The Team House - Ray Flood, NYPD Emergency Service Unit (ESU): Remembering the 9/11 attacks, Ep. 59

Episode Date: September 12, 2020

Ray Flood served in NYPD's Emergency Services Unit which deals with high risk entry and rescue missions. Ray talks to us about how he joined ESU, the training, the equipment, and the mission. We discuss talking to, and if need be grabbing, jumpers on bridges and buildings in the New York City. One notable operation was when passengers got stuck in the tram that runs from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island. ESU successfully rescued everyone from the tram that night. Next, we talk about his experiences at ground zero and the horrific days proceeding the 9/11 attacks. Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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This is the best we can do. Samsung Neo-Q-L-EyD 8K, unreasonably good. Okay guys, we're alive. Welcome to the Team House episode 59. I'm Jack Murphy here with co-host Dave Park. We have a special guest on tonight. This is our 9-11 show. We stream live at 8 p.m. every Friday evening.

This episode just happened to fall actually on 9-11. And as you guys know, we normally interview special operations veterans, members of the intelligence community. But this one falling on 9-11, we really felt like we should do something to recognize that event and recognize the people who passed away that day. And since this show is a sort of conversational interview-based show, with veterans, we figured the right way to do that was to get a first responder on the show. So tonight we're joined by Ray Flood. Ray served, I believe it's 22 years.

He'll tell us all about it in NYPD with the Emergency Services Unit. And we'll get into what ESU is as well, but they can do the hostage rescue, the high-risk entry type jobs. And I believe you guys also do high-risk rescue, right? that's part of the mandate yes we're uh certified in um you know all sorts of uh you know uh tactics and heavy weapons and pretty much uh you know everything you guys did overseas we we we pretty much trained in to do in new york and uh in the city itself and we're also uh the one good thing about the nipd that to jump too far ahead if uh a smaller agency or a smaller jurisdiction or a smaller

calls and needs help we send we send everybody oh yeah you know we're sort of like the great-class call for help type of unit uh I've been to Connecticut been in New Jersey and have been to other towns in Westchester Long Island Nassau County so it's it's sort of a very that's the one good thing about the city is they you call for help they're they're going to send it no question And that's one of things tonight is, you know, obviously we do want to talk about 9-11 and Ray was there, but we also are fortunate to have Ray who is such a long career with NYPD and the ESU. And so we want to get Ray's history. We want to get a history of, you know, his experiences

of NYPD of ESU through, you know, 20 years, 22 years is a long. time to see the evolution of both the city of a force. Law enforcement and particularly the kind of work that ESU does. Yeah, exactly. So, Ray, one of the things that we often like to start with, because Jack and I are both comic book geeks, is we want to know your origin story. Like, can you tell us a bit about your childhood, how you went into law enforcement? What drove you?

I remember from the earliest times of growing up, I just always wanted to be a cop. And as I got older and more sort of knowledgeable of how the, you know, police department worked. I just always, I was just drawn towards emergency service. It was just a, it seemed like a natural fit. I mean, my, my, you know, my dad was a cop in the city of Mount Vernon in the 70s and 80s. He got laid off in the fiscal crisis and he never went back. He wound up starting his own company with another guy and, you know, he did pretty well for himself, you know, I mean, not rich by any stretch, but, you know, provided. He coached all my teams, my brother, my younger brother

who's in law enforcement. I have a brother that's in law enforcement. You know, I have a daughter, my oldest daughter serves in the United States Navy, very proud of her. And, you know, it's just I just always, you know, when I was a little kid, my mother actually put something out of the New York Post, says, you have to be crazy to want to be a cop of New York City, and she had that on the refrigerator. It always stuck, you know, because the job goes in cycles, and that was probably the mid-80s when stuff was really out of control, sort of like it is today. and, you know, we came on, and it was sort of a, you know, safe streets, safe city era, take back the streets. And we did that, you know, for a certain amount of time. And now it's just gone completely in reverse.

Was your dad having been a cop, did he support you becoming a cop? Or was he against it? I was never steered towards it and I was never persuaded against it. It was just something I always wanted to do. and it just it just kind of worked out i mean i funny story like the town i grew up in in august of 2001 i was actually hired to work in that town as a cop and i just it just didn't feel like the right move and i i just you know i felt like i was a city cop all i ever wanted to do was go to emergency i got there I was only there for two years

and I turned the job down and they were like dumbfounded. They'd never, you know, the cheaper police is still the cheaper police today and I'm still friendly with them and he's like nobody's ever turned this job down before and I kind of joking and said out you're not going to be able to say that tomorrow.

I'm not coming. I'm staying where I am and you know, it just worked out that I would have left anyway because the next month was September 11th And I would have just said, screw it, I'm out of here. I'm going back to be with the boys. Yeah. You know, it was sort of like the best thing that never happened.

Yeah. So when did you join NYPD? I got hired April 30th, 1991. And then your first couple years were, as a patrolman? Yes, I worked in a very busy precinct in the Bronx, in the 47th precinct where, We led the city in homicide. We led the city in police-in-volved shootings.

It was, it was, you know, our slogan there was, you give us 22 minutes, we'll give you a homicide. It was, you know, it was, you either sank or swim in that joint. You became a really good cop or you got a desk job real quick. I mean, there was 250 cops in that precinct, and probably more than half had been at least one shot. shooting. And that was when, you know, we had, we did the, we did a job with the revolver. And, you know, that was, I was joked around with my friends that are cops and, and guys like you, you know, that understand, you know, the revolver is the gun that tamed the Bronx. But, you know, obviously that's not true anymore. But, you know, it was, uh, it was a very

unique perspective. I got hired. I was 20 years old. I wasn't even old enough to drink, state of New York and I was out there locking people up for yeah was there a culture shock like how was that for you I mean obviously there's the crime but I think there are a lot of things that people don't appreciate the police officers go through domestics like the constant exposure to the worst side that humanity has to offer yes I remember as a young a young guy young officer the just the the the lack of empathy a lack of compassion the lack of just normal like human feelings towards the fellow person and it wasn't it wasn't coming from us it was just coming from the people you served with and you know it wasn't everybody i mean it was the precinct was busy

but there was also a really a lot of good people there that you you never saw unless they were the victim of a crime their house is verbalized or stolen and i think that kind of gets lost in the source where especially in today's media media you get portrayed as this you know unhuman subhuman unthinking type of robot that goes out there just looking to you know make people's lives miserable when you know if you work in a in a certain type of neighborhood where a certain type of clientele lives there, the people that they're calling the police on are the people that live in that neighborhood. So, you know, you're just going on what people are telling you. So you're not targeting anybody.

You're not singling anybody out. You're going out off the description. And also what gets lost is there's a lot of, you know, they call it targeting policing now. We just, you know, I was part of a very busy, plainclose unit where we used to get copies of all the felony reports and you know the guys I work with were you know super really good guys I mean guys retired out of the homicide squad after major case squad after all sorts of really high-end units and and I had the opportunity to go to other places but I really wanted to go to emergency and that was my goal in life but we would get the reports from patrol that would come up to our office and

we would be able to figure out patterns we would be able to do our due diligence and we actually did do a lot of work, good work, we closed a lot of patterns, we locked up a lot of really bad people and that gets lost in today's, you know, um, headline type news where it's, they just go with the story, they don't wait for the facts and, you know, when the facts do come out, it's six months later and on page 37 when it's going down, it's headline news and it's just complete, you know, real just speculation, to say the least, on. Are there any calls that stick out in your mind, you know, when you were a young man that really left an impression on you and police work and what your future and NYPD was

maybe going to be like? I honestly can tell you guys that I never brought the job home with me. When I left, I left it there. all I ever wanted to be was a cop I still identify as a cop I still have cop friends but it's not like a culture thing it's just that

if you're an accountant you have a lot in common with accountants if you're a doctor it's the same thing and they have this image that all you do is hang out with other cops but they really are only the other people that kind of get what you get

through. And I actually, now that I've been retired, and even before I retired, I have a lot of friends that are outside the police community, but even they have been sort of schooled in what really goes on. And I have a friend of mine who's he's, you know, he plays for the New York

Philharmonic and he's, was a, you know, never had any experience with law enforcement or anything like that. And we've been friends for about 10 years now. And he just he thanks me every day for kind of opening his eyes as to what really

goes on when I used to read the paper I would see this and I would think that and now I go out what would Ray say or what would Ray friends say

and he you know and he's just a small sample of what goes on out there in real life and you know never had any dealings with the police

other than probably he pulled over a couple times but you know he was just sort of in the middle there and now he sort of like takes our side

you know when it comes down to something where it's questionable or, you know, the facts aren't in yet and everybody's jumping to conclusions. So it's just, you know, you just try and, you know, present the facts in a certain way where it's like, let's just see what's going on here. You know, there are bad apples out there.

I mean, you guys see them. You guys have dealt with them. But to paint the people that do this job every day with a broad brush of everybody's out there just looking to, you know, beat somebody up or shoot something, it's, it's ludicrous. Right. It's ludicrous. And we see that on the veteran side, too.

There are definitely there are people out there that do commit more crimes. There are people out there that do harm other soldiers. And that stereotype that the military is just about killing. And that's all we do is just to kill people and like you said, unthinking robots. Yeah. Right.

