Police Officer Nathaniel Webb

Officer Nathaniel Webb, fifty-seven, was last seen at roll call on September 11. He was one of three Port Authority officers assigned to the Holland Tunnel who were killed that day. A Port Authority Officer for twenty-eight years, Webb was considered a generous and righteous man by his friends and colleagues. He was the recipient of a Meritorious Active Duty Award and a Police Group Citation. Devoted to family, Officer Webb visited his housebound mother several times a week. He was dedicated to his two daughters, Camille and Valerie. At the March 11, 2002 ceremony to dedicate the “Tribute in Light,” Valerie was chosen to illuminate the two banks of forty-four spotlights that were in honor of those who’d lost their lives. PORTRAITS OF GRIEF, THE NEW YORK TIMES The Path of Righteousness In the garden was an apple tree, and they were forbidden to eat of the fruit of that tree. Nathaniel Webb and his cousins picked his grandfather’s still-green apples anyway. When the old man saw that the apples were missing he demanded to know who had disobeyed him. “We didn’t tell the truth,” said Delores Matthews, Mr. Webb’s cousin. “But when he was cornered, Nathaniel always got teary-eyed and told the truth. Then we all got punished, but he never did.” From that almost biblical beginning, Mr. Webb remained on the side of authority for the rest of his life. He was a Port Authority police officer for 28 years and, said Mrs. Matthews, “he was always trying to keep everyone else on the straight and narrow.” His friends and colleagues knew Officer Webb as a righteous and generous man. He took care of his housebound mother, stopping in several times a week to spend time with her. Sometimes, when a few officers went out for drinks or dinner after work, he would pick up the tab. Officer Sharon Feoktistov, who worked with Officer Webb at the Holland Tunnel, said that once when she was stuck in Brooklyn with a flat tire, he drove from his home in Jersey City just to sit with her and wait for the tow truck. “And the thing was,” she said, “I didn’t even have to ask.”