Veteran police officer, now a chef, remembers her time at ground zero 21 years ago

Updated: 11:35 PM EDT Sep 10, 2022

Brattleboro police Chief Norma Hardy remembers Sept. 11, 2001, like it was yesterday. She was a Port Authority officer at the time, living in Brooklyn. She wasn’t scheduled to work that morning, but like everyone, plans changed, fast.“You know, once we realized there was it wasn't an accident, once the second plane had hit... We were mobilized. And we started coming into Manhattan,” Hardy said.As she arrived in lower Manhattan, the towers were already rubble.“I really just came out into a bunch of chaos, and people running around and really horrible scenes,” she said.With her police shield around her neck, Hardy walked block by block, down streets she worked to protect for years.“I kind of think I went into shock at that point, witnessing what I was seeing,” she said.Moments later, a stranger snapped her back to the reality at hand. Hardy and fellow first responders started conducting rescue missions at ground zero. The most prominent sound was firefighters’ man down alarms.“It felt like we were in like a tunnel,” Hardy said. “Because it was like you could hear every sound because you were trying to hear people screaming for help. And you kept trying to hear and we walked, and people were digging with their hands, and they were picking up blocks with their hands. They were fires everywhere.”For days on end, the searching went on, the smoke and debris endless.“Your mind plays a trick on you,” Hardy said. “So, you think that you can hear people? And you really didn't. It was just that we wanted to find people so badly. That's what we thought we were hearing.”The Port Authority Police Department lost 37 officers on just that day. One of Hardy’s best friends, 50-year-old John Dennis Levi, was one of them. They continue to lose officers years later due to illnesses contracted from ground zero.“I have quite a few friends that are fighting different cancers,” Hardy said.While some are still fighting their own 9/11 battles, some of Hardy's young officers can't comprehend how our nation changed that sunny day.“I spoke to some of my officers, and they were little kids when this happened,” she said.For Hardy, the story never changes. Her memories serve as a reminder that those who answered the call of duty on that fateful day will always be remembered.“If you don't have people left who can tell you firsthand accounts of it, I'm afraid that it will get lost in history,” she said.

The police chief of Tampa has been placed on leave after a video emerged of her flashing her badge from the passenger seat of a golf cart to get out of a traffic ticket.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor placed Chief Mary O'Connor on administrative leave Friday pending an investigation of the Nov. 12 traffic stop in Oldsmar, a city northwest of Tampa.

The body camera video, posted online by the Tampa Police Department, shows O'Connor's husband driving the cart and the chief in the passenger seat when a Pinellas County sheriff's deputy pulls them over for not having a tag.

"Is your camera on?" O'Connor said. "I'm the police chief in Tampa."

"I'm hoping that you'll just let us go tonight," she says, showing the deputy her badge.

The deputy let them leave without a ticket, saying "it's nice meeting you."

In a statement, O'Connor said it was "poor judgment" for them to have taken the cart out on public roads without a tag. She said it was the first time they had driven it outside of a golf cart-friendly community where they own property.

"As someone who has dealt with, taken ownership of and grown from my past mistakes, I know that no one is above the law, including me," she said.

The mayor said an internal review is underway. Assistant Chief Lee Bercaw will serve as acting chief.

"We hold everyone accountable, no matter their position and this behavior was unacceptable," Castor said. "Chief O'Connor will go through the due process and face appropriate discipline."

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval appointed the city's interim police chief following the retirement of current Chief Eliot Isaac.

Lt. Col. Teresa Theetge will be the city's interim police chief, the first woman to take on the role. She was previously the highest-ranking woman in the department and just made history again.

"Recognizing that city leaders recognize there's no glass ceiling at city hall so I applaud them for that. And I look forward to being the first female and showing that I can do it just as well as a male counterpart," Theetge said.

According to city leaders, Isaac's final day will be on March 1 and his final working day will be Feb. 18.

Last June, Isaac announced he would be retiring in 2022 but did not state an exact date of his retirement.

Isaac has spent 33 years with the Cincinnati Police Department. He was appointed police chief on Dec. 10, 2015.

Pureval said he's "incredibly grateful" for Isaac's decades of service to Cincinnati. Pureval said Isaac had "has provided compassionate and dedicated leadership."

“Serving the people of Cincinnati, alongside such a dedicated team of officers, has been the privilege of a lifetime. I’m grateful beyond words for the opportunity I have had. The Mayor and the City Administration have been incredible partners during this transition process, and I’m fully confident that the search process for a new police chief will yield the right person for the job," Isaac said in a statement.

The search for a new police chief is already underway. City leaders have narrowed their choice of consultants for the nationwide police chief search to two choices.

Isaac will continue to assist in the process and consult with the interim city manager as the search progresses.

MIDDLETOWN — Rodney Muterspaw, then a first-year police academy cadet, kept a daily journal as mental therapy.

“I had to write or drink, and sometimes it was a little of both,” he said.

