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<\/p>\nEvery year, right around this time, Officer Harold Behar gets a pit in his stomach. It\u2019s a familiar \u201cfunk,\u201d he says, a blue mood. He knows exactly what brings it on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of tough memories that you can\u2019t erase from your mind. That are going to pop up again.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a 30-year-old cop assigned to the streets of Brooklyn, the ex-Marine was one of thousands of New York Police Department officers called to Ground Zero in the dark days following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
He saw things no one was supposed to see. And the memories remain, 25 years after the event.<\/p>\n
Talking about it, Behar says, is therapeutic. He joined the Pinellas Park Police Department in 2004; five years later, he became a School Resource Officer (SRO) at Pinellas Park High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficer Behar\u201d is a familiar face and welcome presence on campus. The kids like him, and they trust him, and they know his 9-11 story. Just about every day, he gets asked about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also works closely with the school\u2019s First Responders: National Guard Center for Emergency Management and Criminal Justice magnet programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love my job one hundred and ten percent,\u201d Behar says. \u201cAnd if you love your job, you won\u2019t work a day in your life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very rewarding. I feel like I\u2019m making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brooklyn police officer Behar, third from right, and others from his precinct at Ground Zero. Photo provided.<\/p>\n
It was a beautiful, sunny morning that Tuesday in 2001, Behar remembers. He had the day off, and after his girlfriend left their Long Island home for her job, he decided to go out for a quick breakfast, followed by a visit with his mom and dad, who lived nearby.<\/p>\n
On his drive to the bagel shop, he heard the radio. \u201cThey said a plane had hit the towers,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd I thought, that\u2019s a pretty sick joke.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Next stop, his parents\u2019 house. \u201cI get there, and my dad and everybody, like millions of Americans, was glued to the TV. I\u2019m watching it, and here comes another plane, hit the other tower, boom. Just like everybody else we\u2019re trying to figure it out \u2013 what\u2019s going on, this looks like an intentional act \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Behar pushed down the dread and hurried back to his own place, because he knew what would come next. \u201cBy the time I got home, there was already a message on my answering machine. They called in every single police officer and firefighter to report to their precinct.\u201d<\/p>\n
The twin towers were broken and burning, but still standing. \u201cAt that point, I don\u2019t think anybody thought the buildings were going to fall. So we knew it was big, but we didn\u2019t know how big.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called his girlfriend, who was crying, and said he had to go in. The drive to Brooklyn usually took about 30 minutes; this time, he didn\u2019t get to the station for nearly four hours. The major arteries in and around New York City had been shut down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all wanted to get down there. They mobilized one sergeant and I believe it was eight cops for every precinct in the five boroughs, so they were already down there. Now at this point the buildings had already collapsed. It\u2019s still chaos. They\u2019re still trying to find any survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Along with his police credentials and hardhat, Behar has a few small, broken pieces of the World Trade Center, and an extensive collection of news clippings. Photo by Bill DeYoung.<\/p>\n
Because of the uncertainty amid the chaos \u2013 no one had any idea if the attack was over or not \u2013 the Brooklyn officers were initially assigned to provide security for their own precincts. \u201cBut the radio was eerily quiet. Nobody was calling the police.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behar and a fellow patrolman climbed to the roof of the stationhouse. \u201cWe could see the New York City skyline. We\u2019re looking across, and we don\u2019t see the Twin Towers there. At that point, it really put it into reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the clouds of smoke and ash ballooned skyward, Behar says, \u201cThat was the hardest part for me. I get chills down my back, just thinking about it. Because I\u2019ll never forget that day.\u201d<\/p>\n
They spent the next few days providing security for other places, including the 911 emergency call center. It was early morning Friday, Sept. 14 when the men and women of A Precinct were directed to Ground Zero in the pre-dawn hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey dropped us off a few blocks away, and now we could smell the burning \u2026 we\u2019re all looking at each other. It felt like we were going into Hell.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe smoke is thick, and we\u2019re looking at all these burnt cars on the road. There\u2019s a lot of equipment moving around. Everybody\u2019s trying to do their thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe come around a corner, and there\u2019s all these big spotlights. And there\u2019s just this pile of debris. Twisted metal, steel, concrete, windows. Papers all over the place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no arguing. There was no discussion of what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
After picking their way through the still-smoking remnants of the buildings, careful to avoid the deep pits that could trap and consume them, the officers were put into a bucket brigade, scooping up debris by the bucketful and passing it down along the jagged terrain. \u201cWe jumped in line \u2013 you put your hand on somebody\u2019s back, \u2018hey brother, slide over, we\u2019re coming in.\u2019 Everybody fit into place and we just started handing buckets and digging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rescue dogs and their handlers moved back and forth over the mountain of debris. Even after three days, hope remained that there might be survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was treacherous, but we didn\u2019t care. We just wanted to find survivors, some sign of life. Something.\u201d<\/p>\n
They did, several times, come upon human remains. Still, Behar remembers, \u201cI felt a sigh of relief, because I put a family at closure.\u201d<\/p>\n
To this day, remains of 1,400 victims remain unidentified.<\/p>\n
Weary of the New York winters, and the high cost of living, Harold Behar and his girlfriend got married and moved to Florida in 2004. They have two sons.<\/p>\n
He was hired by the Pinellas Park department and worked as a patrolman until an SRO opportunity arrived, five years into his tenure. He jumped at the chance at working in education, and he\u2019s been there ever since. Officer James Gatti is also assigned to Pinellas Park High.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not so much for safety,\u201d Behar stresses, \u201cit\u2019s also to help bridge that gap, to promote a positive relationship between law enforcement and juveniles. It\u2019s a positive thing. We\u2019re in the middle, between administration and the students. We\u2019re kind of just another person to lean on.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day I\u2019m a husband and a father, and an uncle. We\u2019re humans, right? But I think I made some really good choices in life, to get me where I am today, and it definitely shows for the students.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat they can see that there\u2019s positive there, that something positive can come out of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
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