So we completely understand that it doesn't take many people or even incidents to color society's view of who you are and what you do on a daily basis. Well, like, along with what you guys have done and continue to do with, you know, what you guys are doing now and trying to, you know, awareness or pretty much what we all are kind of in the same boat about is people that have never, for a lack of better term, had the guts to do what you guys have done or what we've done. done, they like to sit back and criticize or critique and say, you know, and I always tell them, I always ask, they go, hey, how old are you? And they'll tell me, whatever. And you still have

enough, you're still old enough to take the police test. Grow a pair of balls, go down there and do the job and then come back and talk to me. But, you know, it's the same thing. Like, you know, it's just, it's just asinine that people go around uneducated. I mean, like my, one of my famous saying is, you know, you might be smart. You might have more degrees in a thermometer, but you don't know what you have had to the screwdriver at a time. And, you know, it's just, it's just ludicrous how people are portraying your line of work and all the line of work. And it's very similar. And it's just this hard. Yeah. Ray, I was wondering, though, if there were any stories or calls incidents that happened

when you were a rookie cop that, like, really stand out in your mind, whether they were horrifying or funny one way or the other. honestly for your first six to nine months you're out on the footpost usually with another guy or girl or by yourself after so you really don't get too involved

you know you do a lot of we call it hospitalized prisoners a lot of DOAs where you just stand there until the the Emmy or the funeral home comes or remove the body but I mean I mean I was a rookie cop and I was lucky

enough to get assigned to the training car with another rookie cop and a sergeant and we were gaining entry to a somebody locked their keys in their car again rough neighborhood the Bronx they came over to us today lock my keys in my car it was on the corner where there was a bank on the corner and there was three guys inside robbing the bank at gunpoint while we were getting this person's car out so we went from helping to apprehending you know we actually what two of the three at the scene and the third guy was part about 45 minutes later they were they were like the game that couldn't shoot straight they they got you know we caught two of them there recovered the guns and then the third guy he got away only he went to the subway station and jumped the turnstile

and the transit police was doing a turnstile operation so they grabbed them so it was just it was actually a comedy of errors on their part but that was that was a big deal and one of of the zoning specters was Louis Animoe who retired as the chief of department or chief patrol actually and he kind of helped me along in my career he never forgot that and then a few years later you know I was involved in a shooting in the precinct and he was very helpful with that not helpful but he was it just was you know it was the wild west of the NYPD days and when it came time for me to put in the issue he was a three-star chief and he remembered me from being just out there getting my nose dirty in you know in the good way out there you know we

used to call it shaping the trees and see what falls out and he was like oh I remember this kid yeah I'll definitely make sure he gets to where he needs to be type of deal and but again it was a different era and I got a phone call from him probably three or four days before the list came down from the issue and said listen you're in uh you start monday you're not going to hear it until two or three days but i got you here now it's on you i don't want to hear any complaining i don't want to hear any bitching and moaning about the training or this or that you know now it's on you yeah and you know like i said it was the only place they ever wanted to go so i was happy to be there and willingly did everything you know the training

for our school is it's six months at the time it's up to nine months now before I left I was helping out as a assistant instructor now at the school but you know I was always on the road I was a you know street cop my entire career other than a shorts didn't plain clothes doing you know playing clothes work I never had a problem putting the uniform on always like I think the best part of the job was being in a radio car going to different polls learning how to do you know the job And I always said that you give me a good sector car guy, you give me a good precinct guy, and we'll turn him into an emergency cop immediately. Like my job was to train you to be a cop, you better come to me as a cop and we'll make you an emergency guy. I'm sorry, was the emergency, or the ESU, was it always ESU?

Was it ever SWAT special weapons and tactics? Never. That's like a big taboo word down there. It's not a SWAT team, it's a rescue unit. Even though probably 65% of the jobs we do are tactical, you're also trained in rope rescue for jumpers because we get a real high amount of jumpers. People want to jump off the bridges, want to jump off buildings.

I've been on top of every bridge. I've been on top of, you know, I mean hundreds of buildings. You know, we're all trained in the negotiations. school, we go through the same, we go through the FBI negotiation school, a lot of military guys come through, are actually negotiators down in Guantanamo Bay interviewing the 9-11 terrorists that are being held down there for the trials. It's a, you get a wide variety of training, and that's only a small smidgen of what you do, because you're in school for six months. Like I said, they're in school now for nine months. but when you get out, that's, you really have to put it to the test and apply it.

And even when you graduate, you get assigned to a guy that's been there for a couple of years and kind of show it through the ropes. And, you know, I mean, you get issued a heavy vested helmet, similar to what you guys wear. It issued a plate carrier, which is used on details and counter assault team assignments. You're a scuba diver, you're a rope rescue technician. you're a certified EMT, you're a certified hazmat tech. It's you're certified animal control vehicle education. Basically our slogan or what we say is an emergency. You do

everything from darting dogs to protecting the president. And you know we work with during the UN we work with all the guys from the various military groups that come in to protect the dignitaries secret service FBI you know it's just they pretty much know some some guy that's working tax fraud in Mississippi gets sent up to the UN for the UNGA detail he knows what emergency is capable of and and what we're willing to do to you know whether you lock your keys in your car or you've got a you know a full-blown you know hostage situation we're coming and we're you know

we're gonna you know do our best to take care of it the best way we can Ray, could you talk to us a little bit about, like, as far as you know about the history of ESU, like, how did this unit come about? Because it is kind of unique to New York City, isn't it? From what I remember, you know, and I'm not the historian of the unit, but there's an association called Rima. It's the retired EMA association. And the founder is a gentleman called Tony Sanpietro. I met with him this morning at one of our masses for my partner, who was John DeLara, who was killed 9-11. I drove John's brother, Dan, twin brother, actually, every year up until this was the first year.

I didn't drive him, assigned by our employee relations unit. I was assigned to him for this day, and basically just take him wherever he wants to go, make him comfortable. so I didn't do it this year but I still went down to the mass down in the Bronx I found a suitable replacement for myself that took care of them you know it was going to make sure that their days

went well but back in the day they were originally called and I'm talking back in the 40s and 50s when they were founded they were the machine gun squad the gangsters were out there running a mock and they had Tommy guns and then it you know

transformed over the years into more of a you know all-purpose type operation because to be honest with you the only people you call 911 on 3 o'clock in the morning on Sunday the only people that are showing up are the cops in the fire department and the fire department all respect to them they do a very good job we actually contrary to popular opinion we have a very good relationship with them especially in the Bronx um we call it the the working mansborough because there's enough work to go around. We get along. I have very good, close friends in the fire department.

And the types of jobs we would go on, we would always work together. And if there ever was a problem, somebody would drop my name or I would drop somebody's name from the fire department. It would always put everybody at ease. And we always work together. So the whole battle of the badges and all that, that's kind of a fallacy. I mean, we play them in baseball. We play them in hockey.

We play them in football. And yeah, then it's, you try and win and you try and do the best for your agency. But when it's really going down, you're all in the same team. And there's really no type of animosity or anything like that. It's, you know, everybody, it is a brotherhood. It's like the Marines and the Navy, or you guys bust each other's chops. And, you know, but when they, you know, shit hits the fan, it's always like, let's go do what we got to do and get this done. Right.

What was your initial impression when you ended ESU training? Was it everything you imagined? Was it harder than you thought it would be? It was 10 times harder than I ever thought. I was lucky. My other partner from the 4-7 was the guy named Wally Weaver. He was also killed in the Trade Center. Wally and I were supposed to go to emergency together in 1998.

The only time I ever got hurt on this job was in 97, just before they went to class. They put the class in. cop I was working with we got into a pursuit and the guy we finally it was from another department chased him into our area and we pulled the guy over and the guy threw the car in reverse and I wound up fracturing a vertebrae in my back and the guy was with tore his shoulder all up

and it was so I got sidetracked for about a year and Wally went in in 98 so I was lucky that him and I were very close very good friends so he kind of gave me a heads up about what was going to happen but uh you know i remember calling him um and just just trying to catch up and and bs with him and he's like listen i i can't really talk he's like we were doing uh you know rope rescue for this week he goes i need to take a break i need to take a nap he's like it's very consuming and it really it really was and i wound up lucky enough to what i got there

past Roco which was the two biggest washout disciplines were ropes and scuba and luckily I was fortunate enough I was a better rope guy than I was a scuba guy I'm going to tell you right now like when I got to a certain point in the unit

and I was lucky enough to get my suit back because I had a lot of young guys there that were my personal divers I gave it back willingly because I've been in the water a bunch of times and been on a bunch of water jobs it was my least favorite thing to do And I got the chance to, you know, give it back.

But I wound up becoming a rope instructor. And that was one of the high points of, you know, my emergency career. I actually still work on the side teaching, you know, other departments. Like I joke around, I live, you know, where I live, I live close by the city of Yonkers' ESU's headquarters. And I always joke with them. I teach their role program, their E&T program, and I do it for nothing. I do it just to pay it forward and keep guys the best train that I can with my little bit of knowledge. But I joke around that these guys have practically adopted me.

