  kilos um so we see him go into an apartment. comes out of the apartment follow the car he's  he's in a livery cab uh which we thought for us. was good right i mean livery cab drivers they want  to they don't want nothing to do with nothing they. just you know so uh but evidently he knew this guy  we figured that out later because when we tried to.

stop him he took off and we stopped the car had a  uniform car stop him and as they tried to take the. passenger out of the car the [ __ ] car takes off  so we get in a a chase through upper manhattan um. finally get him pulled over in front of these  uh apartments on dikeman street and he comes out. and fires three rounds into the car immediately  behind him first round as my partner's in that car.

puts up his hand like this and the round goes  through his arm comes out of the car falls out. of the car the second round goes right through the  [ __ ] head the headrest um and then i'm in the. car next to him so i open fire that distracts him  and then we get into this run and gun battle up. into the apartment complex and uh he finally goes  down he's hit like six or eight times um he lives.

he's paralyzed but he lives he's still in state  prison um but i i you know i thought it was funny. you know he got shot literally like six or eight  times we'll have a cop standing at a door doing a. search warrant the guy will fire through the door  it'll hit the cop in the side where the vest isn't. it'll hit the cops liver lungs heart you  know the cop would be dead in 10 seconds. this [ __ ] guy gets shot six times and he's still  alive still living today but um we took him down.

and uh and then right after that uh actually  right after that shooting i got transferred. and uh i went to the dea task force you got a  medal for that correct yeah i gotta i got the. medal of valor for that one um went to the dea  task force so the task force in new york the dea. task force in new york is one of the biggest ones  in the country and these task forces consist of.

federal agents local cops and state troopers and  um you know it's it's it's a great job um because. you have federal authority you're sworn in as  a federal agent um and uh you work some of the. biggest cases going and i was lucky enough to be  in a group where my partner and i um we oversaw. one of the most substantial investigations  drug investigations in new york at the time.

where we uh we posed as importers and exporters  um a company that was based out of the world trade. center and we were introduced to some colombians  who got us started and basically how it worked is. these guys had 400 keys they wanted to sell so we  went to them said look we're no it was reversed. we told them we had 400 keys so we went to him  and said you know we have this 400 keys we'll. show it to you we did a flash dump where we you  know the the 400 keys was in the base of a truck.

showed it to them in a warehouse told them to  call us back in the morning let us know if they're. interested they called us back in the morning and  said they're interested and we said dude too late. somebody was some the guy one of the guys  we were talking to they took it last night. but if we get anything else we'll call  you if you get anything else you call us. boom okay well we now had their phones we had  their pagers we had everything we were up on.

their stuff so uh one thing led to another and  they would they would call and they'd say you know. we have 800 kilos in uh you know bogota we're  trying to get into the states which okay. that's like a ton of coke like that's almost  2 000 pounds dude that's nothing what's. listen we're going to give you a great coordinates  in [ __ ] guatemala you're going to fly that.

[ __ ] from bogota over to guatemala you're going  to drop it and then we'll get it to new york. okay well we did loads out of guatemala loads out  of um costa rica out of brazil um out of guayaquil. ecuador we did a we did a boat we did 1400 keys  that was buried in the keel of a [ __ ] boat. um that was in guayaquil ecuador and this is  the kind of stuff that you know this is the.

kind of [ __ ] you see in movies right we're  doing a we're doing a surveillance we're up. on a guy's phone these colombians out of  uh out of jackson heights queens and um. they're going to meet some guy at the hilton in  manhattan and they page him with where they're. going to meet him in uh hilton and they give  him a room a room number so we get to the hilton.

go up to the floor we get the room across from the  [ __ ] room the guy's in we put up we exchanged. the people camera with the the people in the door  we take that out we put a [ __ ] camera there and. out of the room walks this old dude he looks  like he's grizzly adams or some [ __ ] he's got. [ __ ] overalls a plaid shirt beard he look  he's right out of it right out of a grizzly. adams movie right like he looks like he belongs  in the [ __ ] mountains of vermont or something.

so we call we call the team and say  guys we i think we [ __ ] this up. this can't be this can't be the guy so they  say well stay on him until we figure it out. he goes out for a walk my guys call me and they go  guess what he just met our targets they handed him. a brown paper bag he's back in the apartment  back in the hotel sorry [ __ ] it let's go. knock knock a guy opens the door dea how you doing  listen we know about the bag we know about caliche.

that was the main guy we were looking at  we know about the team you just talked to. and he said you know everything he said  yeah he said you know about the boat. yeah we know about the boat he says you  know about the load we did in alaska yeah. in alaska yeah we didn't know [ __ ] we knew  nothing but he was he was talking up a storm. we we basically said look how much is in the  bag 150 000. what's it for it's to hire a crew.

on the boat in guayaquil to bring it to galveston  texas i said okay so here's what we're going to do. you're going to work with us we're going to let  you go you're going to walk out of here right now. you're going to facilitate everything we need  you'll go about your business we'll take the. colombians and lo and behold it worked and uh he  went about his business and we sent a team down. to the guayaquil ecuador we put a sad track on  the monitor on the top of the boat on the after.

the boat tracked it from guayaquil ecuador to  galveston when the boat arrived in galveston. we basically had to rip up the floor like saw  through the concrete saw through the floor. the wood what they do is they pack the dope in  the keel of the boat and then they completely. [ __ ] rebuild the boat around it so open  it up 1400 keys for 14.94 almost 1500 keys.

so it's a quarter of a billion dollars  street value of cocaine and uh and we. took it [ __ ] and then when we took it the uh  the guy that sent it was a guy named felipe diaz. he was in colombia we had the old man call him  and say we wanted to celebrate the load but we're. going to meet him in in geneva he showed up in  geneva switzerland and we [ __ ] snatched him.

and then of us you know he fought extradition  but about six months later we [ __ ] threw him. on a plane a swiss air jet brought him back to  the states holy [ __ ] you guys were just going. everywhere no it was great it was great we had a  you know listen if you're doing that kind of work. that's the kind of [ __ ] you want to be doing you  just have to be creative so you don't get caught. and you you know you're  creative because you you know.

you're you have a target right like you're the  guy we're looking at but we don't touch you we. don't touch anybody you're talking to on the phone  but the guys that are talking to you on the phone. we're looking at everybody they're talking  to so we're tagging every one of those. teams that's doing them it's never touching  you it doesn't touch your guys around you. so you're never suspect to me see what i'm saying  yeah that's how you do it and uh and it works.

that's amazing um how many how many different  countries were going to and uh you were after. we did in uh in two and a half years we did 10  and a half tons and about 60 million in cash wow. 10 and a half tons we had three we had 3 000 keys  in uh in houston in houston just on just on a whim.

just doing what i said we're we're we're not  talking to you we're not talking to your guys. but catching the third party fourth party  guys getting up on their phones you know. la dea calls up and says dude you guys know this  guy abc yeah he's our guy where we're looking him. well guess what he just met somebody  they're dropping 3 000 keys in houston. where boom hit the place and  but eventually eventually.

you know it all starts to unravel and when  those guys and those lawyers start talking. because in that case that was a case where you  know where the the guys were coming back going. you know that guy in in new york  jerry barton i don't know something. he he knew these guys and he know they  knew the other guys and he knew these guys.

you know so they start to put it together  and at that point you figure [ __ ] it okay. we're good let's take them all  and you start grabbing everybody. wow and you were after the hotel brothers  they were they were the primaries in that case. felipe diaz was connected to them all the guys  all the main loads we were doing gilberto ochoa. the the brother i forget his name um they were  the primaries they were in charge of the kali. cartel correct which was actually supposedly more  powerful than the medellin cartel that escobar.

was running yep they were the real kingpins  yep whatever happened to him uh prison dead. it's that's what happens. that's what happens you  play the game you know it's. sometimes you know it comes the end and the  end of the rope for you but uh it was uh.

it was a great time i mean i had i had a lot of  fun um like i said if you like that type of work. you couldn't ask for a better job  you know well why did you leave um. ironically i didn't want to leave in uh you know i  i was in the dea task force from i think 90 to 90. 91 to 94. but in 1992 um i met somebody that  was running for mayor his name was rudy giuliani.

and uh the first time i ever met him i had  uh i had hair down to the middle of my back. i had seven diamond earrings i had six diamond  earrings and a gold loop on the bottom i had a big. goatee i looked like [ __ ] charles manson right  first time i ever met giuliani i had to speak at a. an event and that's kind of what i look like and  um got to talking to him about new york city about.

um you know drugs in new york city what it was  like um how how the city was diminishing under. the prior mayor david dinkins and uh and over time  over the next year two years i started helping him. with his campaign and and lo and behold in 1994  rudy giuliani runs for mayor and he wins 1993.

so in january 20th i think january 1st january  20th in 94 he becomes the mayor of new york city. i was still working at the dea task force. i was having a blast but i ironically i knew  the mayor right and the new mayor which in new. york city that's that's a you know it's  like knowing the [ __ ] president right. so uh how did that how exactly did that connection  happen so i was i was a member of what they call.

the honor legion um the honor legion is a  fraternal group of cops in new york city. that the only way into the honor legion is you  have a certain medal uh for heroism or above so. if you have accommodation you know for a gunfight  or a shooting or you know whatever something you. know a violent act you get that metal or higher  i had five commendations i had in exceptional.

merit i had um the medal for valor so you get  inducted into the honor legion well giuliani. came to the honor legion um and he was actually  coming to speak at an event for that cop that. was killed in 1988 michael busick that i told you  about um he was coming to that and i was there and. i was going to introduce him and i introduced him  and uh we had a side conversation about you know.

thanking him for coming and about what was  going on in the city and about a week later. i got a call from his office and his uh  his assistant says um mr giuliani's going. out to the hamptons for the weekend and he  wanted to know if you could drive him out. to the hamptons and hang out with him for the  weekend he'd like to talk to you about the city. i'm like dude i'm a [ __ ] detective like but i've  never been to the hampton so [ __ ] it i'm going. i'll take them out to the hamptons  i'll hang out with them for the weekend.

and uh this is a true story we wind up pulling  into this some [ __ ] mansion on the ocean this. big mansion on the ocean and it's susan lucci's  house and she comes walking out to the car. takes us inside shows me my quarters  where i'm gonna live for the weekend. i've never seen no [ __ ] like  that before right i'm like damn so. hung out with him for the weekend and um and  that's how i started to get to know him and then.

you know as he was running for mayor i was helping  put together a security detail for him i had a. bunch of volunteers until until he's actually  the candidate and he's running in a primary. you don't get protection from the intelligence  division in nypd so i took a bunch of volunteer. cops to put them aside to him in their volunteer  time to make sure that he was okay when he was.

campaigning and uh and that went on for about  a year and a half almost two years and then he. [ __ ] won then he was he won and he was the mayor  so uh i was in dea i was great everything was good. and i get a call one day from his uh his personal  counsel who said the mayor once you know the mayor. was asking for it like where are you like all the  guys that had worked with him during the campaign. they all got transferred to the intelligence  division so they were working on his campaign and.