Muterspaw, 52, a Middletown native, spent 30 years in law enforcement and retired in 2019 after five years as chief of the Middletown Division of Police. He never intended his “very personal journal” to become a book.

“It’s surreal to see it on paper,” he said.

After being encouraged to write a book by John Wager, pastor of First United Methodist Church in Middletown, he sent a copy to 1989 Pulitzer Prize winner Clarence Page, a Middletown native, and J.D. Vance, another Middletown native and author of the New York Times Best Seller that became a Netflix movie, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”

Page and Vance were impressed by his journal, so he contacted a few publishers to gauge their interest.

But they wanted to turn his notes into a novel. That’s when Muterspaw decided to publish the book, “The Blue View: The uncut journal of an Ohio police chief.”

The book is available on Amazon and the audio version is expected to be released this week, he said. Muterspaw said “Blue View” is the No. 1 seller for police-related books on Amazon.

He said a test group of 15 people, including two police officers, read the draft of the book. One said: “This needs to be out there,” while another said: “Are you really going to release that?”

Muterspaw said it was important to include all aspects of his career, from the dark moments and the success stories. He left nothing out, he said.

“It had to be real,” he said.

He’s proud of the book because it “humanizes” police work and gives readers an insight into the profession.

“We need to do a better job with the community,” he said. “It’s time to open up the curtain. These are all the experiences of my life.”

There were times when, as police chief, his supervisors told him to lie to the media, he said. That bothered him, he said.

“That’s not me,” Muterspaw said. “There are some dark places in there.”

Because of the negative sentiment toward cops after police-involved shootings, especially of unarmed Black men, Muterspaw said it’s the “perfect time” to release the book.

“Some people hate the police, and that’s OK,” he said. “But there is a method behind the madness. Hopefully this gives readers a better idea of what we are about. We have a lot of failures. Nothing is as easy as you see on TV.”

After he retired, Muterspaw was offered police chief and city manager positions. But Julie, his wife of 29 years, discouraged those career moves and Muterspaw said he’s never been happier. He sells real estate for Berkshire Hathaway Realty and has time to care for his twin 5-year-old granddaughters, Lilly and Lainey.

HOW TO ORDER

TITLE: “The Blue View: The uncut journal of an Ohio police chief”

ORDER: Website: amazon.com

AUTHOR: Rodney Muterspaw, former Middletown police chief

MUTERSPAW FAMILY: wife Julie; children Matt, Lauren and Maddie; grandchildren Lilly and Lainey.

Police shot a man to death in Covington on June 18 and released details about the confrontation hours later. Information about the Wednesday shooting death of a suspect wanted by U.S. Marshals took a full day to reach the public.

Kentucky State Police officers are investigating both incidents, as they do with most shootings involving police in the state of Kentucky. So why does the time between official statements vary so much?

The short answer, according to former University of Cincinnati police chief Gene Ferrara, is that police need time to verify what they’ve found before they start sharing information with the public or press.

“There's just so much about the investigation that really should be guarded in order to maintain the veracity of the investigation,” Ferrara said.

Ferrara, who spent 50 years in law enforcement, said many things complicate basic fact-finding: The number of witnesses, officers and agencies involved; the evidence at the scene; and the physical area in which a shooting occurs.

More police departments means more complication and more internal bureaucracy. The involvement of federal agencies such as the U.S. Marshals Service increases the workload even more.

“The smaller the investigation to uncover everything is, the quicker it can be done,” Ferrara said.

And if facts don’t line up right away at the scene, police need time to undertake deeper investigations, seek more interviews and gain a clear idea about what happened before they arrived.

“The more the statements of witnesses agree, then the less I have to go out to others,” according to Ferrara.

He compares the post-shooting investigation to elephant-watching. Two people looking at opposite ends of an elephant might describe completely different animals — it’s investigators’ job to take these disparate facts and figure out how they fit together.

Sometimes, seeing the whole elephant is easy. Sometimes it’s not.

Ferrara said disparities in the amount of time police take to release a statement about a shooting are not innately reason for concern.

Editor’s note: With our coronavirus coverage, our goal is not to alarm you but to equip you with the information you need. We will try to keep things in context and focus on helping you make decisions. See a list of resources and frequently asked questions here.

DETROIT (WXYZ) — Detroit Police Chief James Craig has tested positive for COVID-19, Mayor Mike Duggan announced on Friday.

According to Duggan, Craig, 63, will remain on quarantine while he fights this off. Assistant Chief James White will oversee the day-to-day operations of the department.

"Certainly we want him to get rest, and fight this new challenge," White said, adding that the chief is very fit, focused on nutrition and exercise.

Duggan said that in all, 39 officers have tested positive for COVID-19 and another 468 are on quarantine.

In the last day, they have gotten 35 officers back from quarantine, and another 119 are in the process of being brought back from quarantine.

The department is taking the temperatures of officers before and after every shift, and they said they haven't had a sick officer work.

This story originally appeared WXYZ 7 News.