And I keep my hat in the ring and stay relevant sort of with these guys. And it just seems to be working so far. So that just keeps me kind of grounded in the, emergency world, even though you're retired, but you sort of never you never leave it. It's always in the back of your mind. Could you get into that a little bit about like how do you

use these capabilities, the rope work, the scuba capabilities? How does that come into play for ESU? Well, you're on a radio, we're on special operations division, there's 10 trucks throughout the whole city. When I say trucks, it's 10 separate

units or separate we call them, you know, different sets of quarters. There's two in Manhattan, two in the Bronx, one in Staten Island, three in Brooklyn, because Brooklyn is the biggest borough. It's the most spread out. And basically, whatever comes over that radio, every EDP, every emotionally disturbed person, every priority job in the city of New York comes over our radio. And as you gain more experience in emergency, you start to you know, know in your mind what you need to start going to, what's not important, what is important, what's the, you recognize addresses, the mental health clinic that you get 75 calls a day to

that you never get called to because everybody there is. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today.

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We have our, when you come in for work for ESU, when you load up the truck or the vehicle you're in that day, it looks like you're going away on a four-week vacation with all the equipment that you put on. I mean, you have your heavy vests, you have your scuba bag, you have your rope bag. They've got most guys have their own personal bag of stuff they acquire over the years,

like lockout kits and elevator keys and tools. And it's just, you know, you're not really looked at as a, emergency guy until you have like two years on your belt under your belt out there you know you know doing it and it's just you know it's definitely um it's not for everybody yeah and so you guys don't necessarily go out or do you like in cars on patrol like in a just a duo or whatever and then go back if there's a call or do you guys kind of wait around the station on these calls we're we're out there we're part of the special operation division so you get your assignment for the day you get depending

on how many guys you have in you might have six guys with with six guys we're pretty much can handle anything that comes our way maybe you might call two other guys from another truck to have eight and then the the supervisor will show up that's nine we're good to go we're a quick reaction for us we're all training heavy weapons you have um your armory on your vehicle so the weapons are coming with you. You don't really have to go back for anything. I mean, we have specialized armored vehicles that aren't out on the road. They're in the garage. So if you do need one of the bears or the bear cats, yeah, guys will go back and get that. But we're out there. We're mobile. And, you know, we respond to, we're basically there to help

the precinct out. And the guys in the precinct, if anybody's out there listening, that's a NYPD precinct guy, you do you guys do 90%. set of the job without ever they cancel us immediately we got this it's under control cancel as you so when the guys out there especially in the busier commands call us we know it's it's it's not going to be uh it's going to be a real job yeah and we come and we take over and and and like i said most guys are are are very um you know happy to see us and eager to you know just be around and help us out in any way we can, or any way they can. You said that, you know, if there are six guys, that's generally enough to take care of anything,

you might have to call another two. Were there ever times when you guys showed up on scene and were like outgunned or surprised by what was going on and sort of had to regroup, bring in more people or anything like that? We've never been outdone because of, I mean, we've been carrying mini-14 since the L.A. bank robberies back in the day. we had I wasn't in emergency at the time I was in the precinct but the guys that were in emergency I got there in 99 had been there and the job quietly

we used to carry the 12-gauge shotgun two of them in our smaller trucks we call them cars their their trucks they're they're four to f 550 trucks with a custom box with all of our equipment on them I've seen them around the city for sure yeah the big truck has a rolling armory on it with I'll tell you guys on the side what kind of armor we have but let's just say it's extremely sufficient firepower now everybody's issued their own M4 you can trick it up however you want as long as it's within department policy you can't go out and buy it has to be you know regulated issued items and the stuff that they do issue you is top of the line stuff it's not

bargain basement stuff at all um it's all stuff that's been speced out by by predecessors, by you guys in the military that gets passed down to us. But there's plenty of times where you need more people to cover back entrances, side entrances. And we don't want anybody other than an emergency guy

in any type of danger that the precinct once they call us and we're going to evacuate them and we've had cops pinned down. I mean, you can look it up on you to NYPD issue where we do down to officer rescues and you know one of our finest moments was actually in 1996 when uh an officer who i actually knew the town i grew up in in east chester new york was killed by a sniper and i was actually on vacation i wasn't in emergency i was

sold the precinct but they flew them up there and um handled the job brought up our tank brought up art and it was actually you were you were never proud to be a new York city cop when when that whole thing went down and unfortunately uh michael fray lost his life he he he was killed before he even got out of the car he never knew what hit him and the guy also that killed him was also killed so it was sort of so they brought the ESU up to east chester yes so that was a that sort of have put ESU would kind of into the national spotlight since it was a quiet town they never had a cop killed haven't had a cop killed since then fortunately it just was a real you know it was just a

bad day all around is there a point in time when they just what was the determined factor between esu out of new york city responding and a state response force response or does the state have that capability? The state police is a very squared away tactical team. The only issue they have is they're spread out throughout the entire state. So they would take, you know, a lot longer than it would take for us to get there. I mean, that last, I mean, I'll call it a terrorist attack in Jersey City last year. We were down there and we had NYPDESU guys there.

in eight minutes. They went from Staten Island. I was actually working that day and they called us and we had all of our ballistic equipment. We had our tactical stuff. We had a lot of stuff there in a lot of time. And Jersey City actually comes through our school now.

We have great relationship with them. We have great relationship with the New York State Police, great relationship with the New Jersey State Police. We have great relationship with the Connecticut State. We get along with everybody. And, you know, we're literally, you know, we're basically a tactical team with 400 guys. We're 65 guys working 24 hours a day. I mean, nobody has them.

Not even L.A. They don't have me. How's your relationship with the FBI? Honestly, I've never really had a problem with them. I mean, they do their thing. We do our thing. We work with them on the Joint Terrorist Task Force. They've invited us to numerous schools I've attended.

a couple of the negotiation schools and it was always a positive thing honestly i think since nine 11 the relationships have gotten a lot stronger um since that happened i can personally never speak of any i'm sure there's been problems in the past and maybe even recently but i can honestly say i've never had any um bad dealings with with any other uh federal agency or or any other department everybody who's is no they know we're they know emergency capabilities and and usually always very happy to see us yeah the last training we did was with the fbi a 13th and they were just you know not to you know blow anybody up or anything like that but a lot of the scenarios they were teaching were stuff were NYPD ESU jobs that guys in the room were on and we

pretty much not took over the class but we enhanced the class because guys were I was on I think three or four of the jobs they actually talked about yeah the the guy the lead agent that ran the class was just he came over to us the first day and was like please feel free to interject yourself you know I'm going to be counting on you guys we we ate guys in a little lieutenant sergeant and six cops all season guys from busy places and It just it just in it was little there was a federal agencies there was other departments in the area and it just worked It was a good cohesive group and you know That's our that's our thing is you know

We're here to help whether it's Feds local jobs small job big job You know we usually have somebody that can can figure out whatever the problem needs to be We have somebody in our arsenal that can help. We say make it go away and just rectify the situation.

What were some of the more notable jobs that you recall in ESU, some of notable calls that you went out on? Every day for us was you know, there was no routine day. It just was, I mean, there were days where you know, we used to, we really were just,

you know, we call driving around burning diesel. And then there were days where you would go from job to job to job, suit up, you would drive from, you know, we call perp job to perp job with your heavy vesting helmet, going from, you know, unfortunately, you know, cops shot or people shot. And, you know, it just, you never knew what you would come in, get dressed, find out what you're doing, put your equipment on the vehicle, and just start listening to the radio.

Check your stuff. But especially in the summertime from full to September, you were on the go. There were nights where you couldn't make it back to quarters because it was so busy. You were just getting cold, and they were holding jobs for us. And it just, you know, I mean, I participated in,

I don't know if you guys remember when the Roosevelt Island tram broke down, I forget what a year it was. It was probably 2004, 2005. We got everybody off the tram. That was a pretty high profile rescue. It had never been done before. It probably won't be done again because they shut down the tram for about a year after that and revamped their whole, you know, emergency retrieval system. But that job in particular, we had a guy, Eddie Torres, who was in truck two, who was probably one of the most squared away guys I've ever met in my life

he worked at the tram before he was a cop so he was a mechanic there and he helped us and the guys at the tram were great they were just you know phenomenal people and we all worked together we construct the rescue basket

and we went out there and we had to make four or five trips getting people off the tram to back to the back to the to the Queens base. And that job went on for about six hours. The folks who don't know, there's a tram on a wire that runs from Manhattan over to Roosevelt Island, which is an island in the East River between Queens.

Yeah, I guess it's Queens and Manhattan. Can you talk a little bit about how you were able to rescue those people? Yeah. Where was the tram? This thing is hundreds of feet off the room. It was 250 feet over the east. River in the middle of the night and we had to basically with the help of the Roosevelt Island tram maintenance people assemble a basket put it on the track on the

wire to you know it was powered by a diesel motor so we controlled it and the funny part was was the um they the tram they had never gone past it they had to test it quarterly so four times a year they had to test it they put it together and they would go out, but they never went past the first stanchion. So as we're going out, it's probably, we got the job about 6 o'clock, we got there about 610, we figured out that this was actually a real, a real job. They tried everything they could to bring it back manually. It just wasn't working. So we started putting this thing together and with their assistance, we got it all squared away.

And, you know, myself and three other emergency guys went out there. along with two people from the tram. And basically one of the guys said, hey, listen, guys, we don't know what's going to happen once we make it fast the first hour. Maybe we'll stay online. Maybe we'll fall to our bloody screaming death. We've never gone past the first hour.