and then they got assigned by the intel division  assigned to the mayor to his protective detail. and i said i'm i'm not going i don't want to  go to intel i like what i'm doing i want to say. right here in dea and i figured i got i got the  best of both worlds i know the mayor personally. that's great but i'm i had a great job like  i'm having a good time we had just we had just. extradited diaz back to the country just brought  him back in like think january of 1994 and um.

so i stayed in dea and i think it was  like somewhere around the middle of april. my lieutenant walks back to my cubicle in my  office at dea and he goes dude congratulations. i said what's the matter what's up he  said you guys you just got transferred. he's transferred to where he goes to intel  i said no he said yeah he said we just got.

a telephone message you got transferred to  intel you're going to the mayor's detail. and i called up his counsel his name was  danny young i said danny i don't want to go. i don't want to do this he goes too  late he said the man the mayor wants you. the mayor keeps asking where are  you at how come you're not down here. i said [ __ ] it all right so i get transferred  to intel i go down to city hall i get assigned as.

you know i didn't want to be one of the bodyguards  you know the number one and number two or. you know so i said they said what do you want  to do i said i don't know i'll do the advanced. stuff i'll be in advance that way it gives  me a little freedom to do what i want and. you know you're not stuck around the mayor all the  time right um so i said i'll i'll do the events so. i started doing the advance and uh i  wasn't it wasn't like i don't know a month.

i get a phone call go down and see him  so i go down to city hall and i walk in. and he said listen i have a problem he goes  yesterday and i had a riot at rikers island. he goes and i went to the hospital he said it's a  mess so i'm hiring a new correction commissioner. and that correction commission is going to take  over i wanted to clean up rikers he goes they're.

averaging about 150 stabbings and slashings a  month he said i wanted to i want that to stop. he's got to clean it up and i want you to go help  him he said you you ran a jail in new jersey i. know how you work i said no no hold up i ran like  aj like one jail i had 1100 inmates i said that's. not rikers there's 16 jails in the new york city  corrections system 130 000 admissions per year.

150 stabbings and slashings per month it's the  most violent criminal jail system in the country. that's not where i was it's not the same he  said that's okay you're gonna do it anyway. you're gonna go with the commissioner you're  gonna be his executive assistant and you're. gonna help him get through this i said all  right i'll do it for six months six months.

got done i said for sure six  months done okay six months well. just about on my six month anniversary i get a  midnight call to go to gracie mansion to see the. mayor i walk in he sits me in this hits me in this  room sitting across from me so listen um tomorrow. i'm firing the commissioner i'm not happy with  what he's doing i'm bringing in a new commissioner.

and i want you to focus on the unions and i  want you to you know to help clean that place up. and i said okay i said look i'll do it i  said but some of the stuff you're telling. me you want me to do that's really i  can't step on the commissioner's toes. and he goes oh wait whoa whoa i forgot to tell you  you're going to be the first deputy that's what.

he said you're going to be the first deputy  which is number two in charge you have the. commissioner the first deputy commissioner he  said so you're not going to have an issue with. um authority i says mr mayor there is  a first deputy commissioner he goes. yeah i know fire him do whatever he got to do he  said he's not doing his job anyway get rid of him. i want a whole new team you pick the team boom  next morning next afternoon one o'clock i think.

in the afternoon he makes the announcement and  over the next two and a half years i was the first. deputy commissioner of the largest jail system in  the nation and in that two and a half year period. we reduced in the inmate on  inmate violence probably by. 60 wow at the end of that two and a half years  the commissioner that i was working with retired. i became the commissioner uh taken over the  department in full and by august of 2000.

we had reduced the stabbings and slashings  by 93 percent we reduced overtime spending. by close to 40 reduced staff sick abuse  by 50. we reduced assaults on staff by 60. completely revamped the department took  it from being the most you know violent.

filthy dirty mismanaged jail system in the  nation and turned it into an international. model for efficiency accountability and security  um and that was over a five and a half year period. and it sounds like you did that by  i'm not trying to simplify it but. it sounds like the main thing you did is  hold people accountable you know what sean.

it's um that's the primary the primary  result is holding people accountable right. um as as an executive as a chief executive of  one of these agencies or as a military commander. your job is to basically look at the mission  statement for what we're supposed to be doing. um establishing goals and objectives for how  you're going to hit that mission statement.

and then holding people accountable to  ensure that they hit the goals and objectives. and that is exactly i mean it sounds super  simplistic but that's exactly what we did that's. what i did here's the mission statement here's the  goals and objectives to hit the mission statement. and now we're going to hold everybody accountable  we're going to hold the staff accountable.

to do their jobs we're going to hold managers  accountable to ensure that they're supervising. we're going to hold the executives  accountable to make sure that their. oversight is responsible efficient and then we're  going to hold the [ __ ] inmates accountable. that was probably equally as important as  anything else because the inmates up to that point. you know they didn't like you you went to sleep  they put [ __ ] tissues in between your toes and.

the fingers and lit them all on fire so you  would wake up in the middle of a fireball. they would you know they didn't like you they'd  stand there [ __ ] in their hand and throw it at. you you know pissing a cup throw it at you that's  the kind of things that went on and and they were. notorious for slashings and stabbings you know we  had guys that would take a piece of dental floss. take razor blade chips of razor blade tie  it to the dental floss five or six pieces.

and [ __ ] swallow it and tie it to the tooth so  they'd have they'd have five or six razor blades. that they would swallow and they'd have it tied  to the two so they could pull it up any time. so you could search them all [ __ ] day long you  could strip search them you could do everything. you anything you wanted you'd never find them you  put them in a cell with another guy for 10 minutes.

and the guy'd get all cut up and you  couldn't figure out how they were doing it. so i bought a shitload of new equipment i bought  these things called the boss chair the body. orifice scanner so if they sat in it it could  tell you if they stuck something up their ass. you had a thing that they could put their  neck on and they would tell you if they had. anything in ingested um so you would you would  identify that stuff and then i put them in a cell.

that had traps inside the sink in the  toilet so if they went in the cell. and they knew they were going to get searched  they would dump this stuff and they'd flush it. down the toilet the trap would catch it now  once the trap caught it i would lock them up. i would charge them with criminal possession of  a weapon that began the difference historically. nobody got charged with a crime the first  major event that i had as the first deputy.

i remember these two spanish kids held a black  kid down on the ground and they carved lk into his. back with a [ __ ] chicken bone right a sharpened  chicken bone probably gave him 100 stitches right. latin kings lk they put it in the middle of the  back carved them right so i said to my guys i said. what are you doing with this guy what do you do  they said well they were in punitive segregation. solitary i said i know but what are we doing with  him you know what are you going to do with him.

what do we charge him with well we don't  really charge him it's up to the bronx d.a. we don't charge him because the bronx d.a  looks at this stuff as this is jail this. is prison that's what happens i said [ __ ]  that because if i walked outside the building. if i went outside the building right now and i  cut you if i slashed you across the face with a.

razor blade chip and it gave you 30 stitches i'd  be charged with criminal possession of a weapon. assault with a deadly weapon they'd  have five charges to charge me with. but because it happened behind a prison wall no we  don't charge them because that's [ __ ] effective. immediately they get charged wow and that's what  we started doing so i started charging the inmates. um you know if they lit something on fire they  get charged with arson um if they were involved in.

gang activity i called in the feds you know gang  activity put ten of them together it's a rico case. so that's what happened at the end of my five and  a half years in command between commissioner and. first deputy we went from you know 150 stabbings  and slashings per month on the month that i became. police commissioner we're born we had one incident  and i was pissed about that one right i was pissed.

um i wanted a clean slate but we reduced violence  to levels that they had not seen in 30 40 years. that's amazing how how quick which sounds like it  was extremely quick but how fast did you start to. begin to see results by holding people accountable  and then facing the consequences for their actions. both on and the imminent side and the in the  corrections side three months three months.

three months you start seeing it immediately  within three months you know it's it's like today. it's like today in in the us today where  they have these defund the police movements. you know defund the police the funds of police  means you're reducing police capacity staffing. right resources you're reducing training um  you're reducing uh you know equipment and.

other resources um all this is all stuff that  over the last 30 40 years we've tried to enhance. to make the jobs of the cops easier to make the  jobs of the cops put them in a position where they. didn't have to use lethal force lethal weapons and  all of a sudden now we're going to take all that. [ __ ] back and put them in a position where it's  them and a gun like what are you nuts you know. peop people don't think long term they don't  they're not thinking these these mayors and.

governors and people like that they have no  conception of what the job consists of they don't. really give a damn um they don't look into it and  then they make these decisions and what happens. within a month you see substantial increases  in violent crime shootings of murders and then. they're sitting around in a [ __ ] circle jerk in  washington going can't understand what's happening.

why is crime going up why is crime going up your  morons are doing it you're doing it to yourself. but that's what was happening in correction in  the notorious thing and i know you've seen this. or heard this in the military you know somebody  new comes in they took a look at it and they go. all right guys this is really [ __ ]  up we got to change it for this reason. and somebody looks at you and goes yeah but  that's that's the way we've always done it right.

i know it doesn't work yeah and you guys continue  to [ __ ] do it the same way you've always done it. it didn't work then it's not  working now it doesn't work. and uh and that's how you make change you know i  was going to wait till the end to bring this up. but uh we have a we have a patreon subscription  account that has full of nypd police officers. and uh we asked him when we told  him you were coming on the show.

we asked him if they had any questions and we  probably got 500 questions uh but one particular. question that really sticks out is a is from a  woman and she's been with the pd for i don't know. several years and has made a career out of it and  she wanted to ask you what is it going to take. to get the nypd back to what it was when you were  commissioner you know what it's going to take.

it's going to take it's going to take a  new mayor it's going to take a new mayor. and i'd say a new commissioner um you know  whether you liked giuliani whether you like. him today you don't like him giuliani was in  my eyes the best commissioner the best mayor. in the history of new york city for this  reason when it came to the nypd and rikers. he took under his command under his tenure as  mayor rikers saw the most substantial reduction.

in violence in its history right turned a jail  system the largest jail system in the country. into an international model the people replicated  or tried all over the nation in the city. he had the most substantial reductions in crime  in the history of the city a 65 percent during.

his eight years a 65 reduction in violence a 70  reduction in murder and in the black community. in the inner communities the communities of color  where the violence was the highest were all the. shootings and murders most of them were happening  the murder rate there dropped almost 80 percent. why because he let the cops do their jobs when  i was the correction commissioner and i said you.

know i've got 40 guys in emergency service 40 for  a 13 000 man department i've got 40 guys in esu. i need 120. mayor said 120 see seems like a lot  i said well it seems like a lot if you go from. 40 to 120 i said but here's here's my here's  my idea and here's why i want that enhancement.

every tour on rikers island i want  a 30-man response team on every tour. so if there's a problem that 30-man team responds  but more so when they're not responding i want. them searching facilities i want them looking for  weapons i want them to take the the prior reports. from the day before where they may have had a  spike in violence or they've had gang activity or.

say the warden of a jail sees that there's a spike  in inmates going to religious services now nobody. would think anything of that right when there's  a spike of inmates going to religious services. that means they're getting together to communicate  the gangs they're split they're spread all over. a facility right how do they get together to  go to religious service when you see a spike.

