While Leaving Ground
Zero - September 11, 2002
Friends, fellow New Yorkers, countrymen:
Tonight, I just
want to take a moment to share with you a scene that left a deep impression on
me while I was leaving the wreckage at Ground Zero a year ago
today.
When I entered
Ground Zero that night via the Marina, immediately south of the North Tower, at
about 11PM, it looked like a moonscape, with an inch of whitish-grey powder
covering everything. The only footsteps to be seen there among the rubble
were of the firemen who had been searching. No one there was
speaking. At one point a NYC fireman tripped, and I went over to help him
up. When he got up on his own, he abruptly asked me what fire department I was
from (I was not wearing a fireman's suit). I simply said "Albany."
He pondered that, and spoke no more. I held my halogen spotlight
over his shoulder when he fixed his attention on a cavity and was shining only
his inadequate flashlight. Later, when I heard a group of firemen including the
officer who had helped me step over a beam speaking about me, and I realized
they were about to ask me the same question, I pointed down to my left,
directing their attention to something I had found under a set of beams.
That preoccupied them, and also the petite female doctor whom they
immediately summoned. This was about 50 feet northwest of the now-famous
flag pole, which I had earlier noticed had not been flattened, despite the parts
of a shredded firetruck strewn all around it. The only thing any of
them said to me after that was to stay off "the Pile" (the North Tower) when I
had begun to climb towards it. When I looked up to the pile, in the light
of the floodlights, I saw a hellish vapor slowly rising everywhere from the
rubble like something out of Dante. Through this I later saw the figures of
several firemen in black methodically scaling or traversing "the pile."
When I finally concluded that I would not find a live person in that
violently-deposited rubble, and my halogen light's battery was running down, I
felt I had to leave.
At about 2AM on September 12, 2001, I walked (north)
out of Ground Zero. When I could walk briskly while looking ahead (without
staring at my foot falls), I looked up and saw two NY fire department officers
walking (north) ahead of me. One wore a light colored suit and helmet and
the other wore the black suit and classic fireman hat. They were walking
side-by-side about 30 feet ahead of me, carrying something between them.
Each held up a top corner of a large clear plastic bag (about 3 feet
long). They walked very deliberately, not rushing, placing
their steps carefully, holding the bag carefully so it did not swing and so it
did not touch the ground. They walked like pallbearers, to a funeral
drum-beat only they could hear. I slowed my pace so I would not pass them.
And, I tried to understand what I was seeing.
The contents of the
bag had significant mass. Inside, the bag I saw only two things. First, on
the left side was a fireman's helmet leaning up on its side. It was
obviously a helmet that had been recovered from the rubble behind us. To
the right of the helmet, (on the "open side" of the helmet) was an ordinary
cardboard box, a little taller than the helmet, and a little wider.
The
two firemen turned the corner, and I went another way to get my gear stashed
just south of the Tribecca Bridge.
I later confirmed that the route the
two firemen took lead to the refrigerated Morgue trucks.
I have many
times since then, and many times today, empathetically felt the great pain the
pair must have been feeling that night, because they knew with certainty the
contents of the box, and perhaps recognized his face as well. That night,
while I left Ground Zero, I only felt anger, and spoke of the War and its first
effects.
A French Reporter lurking under the Tribecca Bridge approached
me after I had emerged from behind the police line there, and asked me a series
of questions in English. His news report included the
following:
"The firemen are [worried because] building number 7 of World
Trade Center, which [had also collapsed] Tuesday. With a few meters [away from
that bridge], the flames again lick the amoncelés remains. A crane is
brought in urgen[tly] and water starts to spout out. Thin net vis-a-vis a black
cloud threatening. In the light of the projectors [floodlights] which illuminate
the sky, Mark Ferran, 31 years, includes its breath. Volunteer come from Albany,
the capital of the state of New York, [has difficulty] to find his
words."
The French Reporter agglomerated his translation of my answers
into one paragraph written in French, which the computer in turn translated as
follows:
"I came [down from "Upstate"] with two friends [into Manhattan
traveling with two volunteers that I met at a gas station on the way down]. Up
to that point, I had done nothing but recover two or three people lost in the
forest [e.g., my own city-slicker friends who got lost in my own woods while
hunting. I'm a good tracker]. Today, I did not know any more where I was [i.e.,
I was not in familiar territory among the rubble]. I spent all my time [while on
the rubble] trying to find survivors. But it is almost impossible to move
between what remains [of the] buildings. [Earlier] I saw a leg wedged [sticking
out, pinned] under a [beam]. It was certainly [I believed it was] a
fireman [because office workers don't have such muscular legs, and the shredded
fire-truck was all around him], his uniform [and footwear] had been torn
[completely off of him] by the breath [blast at the bottom of the collapsing
building]. I bent down [to look for life], [but he] had already
died."