So we were like, well, you know what? We'll find out in about 10 minutes. You know, luckily for us... Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel unsubes. about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their

parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Everybody kind of put their heads together and it worked out and we like I said, we had to make four or five trips back and forth. And, you know, it was a pretty positive story about what we did. When you got the basket, how many people were on the tram approximately? A lot. I mean, it was a full.

It was coming back from the evening rush. So it was full. Yeah. Yeah, this isn't like a ski tram. This is a big commuter tram. Yeah. And then when you had the capacity probably to fit 25 people in, including the operator. So, you know, we just, we had to, you know, we had to marry up the, our rescue basket to the tram with our rope training and all of our, like, extended straps.

We tied the two together while we put it, like people had to pass their, their babies. We had elderly people. It was a, it was a super big trust factor, you know. Sure. You know, being a parent, I don't know how psyched I would be to hand my kid to some guy I'd ever met before in the middle of the night, 250 feet in the air. You know, it's never been done before. It'll never be done again. So that was one of our, you know, one of my personal, you know, proudest jobs, you know, we were on.

So you're not sure if you're going to survive the first stanchion. When you got to the tram, did you know that it was going to be able to support the additional weight of more? Yeah, no, I had no problems with the weight factor. It was just whether we were going to stay on the guidewire or not. And, you know, we had somebody with a light pointing at the guidewire as we got to the main, you know, like, junction point. And luckily we stayed on and, you know, it just worked out. You know, it was just, you know, one of those things. So it was, you know, we call it a good job.

Yeah. That's amazing. You know, the media couldn't find any faults with what we did that. although I'm sure they tried. Yeah. Well, if social media had been, I mean, I don't know if social media was around with time, but if it would have been super active, it would have been some conspiracy on the left or the right that caused the trend to fail.

So, yeah. So, were you part of the first World Trade Center bombing? Or how did that sort of affect law enforcement? I was a precinct cop in 93. It was before cell phone, before beepers, before everything. I had actually been down at Bronx Supreme Court.

I had a trial for a burglary trial. And long story short, I was down there. It was my day off. So in the city, it's called your regular day off, your RDO. Everything's an acronym down there. So this is when the old Yankee Stadium was there.

and during the off season it was February the Yankees would let us park in the players parking lot so we didn't have to pay for parking and you know walk up to the courthouse so I had gone to court that morning the DA the district attorney was on the phone with their defense attorney and basically said I have my officer here your client has been offered this deal take the deal or we're ready to proceed so they wound up taking a the deal. I think it was like five to seven for he was a Berkeley recidivist. I was walking back to my car to go home for the day and I'd seen there's probably 200 cops mustered up in the Yankee Stadium parking lot.

So I saw a friend of mine and I said, hey, what's going on? And they said, oh, they just blew up the World Trade Center. And I was like, oh shit, you know, that's a big deal, you know? So I went inside, there's a precinct within Yankee Stadium. So I'd gone into the stadium. It's it's there all year round it's it's not man the way that is during the baseball season there's

but there's always somebody there and i said hey you know i'm on the job i need to call yeah come on and come on in i called the precinct and i said hey listen it's so-and-so just leaving court i heard there's a you know job going on they were like yeah they go uh it's pretty much all hands on deck if you want to come back to work you know and jump in uh jump in uniform and jump in a car you know we could use you and that's what i did you You know, went up there and got in the car. And I didn't respond actually to the trade center, but we kind of backfilled the guys that were working that did go down there to handle the 93 attack. But obviously it was not in, it was, it really was, I don't want to say nothing because there was a loss of life, but it was, it was really small in comparison to what, you know, we're going through today and, you know, the anniversary of today.

Right. Did that event, did it change law enforcement at all that you saw in New York or how things were handled? Not at my level. I didn't, I'm sure it did. I think it fostered a better relationship between us and the feds. I think that's when the Joint Terrorism Task Force was really put into high gear. I'm still friends with a couple of guys that are on the job that are still in JTTF and they have a very good working relationship with the feds and with their federal counterparts. But as a guy who was a radio car guy in the Bronx, it didn't really affect us too much. But like I said, I'm sure it definitely did help in the big picture of everything. Obviously not enough because we got nailed again.

But, you know, the one thing I always remember saying, who are hearing people in the know saying that, you know, these, our enemies are patient. And if it takes them however long, you know, they're going to, they're not going to make any mistakes. And, you know, we have to be right every time. They only have to be right once. Right.

And you must know that better than anybody. So, yeah. We have a maybe a couple of questions. Let me see here. London, thank you very much. When you get into ESU, are you still considered a rookie, even if you have already been a cop

for a decent amount of time? You're a new guy in emergency. Your signari means nothing because it's a whole different animal being an emergency than being a sector car guy. You might have, like I was in the precinct for eight years in a busy precinct and I got to

ESU and the slate's wiped clean and you start all over again with a new set of guys, a new you know, it's not like nobody's out to see you fail, like that's actually the exact opposite. Everybody wants to see you excel and, you know, everybody makes

mistakes, but, you know, you just have to kind of, you know, be on your be on your top of your game more so than anywhere else because you are dealing with, you know, I mean, when you say, you know, lives

depend on what we do. You know, to go, to be successful, to be, it could be unsuccessful and you always want it to be successful. I mean, most of our jobs end with a positive resolution. Not to say that we do, you know, we've had people that jump. We have people that die. We have people to kill themselves. You can't save everybody.

You do your best. But you know, there's people that are just, you know, and the whole fallacy of, oh, if they wanted to jump, they would jump before you got there. That's all bullshit. Most people are, they want to listen to what you have to say. And I can say personally, and from what I know as a fact, you know, we do have a higher success rate than a failure rate. Not 100%, but we definitely save more people than we lose. So it's, you know, that's a positive that comes out of it.

With so many skill sets on the ESU, I mean, I'm imagining it's hard for one person to maintain a high level proficiency at all of them. Do guys tend to specialize, whether it's a formal specialization or just they kind of follow a different track? We had, you know, one of our old senior lieutenants who was a, he was an ESU at every rank. And his classic line was, I know who my ringers are. I know who's good at what. Right. So if we had a rope job, I was up. if we had, you know, one of the guys I work with,

had his own construction company, do everything about houses, do everything about buildings. The guy was, he was a jack of all trades legitimately. So, you know, it just, you just come and you just know, I mean, we have designated,

we don't call them snipers. We call them observation teams, or counter-sign surveillance teams, but they're basically snipers. Right. So when the roll call comes out during the day, like it would come out, like my name would next to my name would be explosive breaching T-T-T-T-TCC certified

Ropell Master. And then another guy would be, oh, this guy's an electrician. This guy is a heavy equipment operator. Between the 65 guys you had working citywide, there was usually somebody that was not an expert, but was very proficient in whatever type of situation. that had to be addressed and they didn't care about you know pulling a guy from another borough to come to your borough to you know to make a situation you know rectify it peacefully or or just get it done yeah you mentioned the tram as like a one-off event that had hadn't been done

and probably wouldn't won't be done again in your time at us you were there were there situations you guys ended up in that like you just never imagined you'd be in and guys had to figure stuff out. You know, it's maybe bizarre or whatever. I mean, it's really not a, it never made the news. It was never a big deal, but I mean, we were the, we were the Shell Answer man for the NYPD. So one night, it was a freezing cold night,

and we have a mounted unit. And the building that the mounted horses were, you know, the barn, they lost their generator. They lost electricity. And it was, you know, December, January is below, you know, 10 degrees. It was really cold out. So the CEO of the mounted unit called where I was in the Bronx and Hey, we need a couple of guys to come up here to see if we can fix this generator and luckily we had two electricians working that night. So we used to jokingly call it a flashlight holder a guy that just kind of stood around. I was a flashlight holder that night because I had two

certified electricians working in the middle of the night trying to get this generator going so these horses wouldn't freeze the down. you know and then if you flip that you know you have a jumper or some sort of medical call the rules would be reversed I would be up and then these guys would be you know my you know my you know my please to call it my caddy like in golf like yeah you're my catty go get my stuff type of deal but you know there was no um it was never for lack of a better word it was never a pissing contest I know more than you right you know who you know who was strong and what And you, you know, you would always, you know, take a step back and let this guy, oh, so-and-so's here, he's this, that, and the other. And you would tell him what you had, you would tell him what you knew, you would tell him what you did.

And he would come in and would take over and say, you know, all right, good job. You know, and you always, every day you learn something. You would just, you know, always have another, you know, we used to call it putting another tool in the tool shed. I know this question probably sounds like something out of a lethal weapon movie or something, but did you ever have one of these situations where you were roped up or you were on ballet and like you actually had to grab a jumper to stop them? Yeah, we made tons of grabs. Yeah.

Tons of grabs, you know, and that was all, that was a judgment call. And if you made the grab, you better make the grab. You better not go because it's going to make you look like, you know, it's going to make you look bad. and it's um you know but yeah you know and that's all that all comes with experience yeah that just uh you know it's just it happens that's mean you had one job where pretty much everything they tell you not to do and again not to be smirch the precinct or you know make them look bad but everything they told you not to do they they pretty much did they it was a domestic thing they had the girlfriend up there they had a priest up there they had an indian chief up there

They had everything they tell you not to do they had, you know. So the first thing we did was like get rid of all these people. We wound up having to grab that guy. And it was, you know, everything worked out. But actually one of the things was he was actually deaf. So we couldn't really talk to the guy. So I had known a female officer who had a deaf daughter. And I told the captain that was there and said, hey, get so-and-so over here.