at religious service you know there's something  going on when you see a spike in commissary when. [ __ ] inmates start loading up food in their  commissary you know there's going to be a riot. nobody thought outside the box like that  until i came along and i said you know what. we see those spikes we see those commissary things  going on you're gonna [ __ ] hit those housing. areas you're gonna go after the gang members  you're gonna go through their stuff and make sure.

that there aren't weapons make sure  they know what they should be doing. watch every move they make well that's what that  esu system was for that's what they were for. the mayor gave it to me the end result i had i had  the most substantial reduction in inmate violence. than anybody's ever had in this country okay in  the nypd same thing no matter what i asked for. in the pd mary gave it to me if i thought we  needed more cops and narcotics we got them if.

i thought we needed you know more equipment  we got it the result was increase increases. in efficiency accountability management and  decreases in violent crime shootings and murder. simple stuff if they want to change what's going  on today right now you have a [ __ ] mayor that's.

a marxist he's an admitted marxist bill de  blasio whose real name is [ __ ] wilhelm right. bill de blasio in 1986 was running around  supporting the sandinistas he is an emitted. marxist he despises this country right he believes  in all this [ __ ] leftist marxist socialist. communism [ __ ] he believes that that guy  got elected to be the mayor of new york city.

he's done everything in his power to diminish  the police and victimize the thugs villainize the. cops take resources away from them he he actually  called for the defunding of a billion dollars out. of their six billion dollar budget he authorized  removing six hundred plainclothes anti-crime cops. off the streets of new york city which  is the most ludicrous preposterous thing.

that you can do in an area like new york what  happens and if you go back and look at a year and. a half when he did this two years ago when he did  it you know reporters called me and they said what. do you think i said what do i think you're going  to see an immediate spike in shootings and murder. it's common sense yeah you either  take the guns off the streets. or you leave the guns you take the anti-crime cups  off the streets you're going to leave the guns.

that's so that's that's you know the answer is  you know there's a bunch of elements to it but. the bottom line is you need a [ __ ] mayor  it's going to allow the cops to do their job. and you need cops that have the  courage to go out and do their job. cops today the morale of cops today some  of these guys are [ __ ] in their pins. they don't want to be sued you know new york city  voted the city council voted on this thing to. you know diminish or remove the immunity for cops  doing their job really yeah that's that's bizarre.

i mean it's just it's just an attack on law and  order and that's what we have now we have mayors. city council members governors that are  attacking public safety and law and order. it's a uh you know unfortunately it doesn't sound  like anybody's ever going to be held accountable. uh for what's happening but uh there is  definitely a consequence but i'm going to tell you.

something sean and this is brand new right  this this happened within the last few days. there's an attorney by the name of  rosemarie arnold out of new jersey. that actually within the last two or three days  filed a lawsuit against the city of austin texas. and she filed that lawsuit because the city of  austin voted to defund their police and during.

the course of that defunding in the aftermath  of that that defunding there was a young man. that was murdered in austin and basically  what the family of this young man said. if you didn't defund the police and you didn't  remove and diminish the amount of police you. have in the streets that homicide wouldn't have  happened so keep this in mind you know mayors.

governors city council members they have  sovereign immunity um you know when they're. in positions like that because you know they're  made things may happen that are negligent but. they weren't directly responsible for right  so they get this blanket of sovereign immunity. but if you intentionally change the  policy intentionally for political gain.

you don't get that sovereign immunity and i  honestly think i think this lawsuit that was just. pushed in austin i think this is going to be  a movement a bunch against a bunch of these. mayors and governors and city council members to  basically hold them accountable for doing what. they're doing because there's nothing positive  about defunding the police yeah there's nothing. positive that comes out of that i mean i think  it's been the same result in every major city.

that's done that every every major city that  has defunded which started in minneapolis they. defunded they eliminated cops they they forced  cops into resignations forced cops into retirement. all of that has been redone they're refunding  they're rehiring and the problem with this now. is guys with the long-term experience guys  that could be training officers guys that.

know the job know the area know the people  know the the places they're all gone they left. so now you gotta [ __ ] hire a bunch of new guys  right that have to come in and get trained up. and over time they'll get that experience but  at the end of the day you're defunding destroyed. the morale destroyed the department destroyed  community relations that's what you do when you.

defund not to mention reduced manpower resources  training stupid if the system does happen to. clean itself up do you think any  of the experience will come back. i do uh you know look the people that are in this  line of work it's like it's like the teams right. the people that's in that line of work they love  their job they love their job nobody goes out and.

puts their [ __ ] life on the line you know on  a daily basis because they don't like to do it. you know call it what you want i loved my  job i loved doing what i did i loved it i. i didn't want to do any other job didn't  want to do anything else i know guys in. special operations whether it's the army or  navy they love their job they leave the job. because of politics they leave the  job because of a lack of leadership.

that's why they leave the job they  don't leave the job because they love it. they leave for other reasons if you get the right  leadership in place you got you get people that's. going to inspire it's going to motivate it's  going to enhance morale you have leaders like that. [ __ ] people will flock back you  know it's you said something earlier. about you know you know leadership and people  following when i took over the nypd keep in mind.

when i became police commissioner um i had been  in correction for almost six years but i left. the nypd as a detective and i came back as the  commissioner when i came back as the commissioner. the chiefs the deputy commissioners they didn't  like it and there was we we had some issues like. this where you know i had a two-star chief that  basically made a statement in front of a bunch.

of other chiefs he said i'm not working for some  [ __ ] detective that ain't happening he'll be. gone i'll still be here well that didn't work out  so well because he was gone about two days later. um that being said by the end of my term my chiefs  my deputy commissioners and my cops will tell you. unless i fired them or unless i disciplined  them and they hate me mine is that.

they will all tell you everybody else will  tell you if i yell charge they'd [ __ ] run. they would charge they wouldn't even have to  know where they were going because they knew. i would support him i would indemnify them i'd  be there right there with them fighting i'd go. to the mayor for them they also knew they  had a mayor that would he was on their side.

unless they were an administrative [ __ ] up where  they did something criminal unless there was that. mayor giuliani was going to support you that's  what you need so to get back to your question is. people will come guys will come back to  the job the experience will come back. trainers will come back but they're  not coming back to work for marxists. yeah you know it's uh i was saying  about that on the way in today and.

a nation that does not back its war fighters  and law enforcement that's dangerous. but it could get more dangerous because a nation  where the war fighters and law enforcement turn. it their backs on the nation because they  don't get the support that becomes even more. dangerous and i think that we're teetering on  those lines we're right on the edge but um but.

let's move on to when you left rikers so  uh august uh i guess it was august 18th. it was a friday uh i think it was the 18th um  2000. it was a friday night i got a call from. the mayor um about 11 o'clock at night  you get a lot of calls from the mayor. i get a lot of quotes from the mayor but  you'll notice they're always at [ __ ] midnight.

this guy does not sleep you know recently you know  i i worked with him on the election rebuttal for. president trump he ran the legal team and i  worked on the investigative side of the house. and there was some point in time  back in december and january. november i actually told him i said you know  it's been 20 [ __ ] years since we left office. you need to get some sleep like you really  need to get some sleep you know when i was.

police commissioner my last call to him  at night was midnight one in the morning. he called me every morning at 605 i would step  into my car at six o'clock i'd look at the comstat. reports of all the things that happened in the  city last night and just about the time i got done. my phone would ring in the car and it would be  him he's already read all the newspapers he's.

already listened to the news he knows everything  that happened in the city the night before and he. was [ __ ] full of questions at 605. he lives on  three to four hours sleep a day that's all he gets. he was like that back in the 90s in the 2000s  and he's just like that today he's no different. but that being said i got a call from the  mayor about 11 o'clock on that friday night.

and you know the police commissioner had  resigned retired about 11 days prior to this so. it was up in the air who's going to be the new  police commissioner and there were reports in. all the new york tabloids the new york post  the daily news the new york times newsday. um every day there was a different story it's  going to be bernie carrick the mayor likes abc. no the next day it's going to be joe dunn  he was the chief of the nypd next day it's.

back to bernie carrick then it's joe dunn then  it's bernie carrick and it's joe dunn well on. that friday night eleven days after the police  commissioner retired he calls me and he says uh. bern listen i just hung up with joe dunn and  he hesitated and i remember thinking in my head. it seemed like an hour it was probably only 10  seconds but it seemed like a [ __ ] hour and. i'm thinking in my head who do you call first  the loser or the winner you know and he says uh.

i talked to joe and i've asked joe to you know  to take a step up from chief and become the first. deputy police commissioner and he's he's saying  that i'm trying to i'm trying to grasp my head. where we're going right what's what's and he said  um tomorrow morning i want you to be at city hall. at nine o'clock and you're going to take over  the nypd as the city's 40th police commissioner.

big day big day emotions emotional um you know a  lot a lot of people don't know the first new york. city police commissioner was teddy roosevelt um  you know who later became the governor of new york. later became the president of the united states  and uh in his shield his badge was actually made.

by tiffany's by jeweler and that's 18 karat  gold five platinum stars and that shield is. the shield that you get um when you take over the  nypd which in the united states is the biggest. police department in the in the country right so  uh under my command uh as of that saturday morning. i had 55 000 men and women uh that worked for  me 41 000 uniformed 14 000 civilians um i had.

a three and a half billion dollar budget at the  time and uh and you're responsible not only for. the men and women of the nypd but you're  also responsible for the 12 million people. that visit live work go to school in new york  city so it's a pretty big job yeah i'd say so.

what are that i mean what. what was going through your head when then when he  announced that the next day you know i it was uh. it was a great it was i don't know it's you know  like i said earlier it's one of those things. you know you're you're sitting there you know  just like when i was on september 11th when i'm. you know i'm looking around the room  and i'm thinking wow you know this is.

this is going to be a day in history for me you  know that all started on the morning of the 19th. of uh august in 2000 when i was basically  sitting up on a stage and the mayor's. introducing joe dunn as the new first  deputy and introduces me as the new. new york city police commissioner and howard  safer hands me that shield and gives it to me. and um you know it was a crazy crazy day you know  the feelings the emotions and for me it was um.

there was something going on that maybe  others uh you know other pcs didn't feel. or they didn't have the same same feelings  and the reason was in the audience. but between the time the mayor called  me he called me about 11 o'clock. that night and nobody nobody knows  this story this is pretty slick.

the mayor told me so listen this is embargoed  until 3 a.m i don't want you to tell anybody. until after 3 because the daily news and the new  york post can get it on the front page up into two. right i don't want nobody to know this is gonna  happen i don't want nobody to know who it's gonna. be we're gonna call a press conference  in the morning and it will be announced. i said okay so about one o'clock now i'm still  not asleep i can't sleep i'm [ __ ] wide awake.

but at one o'clock one of my best friends my  former partners the kid that got shot in that gun. battle with uh carlos carrion i mentioned earlier  the guy put his hand up got shot well he was. he was a bodyguard for a new york state supreme  court judge he was assigned to the intelligence. division at one o'clock in the morning that  morning he called me and i answered my phone and.

he said hey commission how you doing i said i'm  good he said uh let me ask him you heard anything. no i i can't i don't want to tell him right  mayor said don't tell him don't tell nobody. i said um well i said i don't know we'll  talk about it tomorrow i said why what's. up he's well i heard something i said you heard  something so what'd you hear he said well you. know so and so that was uh you know he was the  head of the detail for howard safer the former.

police commissioner i said yeah he said he just  called me and he said that howard safer told him. that you're the man i said really he said that  i said he said yeah i said well listen i don't. want to talk about it right now i said here's  what we're going to do nine o'clock tomorrow. morning you get all my guys all my friends all  our friends i said and make sure they're at city.

hall in the blue room at 9 00 am he goes yes sir  and he hung up now the guys he brought with him. these were all battle tested cops these are cops  i was involved in gun battles with these are. cops that you know they were other guys that were  involved in gun battles their partners were shot. killed really battle tested cops they had [ __ ]  medals up to their ears right they all showed up.

they all came in the blue room so when  i became the police commissioner right. it wasn't about the chiefs it wasn't about the  commissioners the deputy commissioners was about. them and that's what they knew that's you know  people you know they knew me as as one of them. not as some executive that's gonna make a [ __  ] policy or a decision you know not having any.

