WILKES-BARRE — Sept. 11, 2001, started like a normal day for then-Detective Joseph Coffay.
Now Wilkes-Barre’s chief of police, Coffay was, at the time, assigned to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and stationed at the federal building in Scranton. Before his work day began, he was made aware, through the news media, that chaos was unfolding in American skies.
“It was a beautiful, sunny day, and when the news hit, there was limited information on the news, but you knew something bad did happen,” Coffay said.
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. Seventeen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower. Less than a half hour later, American 77 rammed into The Pentagon in Northern Virginia. And just after 10 a.m., United 93 crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
By 10:30 a.m., both of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers collapsed and were reduced to rubble.
“As you continued to watch it, it got worse and worse, until we got to the end of those buildings falling,” said Coffay, recalling the morning’s horrific events.
All four planes were hijacked by members of the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda. All four planes carried innocent civilians on their way to California. Between the plane crashes and the damage they caused, 2,977 people were killed in the deadliest terrorist attack in history.
Of those killed, 71 were law enforcement officers.
Here in Northeast Pennsylvania, the realization that the United States was under attack came fairly quickly, especially after United 175’s crash was broadcast live on television and the term “hijacking” began popping up on the news. The response from local law enforcement was one of duty.
“It’s a natural thing. Your inclination is to help in any way you can,” Coffay said.
Willing to help
In such a chaotic situation, the role of police in areas not directly impacted became blurred, especially in a place like Northeast Pennsylvania. As the crow flies, Wilkes-Barre is just a bit over 100 miles from New York City.
Coffay was prepared to jump in and aid his fellow law enforcement officials. But he also knew the New York Police Department (NYPD) was as equipped to handle the situation as any could be.
“At that point in time, it’s like, ‘Okay, I’ll go if I’m needed, but I don’t want to be in the way, either,’” Coffay said.
“I know DEA went in there, and I fully expected to be activated to that, but we never did,” he added. “We offered, but we never had to because, obviously, it’s such a large city and so many resources out there that they were able to do what they had to do.”
Coffay and his fellow local police officers also needed to remain in the moment when it came to their own communities. In 1995, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed by domestic terrorists. Coffay was fairly confident that the 9/11 attacks were different, but he was still aware of where he was working.
“You have to protect your community. You’re looking at federal buildings. We have a federal building here, there was one in Scranton. Are they going to be attacked?” said Coffay of his considerations in 2oo1.
In the aftermath of the attacks, the law enforcement world saw a few big changes. Coffay can see the differences in police work before the attacks and after, and acknowledged that the collaborative spirit of the law enforcement community has strengthened over the past 23 years.
“One of the big changes was that law enforcement realized that we have these things that we have to take care of, we have to address, and you can’t do it alone, so there has to be a cooperative effort between the state, the federal and the local police, and you have to be able to communicate with each other,” said Coffay.
“Some terrorism task forces were enacted. Local police are now serving on those things, so that intelligence and flow of information is going both ways, so it’s more of a cooperative effort.”
A post-9/11 story
People old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2oo1, have “9/11 stories,” which often revolve around where they were and what they were doing when the news first broke. Coffay’s most vivid 9/11 story actually came later on, after the subsequent, American-led War on Terror had broken out in the Middle East. The story happened during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
“There was a colonel that took us [to Walter Reed], and we met with soldiers,” Coffay said. “Some of them came home missing limbs or badly injured and so forth. We decided to take gifts from law enforcement to the hospital, and in that hospital, it was amazing to me that a lot of those soldiers were thanking me.”
The praise from the soldiers caught Coffay off-guard at first, but an explanation soon followed.
“They’re thanking us, because the attitude then was, ‘Listen, if we don’t go and fight them over there, then they’re going to be here. And you, the police, while we’re over there, you’re here protecting our families, and that’s important to us,’” Coffay recalled. “That was a very unique experience for me back at that time.”
The post Wilkes-Barre Police Chief recalls 9/11 and its aftermath appeared first on Times Leader.