She's certified sign language. And, you know, she came and she signed with the guy. And she's telling us, basically, what he's telling her. And we wound up, you know, triangulating with our tactics and our policy. And we wound up grabbing the guy. And, you know, that was a successful operation. So I think a lot of people don't realize it in a... Being a parent can be really challenging.

It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right thing. things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free

support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. It's high stress situations when you have to make a call like that, it's either a hero or real move for real yeah and there's no better you better be you better be right yeah and um you know it's just uh it just comes you know you better not be better not be your first night out in in the adam car as we would say and uh but we actually had a guy his first night in the adam car had a jumper and uh the guy went to go and he actually grabbed them and they both kind of went over the edge a little bit we had to bring them back using

mechanical advantage. And, you know, he would come down to the rope school when we had a class in and say, hey, trust your equipment because it works. It worked for me. Yeah. He was a hefty fellow, and it stopped him, worked him, and he was a strong guy. He actually was an Army vet. He'd oversees a bunch of times and put the guy in a bear hog and held him while we pulled the guy who's, you know, back over. So he actually came down and was one of our assistant rope instructors.

would tell him firsthand about his first night in, uh, in Adam four with, you know, his, his experience. So it's, you know,

they're going to call you out. If you come in there and tell stories to see on TV, there's always somebody that's going to, that's going to, that's going to know that you're either telling the truth or you're full of it. So. Yeah. I think we should,

we have one more question real quick. Uh, practice all star. Thank you very much. Oh, and he, he just has, um,

my buddy. heading into ESU, into the next ESU class. So I think he's asking for his buddy to receive some special attention, maybe a little bit of hazing or something. Tell him good luck, because he's going to get it either way. So nobody cares who you know. Once you get there, it's all, you know, it's all on you. Yeah.

I think because, you know, it is the anniversary, what are we, at the 19th anniversary of 9-11, I'd like to ask you about that, Ray, and if you could tell us about your experiences that day, what unfolded for you and what had happened? That day, actually, September 10th, 2001, I'd worked at 4 to 12, and I had the pleasure of working with Vincent Dams, who was probably one of the most squared away, calm, former Marine, knowledgeable guys who, who, in the short time that I did know him really taught me a lot and Vinnie wasn't supposed to be working that day Vinny was supposed to work a four to twelve that day but he was going to um operating engineer school at night so he did a tour change which was authorized and you know it was going to you know planning on doing his day tour going to school at night getting his operating engineers license and we all know

what happened but um you know i'd been i was lucky enough to be with viny the night before and i was in the same squad as viny um i was scheduled to go in for four to twelve that day i was actually at home when it had gone down and you know the office called and pretty much it was all hands on deck um i'd only been in the unit for two years but again it was a busy place so you kind of got to know out of the 23 guys we lost in emergency, I knew 21 of them. The only guys I never had the pleasure of meeting was Ronnie Clofer and Santos Valentin.

Unfortunately, I'd never gotten to meet those guys. Those are midnight guys in Brooklyn, and our paths had never crossed. But I had sat next to personally, I'd sat next to in the truck, probably almost every one of them, at one point or another in my short, at the time,

emergency career and um like i've been on a couple of uh they made a couple of documentaries about it after it happened none of them ever made the uh the air or anything like that i guess they lost luster or interest but what the thing i always said was uh you know all the guys we lost they were the kind of person that you'd want your son to be with and your daughter to marry and that's the god's honest truth uh they were the best the best i mean uh i could just you know Tommy langone was literally he was in truck 10 he was one of our senior rope instructors at the school and like literally if a spaceship landed in central park Tommy Lango would know what to do he was just that that kind of guy where he just you know and it was just that was just the type of um the type of character in person

you know we lost that day rodney gillis was one of the sergeants he'd been in the unit as a copass sergeant and i was a i was a new guy i was a nobody and that guy went out of his way to make you feel comfortable to make you feel accepted to make you feel part of the team and you know I never forgot that and it just you know I work personally like I said with John DeLara I was assigned to his brother every year Wally Weaver and I were partners in the

4-7 precinct were very close friends Jerome Dominguez was at a truck 3 he was was in my STS class Paul Talti was in my STS class Steve Driscoll was a friend of mine I met Steve Driscoll's son when his son was a newborn. And I was out one night.

And I was hanging out at a cop bar and a friend of mine was working. He was a retired cop. He goes, hey, have you ever met Barry? I go, Barry who? He goes, Barry Triscoll. I go, holy shit, Barry Triscoll. Steve Triskel's son. He goes, yeah, that's him.

He's a sergeant in Intel. And I'm like, holy, I remember you or you were a tiny little baby, you know? And I'm friends with the guy to this day. It's just a strange web of, you know, how things get woven together over the years. But that getting down there, back to your original question that day, was, it was surreal. Like, I never thought it was going to be that bad. And it was, it was, however bad you thought it was going to be, it was ten times worse. We were just completely caught.

you know we did the best we could but it took a it took a couple of days to get everything together and once we got our our ducks in a row and you know it it wound up getting you know uh kind of off and running within a couple days but you know back then we had some we had some really really good leadership uh you know commissioner kerrick was the commissioner our chief of the issue was a guy named top Rattel, who was a two-star chief. He retired as a three-star chief. Still a friend of mine to this day. And, you know, it just, it just was, like I said, as bad as you can imagine, it was 10 times worse.

It just was, it was hard. Ray, do you mind if I sort of ask you sort of your personal experience in terms of, like, around what time did you get the call? Oh, like, was that your first awareness of it? What did they tell you? I was home sleeping because I had done a night tour the night before and the phone rang

it was the office I'd answered the phone and you know I turned the TV on and I was sort of like oh alright you know we can handle this it's a plane you know nobody knew

what the gravity of it was right while I was watching I saw the second one hit and I was like okay now sort of kind of get the feeling what's going on and and you know the smartest thing as stupid as this sounds, the smartest thing I did that day

was my screen froze. Can you still hear? Oh, there I go. We got you. We got you. The smartest thing I did that day was eat something before I went to work. I took 10 minutes, made myself a quick,

you know, scrambled eggs and whatever, threw it on some toast because I didn't eat again until about 9 o'clock that night. And, you know, looking back, was you know in the grand scheme of things it's not a big deal but it just was one of the smarter things that i did but it was um yeah i wouldn't wish that on uh on on anybody

what what happened that day so did they call did they want everybody down there like when they called they did they want everybody down there did they want you back filling positions that were going unfilled in other parts of the city we the city was left on its own everybody went down. There was a citywide department recall. The entire department was called in. Burrency service was sent down there. We mustered the Woolworth Building. The guy that ran it

from us was a lieutenant named John McArdle who was a saint. The guy is retired. He ran the operation down there from the first day and didn't leave until the last day. He put his retirement on hold

and, you know, he's not doing that well. He's actually sick right now, so he didn't make it today. That was one of the first questions I asked is John McArdle coming and now like, now he's not coming, he's not doing well. So, you know, hopefully he, you know, he's okay. But yeah, he was running it on our end and he became our detail leader down there. But we pretty much got in everything that was working vehicle wise. We threw as much equipment on as we as we could. could and got down there and, you know, the radio was haywire.

We mustered the Woolwork Building and basically tried to get a plan together, but it just was really needed. The next day, like I said, things started getting a little more into order and divided you up into zones and teams and, you know, but it was tough. And like we don't want you to talk about anything that makes you overly uncomfortable, so feel free to skip anything. But about what time did you get down there and what had already happened? Had both buildings already come down? The first two towers had been hit. The first tower collapsed. The second one, we got down there about probably 1030 in the morning.

So the both towers had come down. The whole World Trade Center complex was pretty much under because people failed to realize and it's no fault of their own. It's just there was the two big towers, Tower 1 and Tower 2, but there was two other buildings there, Tower 3 and Tower 4, that weren't as high as them,

but that were also that got destroyed when Tower 1 and Tower 2 came down. So you basically had four buildings that were all on top of each other. And, you know, it was a massive undertaking that took place between us, the fire department.

And another agency that gets overlooked that was extremely helpful in this whole operation was the New York City Department of Corrections. You know, they have an emergency service unit. They come through our school. We train them and they were there with, you know, with hundreds of guys on our teams every day helping us out. And then plus the other departments that came from all over, you know, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, you know. I don't want to leave anybody out, but you know, all you have to do is go on Instagram today. And pretty much every department in the tri-state area has pictures of their people there, you know, helping out. It literally was full hands on deck.

And, you know, guys were, you know, we can't thank the guys enough. Well, we can't repay them enough for coming down to help us out, you know, in our time of need. So, you know, kudos to them for it. And how were you balancing? like what was going on there plus we had had the pentagon and the other fight and things like that how are you balancing the emergency that you were handling and then the possibility that there might be other attacks or that uncertainty well one of the one of the teams there was a sergeant paul hargrove who's retired now he was smart enough to realize the great the big big picture

so he grabbed a bunch of guys and they went tactical immediately they were went heavy vass helmet and long guns and you know they were they were basically our force protection or you know turns out you know we didn't need it but there wasn't any uh element on the ground that was going to uh you know activate as soon as the buildings went down but you know that was just something that always stuck out with me you know these guys were you know smart enough to think big picture and got involved in that aspect of it And so every day, you know, once we got the, you know, they called it the ring of steel down there with the Manhattan Lower Manhattan Initiative. There was always a tactical team on standby out there just in case while we were working doing the rescue recovery effort.

