Police Officer James Parham

Officer James Parham received a promotion from police officer to Port Authority academy instructor shortly before he disappeared on September 11th. The certified fitness instructor taught defensive tactics and other subjects at the academy. He would have celebrated his thirty-third birthday on September 13th. Parham was born in Brooklyn. His younger brother, Kevin, remembers him as a prankster. Parham graduated from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and attended Central Texas College in Killeen, Texas. He worked for the Texas Department of Corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons before joining the Port Authority. A former U.S. Marine, Parham is survived by his wife, Mutsuko and his daughter, Resa. PORTRAITS OF GRIEF, THE NEW YORK TIMES From Prankster to Officer The joy of being the older brother is that you can do whatever you want simply because you’re older. Or at least that’s the way James Parham, 33, used to justify the pranks he pulled on his younger brother. “When I was about 7 he got me to stick a coat hanger in the light socket,” said Kevin Parham. “All I remember was the hallway looking blue to me and him sitting there tickled to death.” Of course, not all the pranks between the two were so painful. The boys would race one another home from school determined to win control of the television. But big brother always managed to come out on top, mainly because of a scheme. “He’d take the knob off the television so that even if I beat him, I couldn’t turn to my channel,” Kevin Parham said. “It was stuck on his show, Little House on the Prairie.” But Mr. Parham the prankster eventually became Mr. Parham the proud United States marine, the proud father of Resa and the respected law enforcement officer. Shortly before he disappeared, he had been promoted to an academy instructor for the Port Authority. “He had so much to be proud of,” Kevin Parham said. “But he’d give up everything to help somebody. He was always on the job.”