Police Officer George Howard

Police Officer George Howard
September 11 was Officer George Howard’s day off, and he was at home instead of at John F. Kennedy International Airport where he worked for the ESU of the Port Authority. When he first learned about the attack, he called JFK Airport and was told to report to the World Trade Center. He and a colleague went into the city to lend a hand. His partner, Pete Johnson, was caught in traffic and never made it there. It probably seemed all too familiar to Howard, who had rushed in to help after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had also been off duty that day. Johnson recalls that not long after that incident, Howard thought someone could ram a plane into the building and contacted the engineers, who told him the buildings could withstand a hit. Howard was forty-four years old and a sixteen-year veteran of the Port Authority Police Department. He was also a volunteer captain in the Hicksville, New York, Fire Department and an instructor in the Nassau County Fire Academy. He had two sons, Christopher and Robert. Just days after the disaster, his mother, Arlene Howard, gave her son’s badge to President George W. Bush during his meeting with relatives of the missing firefighters and police officers. Later the President held up the badge during a national address as a symbol of lives lost.

https://papba.org/fallen-officers/police-officer-george-g-howard/