There was another, you know, attack. So we, you know, that aspect was pretty well prepared. But, you know, it was, you know, it just was, you know, looking back, some of the decisions. decisions that were made by front line top sergeants and lieutenants really i think made a huge difference in um you know the way things kind of played out because who knows maybe there were elements that nobody ever knew about that um you know could have possibly or or you know sympathetic attackers or anything like that that would just maybe turned away by you know what we did and then i remember that night we were at star was in high school probably around eight or nine o'clock and

we just got word that, you know, the Air Force that started bombing, you know, Al-Qaeda training camps overseas. And that kind of gave us a little bit of, you know, pick me up. And, you know, once everybody kind of got their heads together and realized what was going on, when we started to, you know, fight back for the first time in a long time, it sort of gave everybody a purpose of, okay, you know what? this is bad, but we're going to, you know, we're going to get, we're going to get through this one way or the other. Yeah.

So you mentioned a number of ESU personnel who, you know, gave their lives and we know there are a lot of firefighter. Did anybody know initially, like when you guys got down there, I mean, obviously comms were an issue. There were a lot of issues. Like, how long did it take for sort of like the realization of everybody, not just you, the people in general to realize like how how how how what our losses had actually been at that point oh i knew immediately that there was if anybody had made it out of there it was going to be a miracle by just looking at

the gravity of the situation i mean you know we would meet with the families they they never in the beginning uh let the families come to the scene they they were staged at one police Plaza. So every couple of days you drive down there just to check in with them to make sure that they were okay. But you never told them what was really... Some of them knew it. They knew.

I mean, but there was a lot of people that kept up hope. And that's good. That's fine. That's healthy, I guess. But knowing what we knew, it was those guys in there never had a chance. I was like a 18-year-old

19-year-old kid at the time. in high school as in my senior year of high school and i remember you know watching television like we were all hoping that they'd be able to pull some firefighters out of the wreckage you know i guess it's just like you said that that you know clinging the hope yeah yeah yeah yeah you know there was also a lot of misinformation going around that you know oh we heard you guys dug out a a uh a fire truck today and 12 people got off of it no that never happened like it was you know wishful thinking at the very least. Yeah.

So, you know, anybody that has, you know, your experience in doing what you do or what we do, you knew that it was a daunting task to say the least. Yeah. And then how did ESU, how did MIPD, how did the fire department, not respond to it, but sort of recover from that over time? I mean, obviously that's a process. There's healing that has to happen, but you also have to go back to being fully operational as soon as possible.

Yeah, the city doesn't stop. I mean, they're still calling 911. The people, you know, I mean, they know what's going on, but it's, it's, they're still taking 911 calls. People are still calling the police and the fire department. I mean, for the first couple of days, it kind of got scaled back, but within the first week, It was like, all right, we need to, you know, get our stuff together.

We need to put, I mean, everybody was working. There was no days off for, I think, six months or something like that. So you would have, you know, everybody in. So half the guys would go down to the trade center. Half the guys would stay on the road. It was 12-hour tours. It was 24-hour operations down there. So the police department, I think it is sort of wisdom.

kind of said, we're going to set a schedule where you're not allowed to go down there more than more than three days a week. And I think that was kind of a smart thing looking back. We had enough guys that we could do that. I can't speak for the fire department. Like I said, we worked hand in hand with those guys. Their rescue guys, their special operations section guys at us work together. but you know it came to a point at some point where you were like we need to bring in the operating engineers we need to bring in the iron workers we need to bring in the people that built this structure they need to take it apart because it just got to the point where it wasn't safe to put people in the voids it wasn't safe to you know one of the most dangerous things we did down there was somebody had come to us one day and said that there's a hot a horn hunking in one of the underground garages so you know what I'm going to come to us one day and said that there's a hot a horn honking in one of the underground garages so So myself and a couple of other guys went down there, and it was completely unsafe to do what we did. But we searched the garage.

It turned out it was just a car alarm going off in one of the park blocks underneath. But we kind of ruffled a few feathers by doing that, because from that point on, every team was assigned a structural engineer, and they had the final say whether you were going in or not. And it came to a point one day where similar to people, situation happened where we had a couple of guys who were you know real brave guys one was a Marine one was a Navy guy and they were gonna go into a void which was looking back was super dangerous and not a smart thing to do and one of our

sergeants was the voice of reason saying hold on we need to get somebody here with a engineering background and he came he was a FEMA engineer and he was like you guys aren't going anywhere near this this is not it's not safe you know it's just not the right thing to do and so we kind of put our you know you know put our pride away and had to you know figure out another way to get down there and it just was you know it sucked but you know it just was we're already in the situation we're not going to lose two other guys for or something that you know we're not even sure about so i saw i saw guys i saw acts of bravery from from everybody from all walks of life from all agencies just guys that you know didn't have to do

what they did and they did it to try and you know make a difference so was anybody aware at that time i mean obviously now we see all the health issues that have resulted from that but at that time was anybody aware of the potential fallout uh from you know what was in the air and stuff like that? I remember going like one night early on and I had gone home and I was sitting on the couch watching TV just I don't even know why just sort of in a in a zone. I remember Christy Todd Whitman who was the EPA conviction at the time and telling like going out of her way to tell everybody how the air was fine.

It was safe to breathe and obviously we know all that that's all bullshit now. Right. I mean, the team I was on, pretty much one guy they told him when he dies, they're going to name the disease after him. That's, you know, they've never seen a type of cancer that this guy has, and that's what they told them. So looking back, that was kind of a smack in the face. Like, you know, be honest. Like, it's nobody's, you didn't do it. This was created by an outside force.

you know, kind of tell guys that, hey, baby, this isn't, you should wear your mask. You should wear a, you know, filter or whatever. And most guys were, but it just was, from that point on, they, they went out of their way to set up the, um, the decon areas. And so you knew, like being kind of being, you know, an observer, being a little more knowledgeable than the average guy on the street that something's up here, that, they're not telling us and it just you know fortunately like I said you know I'm so far so good no no ill effects I go for the screening every year um you know they they they do do a good job and

in keeping up with you and following with you and making sure you're okay but yeah that that that was a little um looking back I was a little disappointed in in that sort of I guess knee-jerk reaction to maybe tell the people that lived down there everything was okay whatever it obviously it wasn't and i don't think anybody really would have been upset by saying hey you need to stay out of here if you don't have to be down here for x amount of weeks months or whatever i don't think it would have been a big deal but i think there was a rush to kind of get back to normalcy yeah which i understand in one way but in another way it's it's kind of like you know it's sort of uh It sort of softens the, or weakens the, the efforts of the guys that were down there to do the right thing.

And, you know, it kind of hurts what stinks. Yeah. Do you feel that like that next six months of 12 hour days, no days off, do you feel as though that helped the men and women that were involved sort of, you know, kept them busy? or do you think that it inhibited sort of the grieving process and the time that they needed to get over it? I'm actually surprised, and I've said this in some smaller circles, and I'll tell you guys in your audience, that I'm surprised we didn't lose more people to suicide after that happened, because all you saw for that amount of time was death and destruction. Right.

I mean, we weren't even finding whole bodies. You were finding parts and, you know, people. were being identified by DNA and um everything like that so i was i'm glad it didn't go that route but i i was just waiting for the the slew of of like just guys that just you know it had enough and decided they weren't going to deal with it anymore i mean the guys i work with you know we we actually all became a lot closer you know we were always together if we weren't at work we were at a funeral if we weren't at a funeral we were at work if we weren't at the truck we were at the site and um you know you you got you got to be you know you knew you know you knew everything about

these people that you worked with you do what set them off you do what made them happy you knew what made them sad and um you know it's just you know not that anything good came out of it but but but but there was like if you were there for 9-11 you were sort of in like a uh you know you know a club that nobody could you know ever you know replicate or you know you were you were kind of part of that uh that little that that that's that that's something that happened that guys that weren't there for it you know through no fault of their own just couldn't you know relate to sure and i'm sure everybody dealt with this in their own way because that's kind of what we do in these circumstances. But in this club, were there any kind of prevailing feelings? I mean,

was it more sorrow? Was it more anger? Was it more nervous? It was anger. Way over anger. I mean, it was like, I mean, the prevailing theme for us was, let's just turn the Middle East into a park lot. Yeah. And, you know, you know, the joke was, hey, I'm running late today. I'm coming in on the, you know, Iraqi Express. You know, there's traffic. on the on the highway you know who's gonna just turn it in start over and you know there was a definite anger was an overwhelming um theme sure sure did did this city and i know cops are probably like soldiers where talking to somebody about what's going on is the last thing that they want to do often but did the city make services available to do the police oh yeah you you know you

couldn't uh you couldn't walk five feet without somebody with a counselor or somebody coming to talk to you and and um you know the the job did make it mandatory where you had to go meet with with people and everything like that and you know and like you know probably with the same with you guys is they they bribed you with food oh there's going to be really good food there i wish that had happened you know it's just was that's what guys would talk about i'd be like who gives you shit about the food. Like, you know, I don't want to just, you know, you go there and you talk to these people about stuff that, you know, you don't want to say the wrong thing or like one of our guys got in trouble because he joked around and said, you know, every time I hear a plane, I get nervous

and this. And he was only, you know, he was a prankster. He was a jokester. Right. But they didn't get it. So it turned into a little bit of a deal. But. Right. And therapists, I think it all work now at the end. Yeah. And therapists often don't. Don't. get sort of the dark humor that sustains us. They don't, they don't get it. Yeah. You know, it's just, you know, I mean, I can't really complain about the job's reaction. Other than it probably was a little bit slow, but again, they'd never experienced something

on this scale where it just was, you know, I mean, like I said, once they got their act up and running, it was, it was off to the races. but, you know, they, it wasn't, you know, just get out there, do your job, shut up. It was, they definitely did, you know, as much as I'd like to say, they didn't really do the right thing. They, they did, you know, I can't really complain about that. And do you mind at all? I mean, in this very personal and you don't have to, obviously. But what was your process through all that?