[ __ ] clue what he's talking about he's going to  make a decision because he's really done this job. you know and there were times when i was police  commissioner that i did things i'll tell you this. one story so in august of 2001 about a month month  and a half before the world trade center attack. i was promoting a cop by the name of joe  vigiano he was an emergency service cop.

super highly decorated had been  involved in two different gun battles. one in 89 and one in 94 i think had been shot  seven times shot in the chest both times i think. shot in the leg shot in the shoulders  all [ __ ] up but he stayed on the job. and he went to esu so he was like in the  nypd swat team right we had about 400.

450 guys in esu well that's where he wanted  to go and that's where he was that's where. he was assigned i was promoting him to second  grade detective and he came down to my office. and i know him he's a big muscle-bound kid and  i congratulated him and he was walking out of my. office and he looked over in the wall and he saw  photos of me when i was young rappelling out of. a helicopter you know when i was in passaic  county new jersey i started their swat team. so he was he's looking at these photos and he says  commission is that you i said yeah he goes in that.

to you and it's just he goes yeah he said listen  every saturday we go down to the uh the base of uh. city hall he said and we walk up on the brooklyn  bridge he said we go up to do some training have. breakfast he said you should come i said i should  come where he said come up on the bridge with us. let's come up on the bridge he said yeah  yeah we walked the tunnel with a pole.

because he want me to come walk on the bus and for  what he said well we go training we're gonna have. breakfast up there i said that's okay i said i've  done that [ __ ] see those photos i've done that. [ __ ] already he goes come on so he's walking  out the door and as he gets to the door he turns. around he said you know we've asked the last four  or five police commissioners they never have the. balls to go up there i see a [ __ ] all right  i'll say okay all right so i called my team i. said listen saturday morning 10 o'clock we're  going uh we're going to go down to the bridge.

and naturally and by then that cop that made  that call to me that cop that got shot in the arm. he was my number one on my protective detail so  i called him i said listen saturday we're going. up on a bridge he was commissioned really dude  really he goes like i'm your number one saturday. i said imagine you're gonna go on a bridge and we  walked up on the [ __ ] bridge so i walked on the.

bridge when you know anybody that knows any of  this stuff it's but the only way to get up there. is you have to walk on these it's a round  pole it's a it's like this tube right. you walk up that tube you hold on to these two  wire cables and you [ __ ] walk all the way to the. top of the bridge takes about 30 minutes to get  up there and it's pretty crazy right you go up and. the crazier thing is you got to [ __ ] walk down  when you're going up you're looking up you don't.

see nothing when you're coming down you're looking  at cars that are about this big oh [ __ ] right so. and it's all about walking on that pole  and holding on to the cables so uh i went. up and here's the most ironic part of that day i  remember him telling me we go up to have breakfast. so we i walk up with them there's about 20 guys  they go up and the reason they go up is because.

every day in new york city you know a lot of  people don't know this there are jumpers that want. to [ __ ] jump off the george washington bridge  the brooklyn bridge the verrazano bridge you know. there's all kind of craziness that esu has to  respond to right they got to go up and get these. get these knuckleheads off the bridge  so that's why they go up they go up. they practice you know their ropes their you know  all their technical equipment everything they need.

but when we were going up on the bridge he  said we go up for breakfast why climb up the. [ __ ] bridge it was like a restaurant on the top  they had like orange juice coffee bagels locks. they'd like all the stuff up there to have  breakfast and i started laughing i said. where how'd you get all this [ __ ] food  up here they said well two guys flip a. coin and the guys that lose they have to  put all that [ __ ] on their back and they.

got to bring that [ __ ] up there and we  have breakfast and lo and behold i went up. i hung out with all these esu guys had breakfast  for the morning came down and took off that's the. the good part of the story the bad part of the  story is joe viggiano died on september 11th. um this was a guy that you know uh was a heroic  cop he was a dedicated cop he was a cop like i.

said involved in two different gun battles  over a 40-year period shot five or six seven. times and still chose still chose to stay on  the job be assigned to emergency service and. the first time i ever met him when i heard about  him getting shot and i heard about all this stuff. i asked them we were in a group of uh a group  of cops that had been injured in the line of. duty i asked him i said joe why are you still  here like why aren't you retired like a line of.

duty retirement you know you actually make more  money being off the job than you do on the job. eagles commission i'm not leaving this job i  love this [ __ ] job he said i love this job. he died on september 11th so uh you know it's uh  and today it's kind of weird for me because he has. three sons he had uh two young sons very young  an actual his wife had a baby right around the.

time he died um today his two older sons one  is in the 7-5 precinct that wears his shield. another one is uh in the marine corps the  cop that's in the 7-5 he's in the marine. corps reserves and the other one's  in the coast guard so his three boys. is three boys that he pretty much barely got  to know that barely got to know him they were.

they were probably seven or eight at the time  eight or nine maybe um right down to the baby. today they're serving the city in this  country so talks a lot about that family. wow when you took when you accepted the position  and they made the announcement when giuliani. announced you were new york  city police commissioner.

how confident were you that you could lead was  it 55 000 police officers um i was a thousand. percent confident you know it's it's like we  talked about earlier about taking that step. i'm not i'm not one of these guys that's gonna say  no you know when when he actually when he wanted. to make me the first deputy i kind of bulked and  i said look it's not the same you don't understand.

and the mayor said just do what you do all  it is it's a bigger job but do what you do. you enhance morale you you motivate people you  you hold people accountable do what you do it'll. work i promise you to work he was right he saw he  saw something in me i guess that i didn't see at.

the time i didn't understand over time i get it i  got it right over time i i understood it today i. understand it better than probably anybody because  i've been through it more times than you can count. but when i became police commissioner i  knew i had a three-pronged job at the time. continue crime reduction enhance the  morale of the men and women in the nypd.

and enhance community relations that was my three  focal points and i thought there's no [ __ ] way. anybody could do this better than i can and i took  off and over the next 18 months before the attack. i had already reduced violent crime by  almost 15 more than what had happened already. and which the mayor thought was  impossible i remember the mayor telling me. he said whatever happens crime can't go up  even if it's a 2 reduction that's fine but.

you know we we've done a lot but crime can't  go up i dropped it by 15 by the following year. i had the best community relations um you  know interactions with the black community. with the hispanic community than anybody and  the [ __ ] cops loved me why because i was a cop. i think i was a cop more than i was a police  commissioner police commissioner you put.

together the right team you get the right people  under you the right leadership i had a phenomenal. chief of department that i brought in this is a  guy that had a combat cross had a medal for valor. been involved in a number of gun battles highly  respected by the men and women in the field. that's who my chief of department was my chief of  patrol who runs the patrol division for the nypd.

this is a guy that was a cop up in harlem in  uniform and as a chief of patrol would go out. in the middle of the night you know it's ironic i  used to do these runs in the middle of the night. as police commissioner i would go out and stop it  i precinct at 2 30 in the morning walk in or you. know switch my the the have the bodyguard switch  my uh frequencies to local precincts so cops get. a radio run you know shots fired you know a man  with a gun or whatever i'd roll up on the scene.

as the police commissioner and these cops would  be like what the [ __ ] like this is crazy like. they'd never seen the only time they see the  police commissioner in new york city is on tv. or if there's a promotion ceremony or they're  getting a lot of [ __ ] trouble that's it that's. the only time you see him i was constantly in the  field he laid by the front not in the [ __ ] lead. by the front if you lead by example and these men  and women the men and women that work for you know.

that you're going to support them you're going to  be there for them and the other thing is i'm not. asking them i would never ask them to do anything  i wouldn't do whether it was walking up on that. [ __ ] bridge doing an undercover buy in harlem  or spanish harlem or getting out on patrol in the. middle of bed stuy i did it i did it so don't tell  me it can't be done you know don't tell me you.

know you know you're doing something that i don't  understand oh i understand i get it i understand. it and you know what the men and women that did it  and did it well i took care of you know new york. city and for the new york city cops that watch  this they'll understand this really well there's. a lot of politics in nypd right when i took  over and we were going through the promotional.

reviews for detective for example who's going  to make detective who's going to make grade. in detective in other words there's three  grades and detectives you start as a third. grade there's a second there's a first a first  grade detective makes the same equivalent pay. as it's between a lieutenant and a captain  it's a shitload of money for a cop right.

so when i did those reviews i started looking at  the reviews for detectives and i'd see a bunch of. [ __ ] names and you know this detective  works for the chief of uh administration. he's like the [ __ ] guy that gets a coffee in  the morning you know he picks up the newspapers. he drives the chief of administration no no he's  already got a really good job and he's getting. paid well for what he does he doesn't need to be  promoted to a second grade detective now give me a.

guy that had you know three gun battles um give  me give me a guy that's never called that sick. give me the guy give me the guy that has you  know 60 medals i had and this is a true story. i uh in in 1991 i got the medal  of valor when hector got shot. and and we were involved in that gun battle at  that at that um it was 1993 i think when uh when.

i got the medal there was a kid that was getting  his third combat cross at that medal ceremony. well here we are you know eight years later i'm  the new york city police commissioner i'm having a. ceremony they call you know for the medal of valor  recipients and that [ __ ] dude comes up he's got. literally he had 200 medals 200 like  three combat crosses two medals for valor.

and 185 other medals right the most i i believe  he's the most substantially decorated cop in the. history of the nypd he was from the 6-7 precinct  and when they introduced him detective third grade. i forget his name to take the third grade that  [ __ ] dude was a detective third grade when he.

was getting the combat across the last time when i  saw him so immediately after we left that ceremony. i called him my chief of staff and i said dude  detective third grade really i said how can that. be how has that guy not been promoted since i saw  him last time he's got to be one of the workingest. cops in the nypd i sent him downstairs comes back  he goes all right you're not going to like this.

answer he goes but the chief of the borough the  chief of detectives in the borough doesn't like. him he doesn't like him doesn't like him  why because he embarrasses the other cops. doesn't like him why he says i don't know he  said he just doesn't like him he won't put him in. i'm sorry i said go downstairs to the chief  of detectives this is citywide detectives.