The French Reporter then commented:
"It is over there indeed
that all is played. Under this mountain which is today all that remains of the
two twin towers, monster of steel and ploughed up concrete which seems to have
crushed all the district. With regular intervals, one sees men penetrating
[the rubble] in [their] meanders, saws in hand. One hears the strident
noise of the metal which one cuts out. There are sad stories...."
http://www.liberation.com/ny2001/actu/20010913jeuc.html
My
younger sister Laura, who lives in Manhattan, works a desk-job in management in
a major Hospital there. She also has a very strong history of
Volunteerism. (Our mother, Korean War Era Air Force Veteran Nadia Ferran, taught
us to volunteer to help others- not a governmental directive). When I
could not reach her by phone that morning, I hoped she had not followed doctors
to the buildings. Like me, she left her desk work behind that morning. She
volunteered early that fateful day to lend her hands setting up a blood-drive
collection facility near a large make-shift emergency room full of Doctors
standing ready to help the hundreds of injured people anticipated to be brought
in for Emergency Medical treatment. The most disturbing thing she saw that
day (apart from television and smoke) was seen by her while she waited with the
Doctors for all the injured people to arrive for life-saving treatment.
The most disturbing thing she saw that day, she later told me, was that no
injured people arrived.
Mark R. Ferran BSEE scl JD mcl
See more of the
writings of Mark R. Ferran at:
http://billstclair.com/ferran
Counselier@aol.com
Please forward
...
In a message dated 9/20/02 4:15:17 PM, ricniemela@
writes:
Mark...Thanks for the comments..I would imagine that you have
more to say, but are reserving comment...JRN
Dear JRN:
Yes, there are more things the People should know. (How did
you infer that?) I entered Ground Zero twice. Once that night, and
again the second next Saturday. I was upset when I returned, to see so few
men working the "bucket brigades". The sight of a few hundred men (police,
firemen, contractors, Reserves) passing buckets to/from a few dozen men actually
digging, while THOUSANDS of able bodied men stood behind rigid police lines
wishing they could help in the rescue effort was shocking and disturbing to me.
Where there were only a few ribbons of men per "pile", there should have
been an army.
When you see the aftermath of an earthquake
in any 3rd-world country, you see swarms of humanity digging and moving the
rubble. Why are not our own people worthy of that effort? Why should
the instinct of human kind to come to the aid of their distressed fellows be
suppressed by bureaucratic or police authority? The only justification for
such inhumanity could be the official belief that there were NO SURVIVORS to be
found in that rubble, and that inviting in thousands of rescuers would increase
the risk of more injuries or death (not to mention decreasing the GNP slightly).
But, under such circumstances, that belief would become a self-fulfilling
prophesy. The painful fact is, I knew in my heart that there were no
survivors in the violently-deposited rubble. That is why I left the first
time. (someone might have survived in the lower floors of the building,
and trapped, but not in the portion that fell) I wanted there to be survivors.
I donated my own material possessions to the search effort. Upon my
return to Albany, I arranged for Home Depot to donate a pallet of Halogen
spotlights like the one I had brought Down with me. I watched the news,
hoping the dog teams would find life. But, the oppressive and grim reality
is that the tumbled steel of each "pile" was like a moving meat grinder.
And, anyone trapped under the mass would probably have suffocated, (in the
dust or by Carbon Monoxide from the fires) if not burned alive. If I had
believed there were actual survivors, in the tumbled steel, I would have felt
compelled to lead the revolt to storm the police lines. Let us hope that
that kind of mass civil disobedience shall not soon be necessary.
[If such civil disobedience were ever to be "necessary" for the "rescue"
and preservation of innocent human life, because of another disaster, the People
would have the perfect legal right to defy Police Orders to keep away.
New York Penal Law Article 35 provides that a technical violation of the
Penal Law, etc. (e.g. Trespass, Resisting Arrest, or defiance of a Policeman's
Traffic-Control Orders) may be lawful under certain circumstances.
"Sec.
35.00 Justification; a defense. In any prosecution for an offense,
justification, as definedin sections 35.05 through 35.30, is a defense."
"Sec. 35.05 Justification; generally.
Unless otherwise
limited by the ensuing provisions of thisarticle defining
justifiable use of physical force, conduct which would otherwise
constitute
an offense is justifiable and
notcriminal when:1. Such conduct is required or
authorized by law or by a judicial decree, or is performed by a
public servant in thereasonable exercise of his
official powers, duties or functions; or
2.
Such
conduct is necessary as an emergency measure to avoid an imminent public
or private injury which is about to occur by reason of a situation
occasioned or developed through no fault of the actor, and which is of such
gravity that,
according to ordinary standards of intelligence and
morality, the desirability and urgency of avoiding such injury
clearly outweigh the desirability of avoiding the injury sought to be prevented
bythe statute defining the offense in issue. The necessity and
justifiability of such conduct may not rest upon considerations pertaining only
to the morality and advisability of the statute, either in its general
application or with respect to itsapplication to a particular class of
cases arising thereunder. Whenever evidence relating to the defense of
justification underthis subdivision is offered by the defendant, the court
shal
lrule as a matter of law whether the claimed facts
andcircumstances would, if established, constitute a defense."
