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COP SHOCK
On New Year's Eve, around half past nine Tony and his partner Richie Pastorella, had just finished dinner in the precinct house.
The phone rang. A bomb had gone off at 26 Federal Plaza, a towering office building that housed many U.S. agencies including the local headquarters of the FBI and the Justice Department.
They rushed to the site.
Tony saw several stories of shattered glass on the sidewalk. Fire trucks and ambulances were everywhere. Fortunately, no one was injured. While looking for the seat of the bomb, they heard an explosion not too far away at l Police Plaza, police headquarters.
Again, when they got there, they saw a mountain of glass and a bomb crater. But this time they found a wounded officer, his leg blown off.
A few minutes later, another bomb exploded, ravaging the U.S. District Courthouse at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn.
It was now only three-quarters of an hour since Tony had finished eating a sandwich.
WCBS radio received a call from a man saying, "This is the FALN. We're responsible for the bombings in New York City tonight. Free Puerto Rico. Free all political prisoners and all prisoners of war."
Moments later, police officers discovered two small boxes at St. Andrew's Plaza beside the federal courthouse, just west of police headquarters. A bomb-sniffing dog checked them out and sat down, the
signal for explosives. Tony and his partner three blast-absorbing blankets over the bombs and began to clear the kill zone.
"A number of Chinese people were walking through the area," Tony said.
"Once we started screaming 'Police!' they froze. So we had to physically go out and pick people up and move them. I picked up a woman and then a child and after I did that a couple of times, they realized what was happening and got out of the way. Meanwhile, we lost time."
The officers zipped themselves into their bulky bomb suits. The suits were made of thick kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests, and were reinforced by steel plates covering the chest and groin.
The officers did not wear helmets because the visors would fog up from their breathing and obscure their vision.
Tony and Richie prepared to tackle the first bomb, which consisted of four sticks of
dynamite. Wrapped in newspaper, the sticks were attached to a nine-volt battery and a pocket watch detonator and stuffed into a fast-food box.
Tony thought the device was so crudely constructed, it would be
easy to dismantle. He opened a toolbox behind Richie who bent over the bomb and lifted the blanket.
Richie took the brunt of the explosion. "It blew him back and blew me over and we were on fire,"
said Tony.
Richie lost both eyes, the fingers on his right hand and most of his hearing. Chunks of concrete punctured his body.
For ten days, Tony was delirious and blind. Every bone in his
face was smashed. His hip was broken, and most of his body was bruised and torn.
Reprinted by permission of Allen R. Kates, "CopShock", Surviving
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), (Tucson: Holbrook Street Press, 1999) pages 202-203.
Copyright ©1999 by Allen R. Kates. All rights reserved.
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