bill ali i said go tell chief ali if that guy  is not on the next round of promotions tell the. chief of the borough put in his retirement papers  i don't give a [ __ ] if he likes him or he don't. like him i don't care what it is whatever  i don't i don't know what it is don't care. that kid better be in the next set of promotions  or that chief is gone and he got promoted. i don't think there's a cop in the country  that would not want to work under your.

command that's the way i managed that's the  way i worked and and all these guys knew it. do you think yours and giuliani's leadership  styles were parallel yeah yeah giuliani. first of all he came from a family of you know  new york city cops his uncle uh uncle rudy was.

actually in emergency service was in  new york city emergency service cop. you know 20 years before i came on a job um  you know so number one he knew the job he knew. you know he knew all about the nypd then he became  the u.s attorney first an assistant u.s attorney. then the assistant then the u.s attorney for the  southern district of new york and then he became. the associate attorney general the number three in  the justice department under president reagan so.

nobody knows this field this you know the  law enforcement community better than he does. he knows it he gets it he understands it um  and he was extremely supportive of the men. and women around him and and i'll tell  you something in the correction arena. normally correction officers are like the black  sheep of criminal justice right nobody gives a [. __ ] about what happens to inmates when once those  doors close right therefore nobody pays attention.

like you don't want to talk about that you don't  want to hear that you don't want to see that. jails and prisons are like something that nobody  really they don't want to know about when i came. along and went to giuliani and and i i pretty  much said that to him i said you know the new york. city correction department it's got 13 000 staff  members you get a 130 000 inmate admissions a year.

it's a big [ __ ] agency but it can't be  traded like the black sheep because guess what. the cops that are out there making the arrest if  we don't have a place to hold them in the place. we do hold them isn't safe and the morale is  [ __ ] well you know it makes the job worse it. makes the city worse if i can change the morale  in the department of correction if you can get.

the prosecutors to do their job we could have the  best of both worlds and that's kind of what we did. so the city on the outside got cleaned  up and the jail system got cleaned up un. unlike anything that had ever happened before  in new york that's a hell of an accomplishment. let's take a break and uh when we come back  we'll start to get into the attack okay.

on september 11th at 8 45 a.m the american  airlines flight 11 struck the north tower.

it not only changed our country in new york  but it also changed the entire world forever. 2996 people were killed in the trade center attack  343 firefighters and medics 23 police officers 37. port authority officials 189 people were killed  at the pentagon in flight 77 pennsylvania flight.

93 44 people died in 2018 there were an estimated  10 000 people who have been diagnosed with 9 11. cancer there has been over 7 000 troops that died  fighting for america's freedom from this event. not to mention all the veterans that have died  and police and firefighters from ptsd and suicides.

overdoses all from triggered from this event it  sent us in to the longest war in american history. you led the greatest rescue mission  of all time in american history. the reason i asked you about fate at the beginning  and if things happen for a reason is because.

we received a ton of questions on how you manage  the stress and how you made your decisions and. i think that the only answer is is. fate everything that you saw from childhood from  your mother being murdered to the beheadings in. saudi arabia to the [ __ ] you dealt with as a cop  that was all stress and it was forging you into.

who you became when september 11th happened and  led that rescue mission i don't think there's. anybody in the world that could have done  a better [ __ ] job than you did that day. and um so that's why i asked  you that if you believed in fate. you know what sean i was there uh i was in command  and i just i i try to tell people that i did the.

best i could under the circumstances um when the  north tower was hit i was actually in my office i. just finished working out i was standing in the  bathroom getting ready to take a shave actually. and my chief of staff and hector  santiago came banging on the door. yelling that a plane had just hit tower one and i  honestly i didn't think anything of it i thought.

you know it was a small aircraft i thought it was  one of these small planes or a helicopter that. may have flown up and down the hudson river given  tours so i walked out of my bathroom and i looked. up at the television that was above a treadmill  and i could see the damage to the building on tv. and i realized that wasn't what i thought  it was so i walked out of my office into my. primary office through there into my conference  room i pulled back the drapes and i could see.

the building the building was only about a  quarter of a mile from police headquarters. the top of the building i had to look  up in the air at the top of the building. and i could see the damage to the top of the  building and i knew that wasn't no small aircraft. so i went back in to my desk i picked up  the phone to call the mayor and the mayor. was actually on the line said he was on the way  downtown um he would meet me at seven world trade.

seven world trade was directly across the street  from tower one that's where the city's emergency. command center was it was on the 23rd floor of  that building so we were going to meet there and. that's where the mayor would oversee the response  to the accident what we thought was an accident.

i was downtown at seven world trade at tower  one probably within seven or eight minutes. i threw all my clothes the bodyguards got the cars  uh revved up took some of my staff with me and we. took off and we came down west broadway got to the  corner of vesey where the the towers were really. and as we tried to turn onto the block to get  to tower 7 there were a bunch of cops there.

they stopped the motorcade didn't know i was in  it told the guys in the car you can't turn onto. the block and they wouldn't let us through and my  guys were getting annoyed they were going to push. their way through um i rolled down the window  the cop it was a sergeant he saw me he stood at. attention saluted me said commissioner you can't  pull on to the under the street they're jumping.

and i didn't know i didn't know what he said it  quit you know he said you can't get on the block. they're jumping i didn't know what that meant  what's he talking about and i got out of the car. walked around the cars got to the corner and  saw this debris coming down off the building. and as that debris got closer to the ground  i realized it wasn't debris it was people. and they were jumping you know one  two three at a time uh over the next.

four or five minutes i guess i  watched a couple dozen people. jump from the building to the ground they  were hitting the ground on bessie the two. the courtyard between one and two um when they  hit the ground they had basically evaporated. we backed the vehicles up i told the guys get back  away from the front of the building we backed the.

vehicles up west broadway almost to barclay  street which was two blocks north of bessie. we uh i told the guys get a hold of the  mayor's vehicle and tell them to meet us there. in the meantime i called for a temporary command  bus i was going to put a temporary command post on. barclay and west broadway because there was no  getting into tower 7. what i didn't know until. i walked down to the corner was that the front  of tower 7 had been damaged destroyed almost.

from all of the debris from one from the  impact the front of seven was also on fire. so we backed our vehicles up was at the  corner of barclay and in west broadway. i was in the middle of calling for  a temporary command bus and all of a. sudden there was this enormous explosion above  us and when i looked up straight up in the air. now keep in mind i'm standing directly in front  of tower two i'm about three blocks north of the.

building but the top of the building is straight  up in the air i look up and there's that big. orange fireball that you see if you watched it on  tv when you see that big orange fireball blow out. the north side of the tower tower 2 i'm standing  in front of it underneath it and i look up i see. it i didn't see the second plane the second plane  came around the southern end manhattan and hit the.

north the the south side of the tower blowing  out the north side of the tower on top of us. we ran up behind tower seven  and behind the post office. got behind those buildings until the majority  of the debris came down to the ground. as we were running one of the detectives  got hit in the back of the leg with a shaft. a shaft piece of the wheel of the plane that's how  close we were to the stuff that was coming down.

i could hear the aviation pilots yelling on the  radios that a second aircraft had just hit tower. two it was at that minute that i realized we were  under attack prior to that it was an accident. prior to that the response for the city would  have been measured there were policies in place.

you know from 1996 on giuliani created the office  of emergency management so there were policies and. protocols in place for major responses major  crises anywhere in the city all over the city. but this was different this was going  to be very different because it was. this was an attack and we had to  respond differently and at that point.

the response changed instead of instead of  the protocols and policies we had in place for. um a much smaller crisis um we now  had other things to worry about. were there other planes of the air  what would the other targets be. um evacuation points who's going to get evacuated  i called for the evacuation of police headquarters.

city hall the u.n the empire state building in  my mind i was trying to think of other targets. that there may be i was also thinking at the  time did they have ground attacks planned. somebody whoever did this and keep it keep in mind  this is this is going on as it's happening right. you know we were a police  department and this is um.

this is it's it's comical to think back now in a  way of of what happened what was said and how it. happened but my my chief of staff was with me at  the base of the towers when all this was going on. and um about two weeks after the attack i was  sitting in the command center up uh at the pier. with the mayor and my chief of staff was  sitting across from me sort of where you.

are and he was talking to some other guys and  they were looking at me and they were smiling. and laughing and joking and i looked over and i  said what are you guys laughing at he said nothing. i said what is it i said what are you laughing  at he said commission we're just talking about. you know that day the day of the  attack i said what are you laughing at. he said you remember what you said  to me he said what you were yelling. i said not really what he said after the second  plane hit tower 2. he said you were in the middle.

middle of calling for the command center  he goes you snatched the radio away from me. and you yelled at me you said get me some air  support and close the [ __ ] airspace he goes. and i rem he said and you turned around to say  something to somebody and i remember looking to. the other guys going give me some here like is  there a [ __ ] 1 800 number for an f-16 like who. am i calling like who you call who do i call to  like shut down the airspace and get us air support.

we're a police department it was comical when  he said it but think of the reality we were now. mixed into a basic war zone yeah we weren't this  wasn't a military unit this is a police department. you know we were prepared for just about  anything under the sun you could imagine.

right any kind of crisis we had manpower like  no other police department in the country. we had resources like no other police  department in the country but nobody imagined. that you would have two jet-sized missiles flown  into those towers so we had to do everything in. our power to secure that area worry about the rest  of the city worry about the mass transit system.

you know if you dropped sarin gas in grand  central station at five o'clock in the afternoon. you can kill a half a million people did  these guys have something like that planned. were there other things like that that was  going to happen we didn't know so we had to. do the best we could under the circumstances  the uh the protocol at that point was to. to basically activate operational mega that's what  the that's that was the title of the response for.

us and that basically was every precinct in  the city with every active cop would respond. to include the fire department in every  city agency so we had the correctional staff. we had the fire department we had the nypd we  had the port authority police everybody was going. um and when you talk about  the magnitude of the rescue.

this was nine o'clock in the morning right 8 45  when the first plane hit 902 when the second plane. hit and at the end of the day there were 20 to 25  000 people in and around the towers at that point. if it was if it was later in the day it would have  been much worse but it was early in the morning so. we evacuated 20 to 25 000 people out  of the immediate area in the buildings.

anybody that was below the impact zones got out  right anybody that was above the impact zone died. there was no getting out then we evacuated close  to a million people out of new york city out of. manhattan out of the southern portion of manhattan  into the other boroughs so you had them going into. queens and the bronx you had him going to staten  island by ferry you had him going to jersey.

just just the boat the evacuation by boats into  new jersey was enormous right you had the state. police the new york city harbor division um  you had civilians in civilian boats pulling up. right near the financial center downtown grabbing  people throwing them in the boats and running to.

the other side of the hudson river um this this  evacuation and uh and and the rescue the initial. rescue operation went on all day went on all day  you can see uh you know if you go back to footage. um from that day on the brooklyn bridge there's  shots of people walking across the brooklyn bridge. there has to be a hundred two hundred thousand  people on the bridge that's walking from manhattan.

to brooklyn going over the brooklyn bridge  um that went on all day um the mayor arrived. the mayor got to me about three minutes  after tower two was hit he rolled up got. out met me at barkley and west broadway and i  remember when he came up to the uh he got to me.