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?cl=82&a=12
" 'Offense' means conduct for which a sentence to a term of
imprisonment or to a fine is provided by any law of this state or by any law,
local law or ordinance of a political subdivision of this state....." PL 10.00
The term "offense" therefore means any felony, misdemeanor, violation, or
traffic infraction, unless otherwise specified in the law defining the offense.
Penal Law sec 10.00 (1-6). http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?cl=82&a=5
Therefore,
the Justification Provisions of Article 35 of the NY Penal Law clearly would
Justifiy acts which are undertaken as being "necessary" for the preservation of
Human Life, notwithstanding contrary directions of the Authorities "in charge"
of (or responsible for) the disaster. "The requirement that the conduct be
'necessary as an emergency measure' to avoid the injury contemplates conduct
which is not only warranted by the circumstances as an emergency response
("according to ordinary standards of intelligence and morality" which
may or may not be followed by the constituted authorities), but is also
reasonably calculated to have an actual effect in preventing the harm. It
rules out conduct that is tenative or only advisable or preferable, or conduct
for which there is a reasonable, legal alternative course of action." Practice
Commentaries (McKinney's Art. 35).
Accordingly, this section of the NY Penal Law has been deemed available
to justify someone's "breaking into an unoccupied rural house to make a
telephone call vital to a person's life" but did not justify all other
trespasses (e.g., did not justify a refusal "to leave the office of a
member of Congress as part of a demonstration.")
The
Justification Law prescribed in Article 35, "does not operate to excuse a
criminal act, nor does it negate a particular element of a crime. Rather,
by recognizing the [conduct] to be privileged under certain circumstances, it
renders such conduct ENTIRELY LAWFUL." People v. McManus, 67 NY2d 541, 505
NYS2d 43 (1986).
Many weeks after the collapse of the Twin Towers, an attempt was made by
many NYC firemen to enter Ground Zero to "RECOVER" the "bodies" of their fallen
brothers, resulting in their arrest. The significance of this event was
described by one fireman as follows:
"To my Active and Nationwide brothers we need your help...write and yell
and send our site to the legislature for them to read. What people never
realized was a small group of angry firemen at ground zero sent the message to
the world that by taking to the air (TV) and busting through a cop
barrier and being arrested was the best thing that ever
happened.....The firemen were right and giuliani, the
FD com. Van essen and PD Com. Kerick were wrong... The firemen and the citizens
who were waiting for their loved ones to be recovered
and to be buried with honor were in for
a shock because the recovery was to be curtailed and the big equipment was to
come and haul off the bodies of their loved ones with the debris to a garbage
dump where the seagulls and crows awaited. The cops at the scene where their
brother firemen crossed the line refused to stop them....It was guys like PC
Kerick henchmen (gutless bosses) that tried to stop the bereaving
firemen.....They arrested heroes .....NO sympathy for these men suffering
deeply. Where's the humanity? Where's the compassion they showed the cop killing
n-word -MUMIA? Where's Ed Asner, Susan Sarandon, Woody Harrleson, Jesse Jackson,
Al Sharpton, Mike Farrell, Paul Newman, Ramsey Clark, Ossie Davis, Whoopi
Goldberg, Peter Coyote? What those few firemen did was SO amazing and everyone
missed it...they made GIULIANI fall to his knees and capitulate. Giuliani
increased the men in the recovery attempt by doubling the crew....the citizens
gain and a few brave firemen have to suffer...no way! These brave firemen
stopped Giuliani and the two rotten to the core commissioners, along with the
city council to cover up evidence with new buildings. They are about to hit the
world with a boom shell of a story...proof that the epa and environmentalist
pulled the asbestos out of the buildings while they were going up [hence, no
compelling reason to keep good people away from the wreckage]!"
Had there been actual survivors in the wreckage of the World Trade Center
towers, and had the official "rescue" effort provided by the Government been too
slow or to small to promptly rescue the trapped survivors, then the thousands of
potential volunteers held back behind Police Lines would have been legally
justified to enter Ground Zero to accellerate the rescue of survivors,
"according to ordinary standards of intelligence and
morality."
In principle, any NYC Police Officer
who forcibly resists or threatens to forcibly resist "Entirely Lawful" Conduct
of the People that he Knows is Privileged, "according to ordinary
standards of intelligence and morality," pursuant to Article 35 of
the Penal Law, is committing a crime against the People (e.g., Criminal
Coercion), and would himself be subject to Citizens' Arrest. See "Right ..
to Arrest" at
Regards,
Mark Ferran
Sept. 20, 2002