NYPD chief: 9/11 heroes’ legacy lives on in every generation of officers

The legacy of the NYPD officers who ran toward danger on Sept. 11, 2001, continues to shape the department a quarter-century later, Chief of Department Michael LiPetri said during a ceremony dedicating a memorial wall to members who died in the attacks and their aftermath.

“None of us gets here alone,” LiPetri said. “Whatever rank we reach, whatever command we lead, we are standing on the foundations other people built.”

“We inherit their lessons, their example, and eventually it becomes our responsibility to pass those things forward,” he added.

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The NYPD has lost more than 469 members to illnesses connected to their service after the attacks, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. More than 1,700 members have retired from the department with World Trade Center-related disabilities, LiPetri added.

“We are still losing members to illnesses caused by their service after the attacks,” LiPetri said. “All these years later, we are still standing with families as they bury loved ones whose lives were forever changed by the work they did after Sept. 11”

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The memorial wall at One Police Plaza honors the 23 NYPD officers killed at the World Trade Center that morning, along with members who later died from illnesses linked to their rescue and recovery efforts.

“Sept. 11 did not end on Sept. 11,” NYPD Chief Chaplain Reverend R. Bernard said during the invocation. “For many, the costs continued for years, illness endured, families impacted and lives ultimately lost.”

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani recalled the story of Officer John William Perry, who was at One Police Plaza preparing to resign and begin a career as an attorney when the first plane struck the North Tower. Perry asked for his shield back and rushed to the World Trade Center.

“There he was confronted with unimaginable suffering, but he did not stop with the same immense bravery and courage that was commonplace among so many that day, the kind that has long defined this department,” Mamdani said.

“Officer Perry ran into the fire. The last time he was seen he was helping a woman out of the South Tower before rushing back in to save as many others as he could. Officer Perry and 22 of his fellow officers, each with their own stories, were killed that morning. That includes 14 members of the emergency service unit, who were among the first to enter the towers.”

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Mamdani noted sons of officers Ronnie Klopfer and Joseph Viviano “now carry on his legacy of bravery as valued members of this very department.”

“Every officer present that day embodied the NYPD’s creed that the duty to protect is not a job that one clocks out of, but a calling,” Mamdani said. “One answers until the very end.

“In the days and months that followed September 11th, thousands of NYPD officers and staff from across every precinct and every borough heeded that same call. They took on that same heavy and incalculable risk.”

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Their sons play on the same lacrosse team Klopfer founded before the attacks.

“Their fathers are gone, but the team that Ron built is still here,” LiPetri said. “Their sons are wearing an NYPD uniform, and a connection that began years before Sept. 11 continues inside the department.”

Tisch said thousands of current NYPD officers were children on 9/11, while many others had not yet been born. She said preserving the memories of those who served is becoming increasingly important as the generation that responded to the attacks retires.

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“The faces in this building will be different, but these names will still be here,” Tisch said. “The example of the men and women behind them will continue to shape the department.”