he was standing right next to me and he's watching  all this debris come off the building and as that. debris got closer to the ground he realized that  it wasn't debris and he was he was like oh my god. he put his hands in his uh put his head in his  hands and he was yelling hey oh my god you know. it's funny you you mentioned earlier that you  know whether it was fate or my experience or my. you know my the past you know what i had done  in the past um i've seen a lot of this stuff.

a lot a lot of death in my life right um the  mayor he's never dealt with anything like this. this was something to him that you know although  being a u.s attorney or being the mayor or being. you know the associate attorney general this  was not you know what he's ever dealt with. and those those first images for  him i think were more than stunning.

he grabbed me by the arm and he made a statement  he made a comment that we're in uncharted. territory and i thought i thought at the time he  was talking about the the magnitude of the damage. the attack itself whatever the the devastation um  i realized later in our conversations he wasn't.

talking about that he was talking about an attack  on u.s soil you know in his mind we had just been. attacked on u.s soil and it had never happened  before with the exception of pearl harbor which. was a military attack this was not a military  attack this was an attack by radical muslims. who despised this country who we had we had known  about for years this wasn't the first attack.

on the u.s first attack on u.s soil but not on the  u.s by no means you know you look at the uss cole. the year two before the embassies in kenya  and tanzania the alkamar towers the embassy in. beirut and in 83. this stuff had gone on for years  nobody ever focused on it nobody ever looked at it.

nobody was ever concerned with it as much as they  were in the aftermath of the attack on the towers. so the mayor and i after he got there he wanted to  see the damage to the other side of tower one so. we actually walked down to west street um went to  west street went to a command center a temporary. command center there where there was the the  first deputy commissioner of the fire department.

chief of operations for the fire department chief  of department and father uh michael judge who was. the chaplain he was the chief chaplain for the  new york city fire department they were all at. that command center and we spoke to them um some  of those guys had worked on the oklahoma bombings. um the courthouse bombing in the federal building  in oklahoma they told us they said the chief of.

department against he said look we're going  to lose everything above the impact zone. the possibilities of rescues and  evacuations from above the impact zone. we're not going to be able to do it's not going to  work can't get nobody off the top of that building. we're going to lose those people and we're  going to lose the tops of the building. but that was it nobody thought  the buildings would come down.

and the mayor said okay at that point  the mayor wanted to call the white house. he wanted to speak to the president he wanted to  make sure that we had federal resources at our. disposal and he also wanted to make sure that  we had air support and that the airspace would. be closed down so if there was something else  coming somebody would be on it right so my guys. had secured a merrill lynch office on that corner  of barclay and west west broadway where we started.

so i told the mayor we're going to go back  to where we were we have an office there. we set up a temporary command post you're going to  go in there you can call the president from there. so we walked back up and as we were walking  away father judge from the fire department. he grabbed the mayor's hand he put his hand on  his head he he crossed him and he blessed us. he said god bless you guys be careful and  we walked away we went back to the office.

at barclay and west broadway we went inside they  secured a phone line tony carbenetti who was the. mayor's chief of staff got the white house  on the phone and the mayor was on the phone. um looking for the president they said  the president's not in the building. the vice president is going to come to the phone  in a minute and about a minute later chris hennick. who was a special assistant to the president chris  senate came on the phone and he told he told the. mayor mr mayor we have to go they're evacuating  the white house we think the pentagon just got hit.

giuliani hung up the phone and he was sitting  he was sitting about where you are to me. and i was standing here i was standing in  this doorway and he was sitting at a desk. and he looked at me he put down the  phone and he said [ __ ] that's not good. and i said what is it what'd they say he  said they think the pentagon just got hit.

and before he got to say that they were evacuating  the white house the building we were in started. to shake like a freight train was coming through  the side of it it just started to shake the entire. building and all of a sudden the door flew open  and it was my chief of department joe esposito the. chief of the nypd kicked open the door ran inside  and he said it's coming down everybody get down.

i didn't know if he met the building we were in or  what he meant i didn't know what was going on but. the building we were in started to shake more and  more and more and you know there were there were. people jumping under these little desks and all  this [ __ ] and i thought this [ __ ] desk ain't. going to help nobody i basically stood in the  doorway i braced myself in the doorway and just. stood there and i'm like if this building's coming  down the [ __ ] desk ain't going to help you. um and it went on for about 10 seconds enormously  loud and then all of a sudden there was this.

gush of smoke and gas and soot all the windows on  the outside of the building we were in blew out. and there was this flush of  white dust uh inside the building. and as the door they they opened the door we i  could see that hallway all the all the windows.

blew out there was dust and there was paper and  there was stuff in the wind stuff in the air. um and as we got over there i realized there was  no getting back out the way we came in tower two. was you know two blocks south of us tower  two had imploded that's what was coming down. tower two imploded and to give you an idea of how  much damage there was two blocks north my first.

deputy commissioner was in a dodge minivan  that dodge minivan was about 13 inches high. right outside where we were so basically we  were stuck in this small office and i could. i could remember thinking like all the [ __ ] i've  been through in my life right gun battles stabbed. craziness right my whole career i'm gonna [ __  ] die in this office because i can't breathe.

i mean i could not breathe nobody you know  everybody's holding their trying to hold their. clothes up around their mouth you couldn't  see there was all this [ __ ] in your eyes. and we were trying to figure out a way out and  i was gonna get my guys basically at some point. you know we knew there was a series of doors that  went in the opposite direction to church street. i was basically going to tell the guys  start shooting the hinges off the doors. could you see you could barely see inside you  could see a lot better than you could see outside.

outside you couldn't see nothing it was  clear white um inside you were just you know. you were having a difficult time seeing  because of the [ __ ] that was in your eyes. you know some guys had stuff in there their  eyes were bleeding they were getting all red. um but we were doing a lot better off inside  than people outside there was electricity. or flashlights no there was electricity in our  building there was electricity it was still lit.

um so we're looking at these doors and i'm  thinking i'm gonna tell my guys basically shoot. the hinges off the doors and we'll just take doors  and head toward church see if we can get to church. and all of a sudden this [ __ ] door opens like  one of these doors open and there's these two. short little spanish guys that were maintenance  guys in maintenance uniforms they had a shitload. of keys on them and they were about surprised  they were about as surprised to see us as we.

were to see them imagine they come they come you  know walking they don't know what happened they. don't know what's going on outside they just know  you know it's like the [ __ ] world's coming to an. end they open the door and there's the mayor the  police commissioner the fire commissioner we're. all in one area and i said to this guy said you  have keys to these doors he said yes sir i said. open this door where's it go it goes down this  hallway you have a key to that door yeah open.

that door so we started going through the building  through this maze of hallways and we finally came. out on church street which was about two blocks  to the west two blocks east of where we were. and we came out into that building and i know that  building well one hundred straight street is where. the general counsel for the city was corporation  council right we came into that carter into that. the hallway that building a massive hallway  and i remember looking at the windows thinking.

what's outside because i've been  in that lobby a hundred times. i knew the lobby well they had floor to  ceiling plate glass windows around that lobby. i couldn't see anything on  the other side of the windows. it was solid white it was like somebody took a  [ __ ] white sheet and laid it up on the window. and i'm thinking i mean i remember at some  point and i don't know if it was then or.

a little later thinking was this an is  this a nuclear blast like what is this. what is all this white [ __ ] because i can't  you can't see anything out those windows. so there was a rotating door on that side of the  building to get outside and that door spun and as. that spun somebody was coming in and it was my  deputy commissioner for administration who was. actually outside when the building came down he  came in his name was tibor carreques he came in.

to the building and he had [ __ ] blood dripping  down the front of his face out of his eyes he was. covered in white white dust and he could barely  see and we had we had some guys lay them down. they were pouring water into his eyes trying to  get rid of all the [ __ ] that was in his eyes and. i walked over and i walked out that vestibule door  that he came in i walked outside and now keep in.

mind we're five blocks from tower two maybe maybe  a little more i walked outside and on the ground. there was this much dust at least on everything  five blocks away there was this solid white dust. and there was no [ __ ] sound there was no sound  it's like if i just if i put you in a soundproof.

booth right now that's what it was like there  was no sound there was no birds no sirens. no [ __ ] movement no nothing was like  somebody took something and put it on. your head and eliminated all the sound that was  one of the eeriest feelings of that day for me. because you know how much how much  material had to come down to muffle. every bit of sound out there right  in the city of new york no sound none.

so i got the mayor we couldn't go back to  city hall his guys wanted to go to city hall. they had wanted to go earlier so he could call  the white house i didn't want him to go back to. city hall i figured if we went back to city hall  and there was something else planned we wouldn't. be prepared for it luckily we didn't go to city  hall because had we we would have been walking. behind tower 2 when it came down so by getting him  out of the danger zone getting him back to barclay.

that part was safe now i'm thinking where  are we where are we going city hall is closed. police headquarters is evacuated what are  we going to do i didn't want anybody to. know where he was you know it was my job at that  point more than anything else secure the mayor. you need a leader to lead he's not doing us  any [ __ ] good if he if he gets if he dies.

you know if something else happens so i decided  we're gonna we're gonna walk up church street. we're gonna go to the soho grand hotel i sent my  guys to the soho grand and i said take over the. hotel take over the the inside of the hotel  we use that as a temporary command center. until we can figure out what else is happening  because in my mind if they hit the pentagon.

they hit both of the biggest financial buildings  in the country what else is there right i didn't. know about 93 at the time um so we we walk  up to the soho grant we walk in one door. we're walking in the advanced team's up there  they're trying to get a bunch of phones in place. i walk in i look around the whole  [ __ ] base of that hotel was glass.

looked around i took one look around i looked  at the mayor he looked at me i said we need to. stay in here gotta go walked through the lobby in  one door out the other door and started walking. continued down church street until we got to  houston there was a fire fire station in houston. street it was completely locked there was nobody  in it everybody from that station had gone to the. uh trade center we broke broke into the  fire station the mayor used the phone inside.

and at that point i decided you know what  i got to get him out of the danger zone. i got to get him in a place where it's  going to be secure nobody's going to know. i pulled up the cars i told my guys throw  them in the car we're going to the new york. city police academy new york city police academy  was in gramercy park so to speak on 20th street. 20th street between 2nd and 3rd  avenue that's where the academy was.

we're going to the academy so it's my  administration my deputies the people that. are with me his immediate staff we all jumped in  the car we took off a series of cars and we went. to uh the police academy we set up a temporary  command post there um i i called all the press.

uh there was a press pool there was a  number of reporters that were with us. i had to meet me outside uh i got them all in one  group i said so listen up here's the deal this is. going to be our temporary command post this area  in everything around it and by it is embargoed. i don't want no photos i don't know pictures i  don't want no locations given over the networks. i want nothing if you do it i will arrest  you i'll lock you the [ __ ] up nothing.

i don't want nobody to know the mayor's here  i don't want nobody to know where we're at. clear yeah okay good boom went back inside  and then basically that's where that was our. the beginning of our operational day mayor  was talking to by then the mayor talked to. the president because the president was in  florida mayor talked to the president talked. to some of the other city leaders talked to the  governor the governor was on the way to see us.