I mean, was there the denial, the anger? like what what was your process oh i was i was angry i was pissed um it you know initially it was overwhelming um i could still tell you who i was with that day and and we kind of made a pact with each other that you know we're gonna you know we're not going to let each other out of our site and you know i got your back you got mine let's get through this and and then as the day goes on you're like we're going to need way more than just you know you and me too yeah you're you know it's but yeah I was I'm still pissed to this day I mean I you know I always like to say I'm I'm a reform bully I used to be a bully when I was younger now I

only I only bully bad people but I it definitely does it to this day is still you know I mean it takes a toll on you when you hear people talking shit about you know I had an incident just before I retired where we'd gone to a precinct and the desk officer was there and you know I'm not going to mention names not going to mention where it was but he'd been he was a steady desk officer and and then he was a guy I'm trying to get out on disability so one of the guys I was with says oh what's your what's your disability says I just put it for the World Trade Center disability you know I figured everybody else is getting something so so so so so so should not so should i and i almost reached over and and

kicked his ass right then and there luckily the lieutenant that was there was a sergeant in the issue before that and he was his boss and he saw my absolute outrage and he basically made this guy his life of living hell for the next few months until he he basically forced him to retire because the guy was just you know it was just the stupidest thing to say or do and you know like there's guys that are suffering that are dying horrible deaths and you're going to try and just say oh yeah i'm going to get out because of i spent 15 minutes there directing traffic there you know get out of here it's just yeah so you had to deal with not a lot of that fortunately but but there was you know there was some of that and you know

it just still it it does definitely peak a nerve this time of year for for what's going on and I'm definitely

a lot more sensitive and a lot more aggravated you know let's like I said my partner's brother who's still with us he's part of the survivors of the shield he's a big 9-11

advocate he's been down to get Mo to testify at the trials and he he says I can't wait for September 12th because the week up to the day the day itself it's just you really are on pins and needles

and you're ready to you're like a cober ready to strike at anybody that says you have to really be cognizant of that fact that people don't they don't have the same feelings about it towards you towards it than you do and you have to consider that when you're

you know out and about. So, you know, I've made peace with it in some respects, but in other respects, it definitely does really anger the shit out of me sometimes. Does that anger bubble up around the anniversary of 9-11? Absolutely. Yeah.

Like tomorrow, I'll probably still be a little pissed, but as we go in in next week, it'll start to dissipate because what really aggravates me is the first thing I turned on, I got up at 5.30 this morning, turned on the TV, watched the news, and it's, oh, solemn day, this and that. Our heroes are, you know, people that wouldn't give you a glass of water if you were dying of thirst doing what you do or we do. But now they're towing the line and they're, like, pretending that they give a shit.

And you know deep down that they think they care less. It has no effect on them whatsoever. They're just glad that they weren't there that day in that building. working and you know it just it's just a complete you know phony whole deal that contributes to to the whole day i know this is like kind of a super sensitive issue and i was having words about it today on social media there are all these people who are very vocal and active on the anniversary of 9-11 all of a sudden they care very much about the victims but does it come across it's kind of like phony bullshit to you as well?

100%. That's 100% about phony bullshit. There are genuine people that care and they might not have been there. They might not even have been born, but they're Americans and they realize the gravity of the situation. Like,

I wasn't born when Pearl Harbor hit. I understand the gravity of the situation. I, you know, I've mourned that day. Like, I get it. I understand. But there's more often. and then not it's people that are just it's just you know fake putting their post out or whatever it is and you know they're the same people that are going to be the first ones to criticize you know

you guys or our guys when something happens and all the facts aren't in yet and they'll be the first ones to rush to judgment and it's just it's just disheartening how you know it goes down I don't know how much you interact with younger people, you know, because when we think about it now, it's been, you know, it's like there are young adults that were not alive during that period. And sometimes they really don't have an understanding of it because it's. And they're old enough to become police officers and become soldiers. Yeah. And have you, have you, like, interacted with young people who aren't 100% fully aware of what it is? what's your experience like that been with them?

Well, in the police department, it's almost impossible not to know what happened. Because they really, they do cover it, they touch on it. They talk about it in the academy. And then, you know,

when you get to whatever precinct, there's always going to be somebody that was there that'll talk about it. But, you know, I saw something today on online about, you know, it was like,

we were kids when 9-11 happened. And he goes, we're not kids anymore and it was two guys in military uniform and two guys in police uniforms and that that kind of gave me like you know hey maybe more people get it than you know I think

personally more people get it than we see that's covered I really do but you know you hope so at least you hope that people get it that you know hey it's just we're just you know who knows when the next

the next attack is coming or if there's other attacker where it's going to be it's just you know I think it's just a matter of time I'm surprised we haven't been hit big since but you know that's just my personal opinion but you know I like to tend to think that the majority of people do get it even though they're not represented in what you see out there on you know the news every day yeah yeah and I mean new I'd like to hear your opinion but I mean New York City did come out for the firefighters and the cops and the civilian victims of 9-11.

Yeah. No, it was, yeah, I mean, you, you were, you were treated very, very well. And it was just, I mean, it was just something that, I mean, I think that anybody that was working that day would have done, you know, what those guys did. I mean, it just, that's just, you know,

there was like a, you know, saying going around, you know, it's what we do. And I still, you know, to this day, it's pretty much sums it up. You know, that's what we do. It's just, you know, who else is going to do it? Right. Right. And the simple fact is, like you said, anybody who would have been on duty at that time, I mean, it's almost the luck of the draw in a way of.

There was people there that died and there was people. people the way that were 10 feet away from them that lived. I mean, it just was, you know, you know, when your time's up, it's up. You know, I'm not overly religious. I can't explain it. It just was, that's just the way it went down. You know, if you were, if you were here, you lived, if you were there, you died. It's just, you know, that's just the way, that's just the way the ball bounced that day.

Yeah. No, no, uh, no rhyme or reason. Uh, Brendan G, thank you very much. She has a question. We kind of touched on this, but he said, knew about a lot, knew a lot, or knew about a lot of FDNY and EMT survivors of 9-11 with ongoing health problems from the attack. What about the health issues for NYPD and especially ESU? It's the same thing.

I mean, unfortunately, we're going to lose more people from illnesses and ailments after the attack than they were killed that day. Yeah. That's just the way it goes. I know you, you know, they, like I said, I can't speak for the fire department. I'm sure that they do the same thing that we do. We go for a health screening once a year. It's through Mount Sinai Hospital. And, you know, they give you, you're there all day. They give you soup nuts exam. And there's no pussy footing around. It's you're there. They, you know, I get my blood taken four times a year. And I go for the one exam. you know, once a year usually in like coming up, the thubbing November or December, I think. But they're constant contact with you. They mail you reminders, questionnaires, they check with you, we have our own liaison within the police department.

So I would assume the fire department's the same way. So again, I can't complain about pushing under the rock. They do keep up with it. But, yeah, guys get sick. Guys are, you know, unfortunately, you know, we've lost a lot of guys. That's not a story that really gets told a lot either about the aunt. That's not a story that gets told a lot about the ongoing. And, you know, you're saying that the local government has been really good about it.

But we also know that the federal government on a number of times has been really slow to respond. And I know that like John Stewart has been a massive advocate. for you guys he has become a a big advocate for us like you said he's hooked up with a guy named John feel who started the feel good foundation which is all about 9-11 responders civilians law enforcement fire everything you know the big last time they had was they went in front of Congress to get some you know monies approved to keep the medical fund going, which is, you know,

you never know when you're going to need it. I mean, you can find out you're sick tomorrow. It's just, you know, it's the least, I mean, it sounds, I don't want to sound selfish or anything like that, but it's the least they could do. Sure. For guys that actually did it, you know, they take care of people that come here

and don't really contribute to society. They should kind of take care of the people that do. You know, it seems like it's a, it's a no-brainer, but I think the last time. he was in for Congress. She really dressed them down, didn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think, right, if you have, when you go back to Ground Zero nowadays, and now it's all built up, the Freedom Tower, there's a memorial where the two towers fell, and there's kind of some, in my opinion, some pretty bizarre architecture as well. What do you think, right, when you go down there?

