Memories of 9-11 are still sharp for Pinellas Park’s Harold Behar

Every year, right around this time, Officer Harold Behar gets a pit in his stomach. It’s a familiar “funk,” he says, a blue mood. He knows exactly what brings it on.

“There’s a lot of tough memories that you can’t erase from your mind. That are going to pop up again.”

As a 30-year-old cop assigned to the streets of Brooklyn, the ex-Marine was one of thousands of New York Police Department officers called to Ground Zero in the dark days following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

He saw things no one was supposed to see. And the memories remain, 25 years after the event.

Talking about it, Behar says, is therapeutic. He joined the Pinellas Park Police Department in 2004; five years later, he became a School Resource Officer (SRO) at Pinellas Park High School.

“Officer Behar” is a familiar face and welcome presence on campus. The kids like him, and they trust him, and they know his 9-11 story. Just about every day, he gets asked about it. 

He also works closely with the school’s First Responders: National Guard Center for Emergency Management and Criminal Justice magnet programs.

“I love my job one hundred and ten percent,” Behar says. “And if you love your job, you won’t work a day in your life.

“It’s very rewarding. I feel like I’m making a difference.”

Brooklyn police officer Behar, third from right, and others from his precinct at Ground Zero. Photo provided.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning that Tuesday in 2001, Behar remembers. He had the day off, and after his girlfriend left their Long Island home for her job, he decided to go out for a quick breakfast, followed by a visit with his mom and dad, who lived nearby.

On his drive to the bagel shop, he heard the radio. “They said a plane had hit the towers,” he recalls. “And I thought, that’s a pretty sick joke.’”

Next stop, his parents’ house. “I get there, and my dad and everybody, like millions of Americans, was glued to the TV. I’m watching it, and here comes another plane, hit the other tower, boom. Just like everybody else we’re trying to figure it out – what’s going on, this looks like an intentional act …”

Behar pushed down the dread and hurried back to his own place, because he knew what would come next. “By the time I got home, there was already a message on my answering machine. They called in every single police officer and firefighter to report to their precinct.”

The twin towers were broken and burning, but still standing. “At that point, I don’t think anybody thought the buildings were going to fall. So we knew it was big, but we didn’t know how big.”

He called his girlfriend, who was crying, and said he had to go in. The drive to Brooklyn usually took about 30 minutes; this time, he didn’t get to the station for nearly four hours. The major arteries in and around New York City had been shut down.

“We all wanted to get down there. They mobilized one sergeant and I believe it was eight cops for every precinct in the five boroughs, so they were already down there. Now at this point the buildings had already collapsed. It’s still chaos. They’re still trying to find any survivors.”

Along with his police credentials and hardhat, Behar has a few small, broken pieces of the World Trade Center, and an extensive collection of news clippings. Photo by Bill DeYoung.

Because of the uncertainty amid the chaos – no one had any idea if the attack was over or not – the Brooklyn officers were initially assigned to provide security for their own precincts. “But the radio was eerily quiet. Nobody was calling the police.”

Behar and a fellow patrolman climbed to the roof of the stationhouse. “We could see the New York City skyline. We’re looking across, and we don’t see the Twin Towers there. At that point, it really put it into reality.”

As the clouds of smoke and ash ballooned skyward, Behar says, “That was the hardest part for me. I get chills down my back, just thinking about it. Because I’ll never forget that day.”

They spent the next few days providing security for other places, including the 911 emergency call center. It was early morning Friday, Sept. 14 when the men and women of A Precinct were directed to Ground Zero in the pre-dawn hours.

“They dropped us off a few blocks away, and now we could smell the burning … we’re all looking at each other. It felt like we were going into Hell.

“The smoke is thick, and we’re looking at all these burnt cars on the road. There’s a lot of equipment moving around. Everybody’s trying to do their thing.

“We come around a corner, and there’s all these big spotlights. And there’s just this pile of debris. Twisted metal, steel, concrete, windows. Papers all over the place.

“There was no arguing. There was no discussion of what we were doing.”

After picking their way through the still-smoking remnants of the buildings, careful to avoid the deep pits that could trap and consume them, the officers were put into a bucket brigade, scooping up debris by the bucketful and passing it down along the jagged terrain. “We jumped in line – you put your hand on somebody’s back, ‘hey brother, slide over, we’re coming in.’ Everybody fit into place and we just started handing buckets and digging.”

Rescue dogs and their handlers moved back and forth over the mountain of debris. Even after three days, hope remained that there might be survivors.

“It was treacherous, but we didn’t care. We just wanted to find survivors, some sign of life. Something.”

They did, several times, come upon human remains. Still, Behar remembers, “I felt a sigh of relief, because I put a family at closure.”

To this day, remains of 1,400 victims remain unidentified.

Weary of the New York winters, and the high cost of living, Harold Behar and his girlfriend got married and moved to Florida in 2004. They have two sons.

He was hired by the Pinellas Park department and worked as a patrolman until an SRO opportunity arrived, five years into his tenure. He jumped at the chance at working in education, and he’s been there ever since. Officer James Gatti is also assigned to Pinellas Park High.

“It’s not so much for safety,” Behar stresses, “it’s also to help bridge that gap, to promote a positive relationship between law enforcement and juveniles. It’s a positive thing. We’re in the middle, between administration and the students. We’re kind of just another person to lean on.”

“At the end of the day I’m a husband and a father, and an uncle. We’re humans, right? But I think I made some really good choices in life, to get me where I am today, and it definitely shows for the students.

“That they can see that there’s positive there, that something positive can come out of this.”