that was the beginning of our day. how much time had passed from the time you  were trapped in there to the time we got the. mayor in the command center uh probably an hour  hour and a half what was the drive like i mean. was where the streets streets were pretty much  clear at that time um everybody was you know.

keep in mind this is the world trade center  so the world you could see the world trade. center all the way uptown right if you're  looking down 7th avenue you could see it. it was gone trade center was gone as we were  walking up church street going to that firehouse. tower one imploded we heard it implode we heard  it come down um you know people around us people. were screaming uh yelling uh you know every time  one of the buildings came down there was this.

mad push of this you know the debris and the  dust and the papers and the all that stuff you. know that stuff pushed for blocks and blocks  so all of southern manhattan was saturated. during the course of calling for  the rescue and the response teams. we shut manhattan down from 14th street all the  way south that was you know that was uh 30 blocks.

north of tower one and two but we closed all  of southern manhattan down the only people. allowed to this is another thing that i think was  historic at the time it was probably the first. time in the history of the city new york city was  closed there are signs if you go back you'll see. i called for the closing of the city new  york city closed there's big signs at the.

tunnels at the bridges nobody was allowed  to come into the city unless you were. first responder the only people allowed  to come in were first responders that's it. how fast were we able to make  that decision to evacuate the city. was that immediately yeah it was one of one  one you know one thing after another yeah. um you know the evacuation um  was all part of the you know. the the other thing about the evacuation  that i think people don't realize.

we we got probably over a million million  and a half people out of southern manhattan. over about a four five hour period without  incident without incident yeah no headaches. everything was smooth cops were doing their job  people were uniting people were doing their job. you know we had a lot of volunteers a  lot of people coming to help um you know.

you'd be surprised at how a country can come  together when they have to regardless of. the color of your skin your religion  your you know your political uh party. didn't make any difference there's a there's a  story this is a true story but there's only a. couple people that can tell it and one of them  is me one of them's the mayor we were actually.

there you know president bush came to ground  zero on september 15th um it came down to um. came to uh ground zero looked around when he got  up on the big pile with the bull horn and he said. you know the people that did this they're gonna be  held accountable they're to hear us we're going to. you know we're going to do to them what we need  need to do all that you know he like motivating. inspiring well when he was done he wanted to  go see the the families of the people that.

were missing you know or that list you had right  23 cops 23 uh my guys um 37 port authority cops. and uh in their executives uh they lost 343  firefighters the families of their those missing. they were in the javits center up on 34th street  so the president wanted to go see them and uh. so the president says come on let's go get in  my car where he was in a suburban the president.

suburban has four [ __ ] seats in it right with  the six of us so it's me the mayor governor pataki. is like six seven right richie shearer the oem guy  and the fire commissioner we're pretty big boys. so the president goes getting it get the suburban  and i i said mr president i said we'll have to get. in another car because you know it's too many of  us he said get in everybody get in so literally.

we get in the suburban and we're like this like my  legs over the president's leg like this you know. everybody's in the suburban and we drive from  ground zero we go up the west side highway. and going up the west side highway to 34th  street there's thousands of people and they're. in the streets with these big [ __ ] signs you  know god bless america go get him mr president.

george bush with big [ __ ] hearts and all this  all this [ __ ] right and the president as we're. going up with the west side highway bush is  looking out the window when he says look at this. he says to giuliani he said look at this  he said i can't believe the unity he said. i love these people these are god-loving  people these are they love this country. and the mayor looked at the president and he  said mr president he says um i hate to be the.

one to tell you this but we are on the west side  of manhattan not one of those people voted for you. and everybody burst out laughing right  governor pataki was laughing the loudest. and the mayor looked at him he said governor  i don't know what you're laughing at. none of them voted for you either because  this is the west side of manhattan. super liberal right but  here's here's what bothers me.

yeah the super liberal was  the west side of manhattan. those people [ __ ] hated george bush before  that day but on that day and in the days after. and on the time during the attack they love this  country they love that flag they love george bush. this was this was hallowed ground  this was the first battleground.

in this 20-year war against global terrorism. where are those [ __ ] people today yeah  where are all those people today we're. those people that were [ __ ] scattered  like mice that were scared to death. you know you know where they're at they're  attacking cops they're calling for a socialist.

society they're talking everything that they  can they can talk about when it comes to. an anti-america i don't get it what do you need a  september 11th to like you know bring them back to. reality i [ __ ] hate it i hate it i hate it  more than any you know up until four or five. years ago from that day on from september 11th  on i don't think anybody was more of a proponent.

um to go after radical islam than i was right i  knew it i understood it i i was a witness to it i. i was there for the most substantial terror  attack in world history um i you know. up until five years ago if you ask me what is  the greatest threat against this country i would.

have said radical islam i would have said the same  people that attacked us on september 11th they're. still out there they have the same mindset it  hasn't changed it's not going anywhere but today. that's not my greatest fear today my greatest fear  is the infusion of socialism in this country my. greatest fear is that we have [ __ ] congressmen  we have people in the house of representatives.

that are marxist that are far left-wing radicals  that despise this country we have leftists in the. house of representatives to think it's okay  to be a venezuela or cuba or china or iran. we have members in the house of representatives  that despise israel and what it stands for. to me that's insane that's insane but  what's more insane than them being there.

is we have [ __ ] americans devoted those people  into office i don't get that i just don't get it. so i don't know i'm rambling i'm talking too  much but i don't get it either i never will. i don't know how long was  new york city shut down for.

um well look the the the initial rescue attempts  um and and i say attempts because there were. no rescues really nobody was rescued if you  were in the building above the impact zone or. in and around the base of the building when the  buildings come down you died that was it every. one of those guys that we met at that command  center the fire department uh priest father judge.

that blessed us and told us to go and be careful  he died um the chief of the fire department died. the chief of operations for the fire department  died the first deputy commissioner for the fire. department died they were all at that command  center we missed that by 15 to 20 minutes damn. had we stayed 15 or 20 minutes at that longer  where they were um we would have died also.

um so the initial rescue attempts that stuff went  on for two weeks three weeks then it turned into a. recovery uh mission and the recovery lasted pretty  much right up into the time that the last piece. of debris was pulled out of ground zero and that  was almost six months to the day of the attack.

and keep in mind that debris was moved that  rotation of removing debris from ground zero. getting the stuff out of there  that six months was 24 hours a day. they had construction and trucking teams working  on that debris 24 hours a day for six months. around the clock everything that was  at ground zero was taken to fish skill.

in staten island and basically  that turned into the biggest. crime scene and evidence collection site in u.s  history because everything that was in ground zero. was transferred to fish skill and we went  through it there and so think of this. you had two of the two of the biggest buildings  in the us 110 stories tall um the metal beams that.

were that the buildings were built out are made  out of there were 1700 pounds per linear foot all. of that material was taken to staten island and  then it was sifted through right down to the point. that we found earrings we found wedding  bands we found you know driver's licenses.

every bit of material physical material. from ground zero eventually went through  sifting a sifting mechanism where we could find. you know evidence personal belongings and things  like that that went on for almost another year. how are we able to identify remains and notify  families get an accurate count you know initially. uh if you go back to those times you know we  lost you know just over 2 000 people that day.

but the numbers that were coming in of anticipated  losses we were up like 16 000 20 000 22 000. people were calling from all over the world  saying you know my son was in the building my. son was supposed to be there i think my daughter  was there whatever the case may be that went on. for quite a few weeks until we finally got the  numbers down um where we had a pretty good idea.

of what the losses were but still i think one of  the untold stories about 9 11 was the dna process. and here's why so picture if you had a family  member if you lived in scotland somewhere and you. had a family member that was in the building you  thought that was in the building that day where. you knew they were and you file a report that they  were in the building and they're probably lost as.

a result well we would have to get dna right  um to prove that in our collection process so. in scotland you'd have to send a local constable  to the residence the local constable would get a. hair sample would get a a brush a toothbrush you  know whatever wherever you would collect dna from. they would do the packaging there they would take  it from that locals constable to glasgow glasgow.

would send it to interpol interpol would send  it to london london would send it to the bureau. and the bureau in new york would send it to  us and we would then transfer it to the morgue. that dna came from all over the world holy [  __ ] nobody has any idea like that that kind. of stuff was going on we had dna coming from all  over the world and there was a process to finally.

get it to get it to the morgue right because keep  this in mind um and this is you know it's it's uh. it's a bit morbid um i lost 23 people that  day 23 new york cops that work for me right. if this was a cup i could give back most of them  to their families and less of a cup than this.

because they they vaporized they disintegrated  much of what we found were not human remains. much of what we found were not human bodies most  of what we found were pieces of meat we'd find a. shirt with some blotches of human remain on  it we find you know you find a finger you find.

a foot or a piece of body you found  more body pieces than you found bodies. and um and that's something  we had to deal with as well. um that in some in in a lot of instances there was  just nothing left the first two cops that we found.

i'm almost positive was delara and langone. i got notified that they had found these two cops  that worked for us i went down to ground zero. and you know to be there when they brought them  out and they basically came out with two orange. home depot buckets and when i looked in the  home depot buckets it was a glock with the metal.

portion of intact it was a spring from the glock  it was a handcuff key it's a pair of handcuffs. there was a shield pin from one of one of the guys  badges from his shield um it was a metal buckle. but think of this there was no body  there was no vest no pants no shirt. no nothing two guns and all that material that  they had on every piece of metal they had on.

was side by side but there was nothing else  that's the kind of stuff you know it was like that. that we had to deal with some you  found more much money you found less. how are you notifying the families.

um initially the the first notification was  that afternoon on the 11th around 5 00 5 30. i had been out with the mayor i had been to the  temporary command post the mayor and i went back. to ground zero a couple times i think we were  in sort of denial we kept going back to you know. just to see what was going on um we drove by the  hospitals going downtown i can remember driving. down 7th avenue and you know passing saint  vincent's thinking it's gonna be loaded with.

people you know survivors um and there was  nobody all the doctors were sitting on the on. the sidewalks just sitting on the sidewalk sitting  next to gurney's all these gurneys lined up nobody. nobody came they're all just sitting out  there waiting hoping that there were survivors. wow and i can i uh i remember getting back to  headquarters that afternoon my first deputy joe.

dunn came in to me and he said commissioner we  have um we have the missing we have the families. they have brought them in uh they brought  them in by helicopter from wherever they were. many of them out on long island picked  them up brought them to headquarters. and they're all in the auditorium downstairs so  around 5 30 that night six o'clock that night. i walked into the auditorium and uh and met with  the 23 families my 23 that were missing um walked.

in and basically told them look you know right  now we're trying to be as optimistic as we can. um we hope that there are survivors um you  know the reality was for me and giuliani and. the fire commissioner anybody that was down  there if you were down there and you got to. see what we saw you pretty much knew the  chances of survival were really slim but.

there were pockets of you know especially  under you know where tower two and tower. one were underground there were there were a  whole you know it was like a whole community. under there right three four floors five  floors there were shops and stores and. you know walkways and corridors and all the stuff  so you're you know in our mind you're hoping.

