I think I stumbled to the edge of my couch and steadied myself, although I really don’t remember, as I watched 
what happened next, slowly unfold. The effects of that day will never be forgotten. 
During a trip to New York, last summer, I visited the World Trade Center museum. As I walked through the 
halls, a pin drop could have been heard. The respect, sadness, and overwhelming feelings that filled me made it 
difficult to breathe. Not only did the terrorists kill and destroy many things that day with their hate but they 
forever changed policing. I was a patrol officer at the time when the devastation ravaged America. Sadness filled 
our department for our brothers and sisters that lost their lives. We didn’t realize at the time, but our departments 
and thousands of others in policing across America were in for major changes, because of the heinous acts of a 
few. The first changes I remember taking place were: Active shooter updates and training; Incident Command 
System (ICS) updates and training; NEMA emergency management training; Gas masks were distributed for 
each individual officer, to be carried full-time, along with 3 month re-check and applicable training; Policy and 
procedure updates and additional response training depending on the call type; Reconfiguration of call type and 
responses to each; COMMUNICATION became the center of everything. 
It became essential to hire a person to go through all the communication and alerts we received daily and alert 
those the information effected Unless those in the policing field had blinders on, the era of Homeland Security, 
was probably at the time, and will probably always be, one of the most substantial in policing history. 
ALISON S. BURKE, DAVID CARTER, BRIAN FEDOREK, TIFFANY MOREY, LORE RUTZ-BURRI, AND SHANELL
SANCHEZ
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