Special Agent J.A.
Special Agent J.A. was working on a Truck Hijacking Squad in Brooklyn-Queens and was attending a meeting for hostage negotiators in New York City on September 11, and led the investigation of two suspected co-conspirators in the weeks that followed.
Video Transcript
My first reaction was some cowboy in a Cessna fooling around bounced off the building.
But when I looked out onto the street I saw people running--running--north on Broadway.
And I always say it reminded me of a monster movie from when I was a kid, like a dinosaur or something out of ... creature was chasing people up Broadway.
But when I went out to Broadway and started looking south I saw ... this is not going to be good.
I wasn't looking at the towers when they started to collapse. I was engaged in conversation when you just saw people's eyes get really wide. And everybody just started to say it's coming down.
I didn't know how the towers were collapsing. I imagined the towers were going to collapse to our position. So I saw an elevator. All elevators have a steel frame around the elevator. So I went and I just stood in the elevator, you know, closed elevator. And I remember saying to myself I don't know if this is going to be good or bad because if I get trapped in here it's going to be a long time to suffer in this little void. And I remember saying I hope this doesn't hurt.
Because it was the Twin Towers I knew that they were coming back to finish what they had started in '93.
And I just couldn't imagine anybody else doing that, and using aircraft and doing such a spectacular type of hit other than al Qaeda at that time, especially after being in Nairobi and seeing what they were capable of doing over there.
After the '93 bombing, I always in my minds eye tried to figure out if they had succeeded in doing what they wanted to do--collapsing one building into the other.
And I always tried to imagine what it would look like if they had succeeded in '93.
And, unfortunately, I got a chance to see what it looked like in '01.
Video Download
Video Source
Recent Video
- 05.18.2023 — Beware of Elder Fraud Scams
- 05.12.2023 — Director Wray's 2023 National Police Week Address
- 05.10.2023 — Inside the FBI Podcast: Oasis Ponzi Scheme
- 05.05.2023 — FBI Phoenix Hosts Missing Person Identification Project Event
- 05.02.2023 — Operation SpecTor Targets Darknet Markets
- 04.28.2023 — FBI Los Angeles Air Assault PSA
- 04.25.2023 — FBI Richmond - National Crime Victims' Rights Week
- 04.21.2023 — Inside the FBI: The China Threat
- 04.20.2023 — Seeking Information-Suspect Wanted in Connection with Armed Robberies
- 04.17.2023 — Lumberton Women - Vodcast
- 04.13.2023 — FBI San Francisco: Video Depicting Kidnapping of Monica de Leon Barba (Video 2)
- 04.13.2023 — FBI San Francisco: Video Depicting Kidnapping of Monica de Leon Barba (Video 1)
- 04.10.2023 — Missy Peregrym IC3 PSA
- 04.03.2023 — FBI Cyber at RSA
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent Alex Silverstein
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent Justin Brannon
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent Lauren Regucci
- 03.08.2023 — FBI Jacksonville Diversity Agent Recruitment Event Trailer: Special Agent in Charge Sherri Onks
- 03.03.2023 — FBI Pittsburgh Joint Operation
- 02.09.2023 — Chinese High-Altitude Balloon Recovery
FBI Weekly Newsletter
Subscribe to our email newsletter for news on the FBI, sent out every week.