maybe somewhere down there there's a void  right maybe somebody you know somebody. you know they're in that void they're they're  down there in an area where they were saved um. but the heat the damage the devastation everything  that we saw on top you know you pretty much knew. the chance of that were pretty slim when i walked  into that room and i had to tell the families.

you know one we're gonna be optimistic  until we feel otherwise two we're gonna do. everything in our power to find them three  we're working as hard as we can and four. anything you need whatever it is no matter what it  is you let us know and we're going to get it for. you and from that point on we assigned a cadre  of staff to each family drivers cars resource.

officers so every family had a sort of  a designated team of people around them. from that command um that were that was with  that family um pretty much until they were buried. after everything had happened and. the city was kind of returning back to normal  how much longer did you have this commissioner. three and a half months what was  the morale of the city when you left.

i honestly think the the morale was okay  look we had been attacked we had suffered. the most substantial terror  attack in world history. it hurt us and it hurt us bad but the one thing  that came out of that attack in the aftermath. was the resilience of the american people  the resilience of the people of new york.

um you know i remember the you  know the first yankee game after. after the attack you know president bush going out  onto the field to throw the ball the first ball. out you know that kind of stuff was amazing for  the morale of the city uh you've never heard a. president cheered like they cheered for president  bush walking out in the yankees stadium that day.

i don't give a damn if you liked you could  be the biggest democrat the biggest liberal. the biggest left-wing lunatic going you were  still screaming and yelling george bush's name. um i i think the unity that came  out um as a result of the attack. was something that's been unparalleled in  this country you know i've heard about it.

and i i'm sure you have to in the aftermath of  world war one and world war ii where you know. the country came together and but i gotta tell  you something i don't know if there's anything. more substantial than what we witnessed  in the aftermath of september 11th. i had [ __ ] school kids like every grade you  can imagine in in classrooms all over the country.

sent bags of mail cards to the nypd i mean they  came in in bags like you know reminding me of. that uh you know the show you know the christmas  show where they walk into the courtroom with the. bags of mail for santa claus that's what it was  like those kind of bags were coming into the nypd. they didn't know they were writing to they didn't  know why they were writing they were just sending. notes of support and love and compassion  it's unlike anything we've ever seen before.

and and like i said i often wondered today  where the [ __ ] are those people today like. what happened what happened between then and now  you know we should be stronger today than we were. we should have learned from that you know and  i think look i i think a lot of it is you know. the the millennial generation um is just  not educated on history i think you know our.

teachers in schools today grammar schools high  schools colleges they're not teaching history. you know i have i have two daughters 21 and 18  years old both of them both of them know more. about the attack on the world trade center  the most grown adults i know but they didn't. learn a damn thing in school they didn't learn it  from school they learned it from me they learned. it from friends and and colleagues and people  that i worked with that's how they learned one.

of them wasn't even born my 18 year old wasn't  even born then she knows more about that attack. prior to and after in most adults most teachers  because the [ __ ] teachers don't teach. you know they're too busy indoctrinating  our kids today you know with socialist. ideas and all this leftist woke [ __ ]  that's that's the problems we have today.

i remember how united we were i was uh i just  got out of boot camp i was going to seal training. and i don't remember when. i started to see the country. divide again uh probably because i was. [ __ ] fighting and i didn't have  time to look at that [ __ ] but um.

at the beginning of this whole thing i asked do  you think things happen for a reason and do you. believe in fate and you said yes and then we  brought it up again when you took commissioner. about how that molded you into what  you needed to be to handle that. situation and what happened that day do you think  maybe we're at where we are right now as a country.

going through what we're going through you think  we're going to come out some way or you think. we're going through this for a reason and we're  going to come out stronger than we were before. i want to think that i want to believe that right  i want to believe that this is a learning curve. for the united states right i want to believe  that you know there are far more many people. out there that love the country that love our flag  um then they're not right i want to believe that.

but i also you know i'm not a  genius but i've followed history um. and i've looked at countries  where they have been fused and. and turned to socialism you know whether  it's cuba whether it's venezuela or others. um how that happened you know uh when it started  how it started um and when you look at that.

i see the same thing here i see it i feel  it talk to somebody talk to somebody in this. country today that lived in the soviet union and  got out got out and escaped to the united states. talk to them about why they did what they were  experiencing what they were seeing what they were.

living through and then ask them today what are  you afraid of because they'll tell you right now. they're scared to death because they're seeing  the same [ __ ] things that they went through. back in the 70s and 60s in the soviet  union like they can't believe their eyes. like i can't believe what i'm going through  right now i left a country to get away from. that [ __ ] and this country is reverting  to it i hear it constantly constantly.

that's what scares me and and i think you know  i think we need leadership in the white house. that's going to put this country first our flag  first i think we have to stop electing people. and i'm not talking about just democrats i'm  talking about republicans as well stop electing.

people that don't think of this country first  they think in their own [ __ ] careers first. you know they're they're really a  part of the political swamp stop. electing those people start focusing on local  elections i don't give a [ __ ] if it's your pta. your city council your county freeholder  your your you know your borough uh.

whatever start looking at your local  elections because that's where these. people come from these people that wind up in  the house of representatives are in this u.s. senate well they started somewhere they started  in those [ __ ] positions i just talked about. stop electing people that are socialist i think  what you're saying too is stop looking stop stop. looking and electing the party and look at  the [ __ ] person that's right you're elected.

that's a party look at the person that's right  i mean i i just i i have to tell you you know. i've known i've known all the political  players right since uh since bush right. i know uh you know i was nominated for  homeland security by president bush. i worked for him in iraq i got to know him  through 9 11. um you know then there was.

you know then there was obama um i didn't know him  personally but i know everybody around them i knew. hillary you know she was a u.s senator in new york  um i've worked with giuliani i've known donald. trump since 1995. um i know him long before he  ran for president um you know i've known joe biden. for [ __ ] 25 years right ever since  i worked for giuliani i knew biden.

here's the bottom line. i think i think the political parties kill us. i think they kill us um i think our  military commanders they're way too. political today i think cops i think police  executives today are too [ __ ] political.

you know we live by a constitution we swear  to that constitution whether it's the military. or law enforcement you raise your right hand and  you take an oath to protect and serve this country. it doesn't talk anything about your  [ __ ] political party in there. you have a job to abide by and and enforce the  rules and the laws uh of that that constitution.

but people don't do it they they're  they're following the party line. um and it's wrong it's destroying this country  you know we've got to stop indoctrinating kids. in grammar school in high school and college  teach them history nothing will will do more. for them to teach them real history because you  can't fix something that you don't know is broken. you have to teach them you know it's sort of  the way i govern right sort of the way i manage.

you can't fix something if you don't know  it's broken you can't you don't know how. bad something is unless you actually  measure it what gets measured gets done. right teach them history if they learn history  they'll learn the difference between good and bad. and and good and evil they'll learn  what's right and wrong they'll learn.

all those bad things that happened in world war ii  and world war one you know in in the the result of. of 9 11 how did we get there what was going on  before that um the [ __ ] kids today don't know. they don't know because nobody's teaching them  i just think it's it's devastating to the future. of this country if we don't fix that if we don't  fix it and you know who's gonna fix it the parents.

because the parents you know you see now  only now only recently with this super. left wing woke mentality you see parents now  standing up so whoa whoa whoa wait a minute. critical race theory no we're not going to do  that we're not i'm not going to tell my kid. that he's substandard to another or i don't  want to tell my kid he's better than another. you know we've we've spent a lifetime telling  everybody they're equal they should be equal.

and now we're doing everything in our [ __  ] power to tell them no you're not equal. this one's better that one's substandard this  one's better no what are you doing what are you. doing you you're contradicting everything we have  tried to do in the last 200 years and it's only. happened in the last in the last 20 maybe in the  last 15. barack obama began this movement he is.

the one i blame i blame him because and i i blame  him for one personal reason this is personal to me. i spent my whole life with my kids from my kids  from the day they were born i've taught them. everybody's the same i don't care what color  they are i don't care what religion they are.

where they come from no different nobody's  different they may be good and bad they may. be different types of people but they're all equal  everybody's equal and it wasn't until barack obama. barack obama stood in the [ __ ] white house and  told my kids that they're different that was wrong. he started this movement  and i [ __ ] hate him for it.

i think we're going through something there's  an old saying a lot of people say it hard. times create strong men strong men create easy  times easy times create weak men and weak men. create hard times and right now we're at the  weakness we're in that circle right that's right. i believe it but i believe  it hard times created you.

well hopefully we fulfill the circle i  hope you're right i hope we do too but. well bernie i just want to say again um  truly it was an honor to have you here today. and uh to relive that and um i think it's  extremely important it's the 20th anniversary and.

and hopefully we educate a lot of america's  youth on on what happened that day. and sean let me let me say this  before we uh before you close. living through 9 11 taught me a lot um. as as we talked about you know i um i've had the  honor and the privilege to lead a group of men and.

women that that without doubt affected one of the  greatest rescue missions in this country's history. but the job didn't stop there that was  the beginning that was only the beginning. of something that had to be done and what had  to be done is we had to search out and uh and. eliminate the enemy that hit us on that day and  had hit us many times prior and it was you know.

it was 911 that put that in motion and as a result. we basically ramped up our military people like  you people like eddie gallagher people like the. guys that took out osama bin laden um the men  and women on our special operations community.

the men and women in our military that that sit  in uh you know intel bunkers and you know locate. these you know these these terrorists all over  the world um it was really um an honor for me. in the aftermath of 9 11 to  get to meet people like you. and and others that basically went to defend us  to you know fight the fight that had to be fought.

when george bush stood up on that mound and said  the people that did this is going to hear from us. well if anybody had any doubts they didn't have  any doubts after those first special operations. teams went into afghanistan on horseback  they didn't have any doubts when we went into.

fallujah mosul or you know went after the enemy  in iraq afghanistan syria all over this world um. so you know for me to be here today to talk to  you about the 20th anniversary of 9 11 is one. thing but it also gives me an opportunity to say  thank you to you and to the men and women like you. that have served this country um selflessly uh  almost serve this country and um in in the name.

of you know the united states of america to to  come to our defense and uh and really fight back. for the losses that we took on that day so  thank you thank you i have one question left.

is there anything you would have changed. about your leadership that day for  the nypd and the people of new york. i don't think so i don't think  so you know i i've uh you know. it's it's weird you know a day like that  there's i'm sure there's certain times in your. career there's one one or two times in your  career where you you know it's it's something. you think of constantly i think of 9 11 every  day every single day whether i think of it on.

my own whether somebody walks up to me in  the streets and thanks me for my service. whether it's you know i'm walking down the  street and i see an aircraft flying super. low that i think is super low it takes me back to  that day i think about it pretty much every day. and um i look at it this way i'm not perfect  i'm not an angel um but i did the best i could.

on that day and in the aftermath of that day  and i i had the privilege and honor to serve. some very heroic and dedicated men and  women that did a job that most people. especially the critics of today would never  have the balls to do in the first place um. i don't think i can ask to change anything i  think we did what we could under the circumstances.

and uh and i'm proud of what  the men and women in the NYPD. the fire department and the port authority police  i couldn't be more proud of what they've done. i think the majority of the country is  extremely proud as well and i am too and. god bless you and thank you god bless  america god bless america thank you.

you.