I mean I go down and I'll go and I'll see the you know we call it visiting the boys I'll go to where I know my friend's names are and I'll go see them and you know I don't get too involved in it I'm not

you know it's just it's really not my thing it's not my vibe I would actually rather I go down to the police memorial every May and I go down and I see their names down there I feel more comfortable down there

because you're sort of with like-minded people down there as opposed to the people at the World Trade Center. There's a lot of wing nuts there, a lot of people that are drawn to. I mean, I was down there one day working, and a lady came up to me with a notepad, a legal pad, and she'd come up to me and told me that there's 15 names that are misspelled on the wall. And I'm like, what are you telling me for?

Like, I'm, you know, that's not something. and I just took one look at her and I'm like this lady's, you know, she's out of her mind but it's just something like that, a place like that attracts, you know. Like the Japanese tourists taking pictures next thing. Well, that's the other thing.

It's become a big tourist spot which really aggravates the shit. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's sort of actually become a money-making operation which is you know, absolutely the opposite end of, you know, the original 9-11

Foundation was bought out by the World Trade Center Museum and it was started by John Vigiano, who was Joe Vigiano and John Vigiano's father. He was a retired fire chief. He since passed away from 9-11 cancer and another gentleman named Lea Leppi, who was another retired fire chief. Lee's still with us, but he's starting to not be as active as he used to be. and those guys were in it for the right reasons. They had all the answers to anybody's question, would give tours, would explain, and they kind of got bought out and pushed to the side by this,

you know, corporate conglomerate of the court authority and are sort of, you know, relegated to the second string down there now, which is pretty disturbing. You remember they were selling like, what was it like 9-11 cheese trays at the museum it's like oh yeah they had a party

there the night before they opened the museum the memorial and they basically had a party on people's graves you know it was so weird very ill very ill perceived in their view but you're dealing with people

that are that are bureaucrats that are career that just don't look at things the way that we look at them yeah yeah right it shows yeah it's similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, B.C. I mean, and if you haven't been there before, the viewers, the 9-11

memorial, it's these fountains where the towers fell and it has all the names of all the victims from the people. And, you know, either one of those memorials, I mean, when you see all the names, it's like, holy shit. Like, this is for real. Yeah.

It definitely brings it home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What, so what happened with NYPD, with ESU, with, like, New York law enforcement in general, post-9-11? Wait, did you start to see changes almost immediately? And I don't necessarily mean your work schedule, but how it started to react and respond to this event.

I mean, everything initially afterwards was. was a potential terrorist incident. And the job doesn't do anything lightly. So they take everything to the extreme, to the point where, I mean, we went on a job one morning. A super was cleaning his front walk in a building in the South Bronx, and he was using Clorox.

And somebody called in. And it was completely, you know, completely, unfounded job and we had gotten cell phones in our vehicles and I get a call from some detective and intel like busting my chops about Mark and I go you want to come out and investigate this you come out investigated I'm not going to do your job for you this is bullshit this is over it's done with we're moving on to the next

the next call you know you're not going to dictate you're not going to do my job from your from your office we want to come out here and wear some shoe leather down, go right ahead. We're on to the next. You know, this isn't the only thing we're going to do today. We've got five other calls pending right now. So, you know, it just,

you know, eventually it all fades away. It goes back to normal. It goes back to, you know, just being going on calls, being a cop. And, you know, details come up. You strip patrol down to the bare bones. So the guys are humping the radio all night while, you know,

you're protecting the UN during the United Nations or you're protecting Yankee Stadium during the baseball game it's just you know eventually it all becomes about the almighty dollar and they have to monitor the overtime and they just decide that all right this is what we're going to do we're going to roll the dice we're going to take away from Peter to pay Paul and we're going to hope nothing happens right and that's you know fortunately they get away with it more than they don't right but It's just a recipe for disaster. Right.

And I mean, I think we see that in so many cases in government, whether it's local governments or federal governments. It's like when there's an emergency, they're right on it, you know, and then as time fades, there's like, ah, that may or may not be a problem. Think about like we are still in this whole thing with COVID-19 and the whole aspect of like, hey, we weren't going to have enough ventilators. Right. Do you think our government is going to keep ventilators? a warehouse on standby for the next pandemic? Of course not. How much money would that cost to maintain all that?

Some bean counter is going to want to cut it. And then we get hit with the next virus and people, holy shit, why don't we have enough vent? I mean, it's just the cycle that we go through as a country. It's interesting because I know in terms of

the Joint Terrorism Task Force and things like that, they got very active. I mean, there were NYPD down in Guantanamo, Bay. they were like NYPD I think in Afghanistan actually like they they deployed a lot of places under the sort of the purview of definitely

in the Middle East yeah you know did did you guys did it change the focus on your training or sort of the focus on your mission I mean for us it still was

basically you know respond to the job deal with what you have we after that we you know we did get a lot of federal money we had um you know like I said I will tell you guys inside what we had out there but we had anti-terrorism patrols out there for you know they're still out there not gonna get into numbers sure hours and tours but there's always teams out there ready to respond to any type of potential terrorist incident you know we have

Berkeley's teams we have torch teams we have all sorts of subunits now there The prevalence of M4s on patrol now is quite abundant, not only in emergency service, there's other subunits out there that are trained in heavy weapons. And I do think that has a lot to do with the fact that it kind of keeps people that are looking to do bad off guard. It's just a lot of times it becomes a necessary evil in one respect. and then when nothing happens for a while and they need to cut back those are the first people that they think they cut back and then when something does happen or what happened to these guys oh they're not out there anymore type deal so you know it's just our mission is pretty much never changed i'd like to say it evolved and um you know the guys just rolled the punches and you know we treat every

tactical assignment, whether it's a terrorist operation or, you know, a guy wanted for a murder. It's the same, you know, they're looking to do you harm. It's just that you handle it the same way, how it gets handled after the fact after you get him into custody, that's usually where it changes, whether it goes federal, whether it goes, you know, how it gets handled after the fact. Yeah. Right, can I get you to stay for just 10 minutes or so to do the bonus segment? with us if that's okay yeah yeah it will be out of here by 10 okay sure yeah uh just tell everybody

out there the viewers thanks for joining us live really appreciate you watching it please make sure that you uh like the video or or dislike the video if you think we suck i don't like i think we're okay yeah we're all right we're worth a thumbs up well ray is definitely worth of thumbs up you don't have to give us a thumbs up but um and there are so many more things we want to talk about you about like law enforcement in the world today and we know you're running limit on time but we'd love to have you back on sometime i would love to come back you guys are real you know genuine dudes and you know for whoever's listening out there this is the first time you know i've met these two guys and they're awesome genuine guys and i would love to you know um come back again and just

you know anytime you guys you know need somebody or whatever you know and i hope i didn't wear my welcome them out. No, not at all. Like said, you saved our ass. We can go another hour with, because there's so much more to talk about, about law enforcement, specifically in New York. But we know you're not nearly as tough as you guys. I'm normally asleep by now. I work, you know, but, listen, it was honestly, you know, just tell us, whoever's out there listening, it's my pleasure to be a part of this. And, you know, thank you to everybody that's, uh, you know feeling the way that we're feeling today that's helped out or you know just uh you know you see somebody you know that's that's in in a uniform you know shake their hands tell them you know you

know you appreciate what they do whether you know it's military police or or whoever fire ems volunteers just you know just just let them know that they're appreciated because it really does go a long way yeah that's that's that's from that's from that's from the heart that's god's honest right right is there a charity that you want to plug or a foundation that you want to plug? I mean, the NYPD Widows and Orphans Fund, I don't know if they call it anymore. They call it the

widows of children's or whatever, but you know, the police department, fire department organizations that take care of the families that that, you know, of the members that pass on. I know the

the Stephen Siller Foundation, the Tunnels for Towers, those are all reputable organizations that take care of the military guys and take care of law enforcement guys take care of the fire guys um you know those are all you know i just saw a commercial the other day asking for uh 11 dollars a month to to take care of of the vets and i can tell you firsthand that the the tunnel for towers foundation does show up at these local departments small jobs and and provides them with, you know, especially with what's going on now, with all this, you know, PPE and all the stuff that's required to do this job. They come up with this stuff. I don't know how they come up with it. They come up with the Clorox pipe.

They come up with the masks. They come up with the gloves. And, you know, big jobs like the NYPD doesn't have a problem getting that stuff. But the smaller departments definitely do. And agencies and organizations like this do. a spectacular job and it's it's all legit the money's not going in anybody's pocket it's definitely going to to good use so any any reputable charity that takes care of our military or our law enforcement um or our fire guys is is uh you know i think a very worthy uh charity in

today's day and age great thank you so guys uh please subscribe to the channel if you have it already and also if you're interested in supporting us and what we're doing and keeping this whole thing running, there's a link to our Patreon down in description. And if you support us, you'll get access to the bonus segments. Even $1 a month gets you access to special content. Like the one we're going to do with Ray in like two seconds here.

So thank you, everyone, and we'll be back next week with Mr. Cronin. he served in recon and force recon in Vietnam and then he was in the Rhodesian Light Infantry and the Salute Scouts and also had some adventures in Beirut. We'll get into all of that next week. So I'll see you guys then.

Thanks everybody. Thank you, Ray. Thanks for trying to. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you, man. That was amazing. No, thank you guys.