Las Cruces police chief served in NYPD during 9/11: ‘A Tuesday just like today’

It’s been 17 years since Patrick Gallagher, then a captain for the New York Police Department, saw the Twin Towers fall in Manhattan.

“By the time I did deploy, both towers had fallen,” Gallagher told ABC-7. “I actually saw one of them fall on the balcony of the place where I worked.”

The Brooklyn native, now serving as the Las Cruces police chief, grew up only five miles from the World Trade Center.

“Still to this day, I’m angry that it happened,” Gallagher said. “I think it has to serve as a reminder that we have to conduct ourselves in such a manner that it never happens again.”

Upon entering the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel on September 11th, 2001, the chief said the dust and debris was overwhelming.

“They did give us some surgical, medical masks to go over our face on the way in,” Gallagher said. “That’s what we used the first couple of days, although they didn’t do much.”

As part of an investigative unit, Gallagher’s said his job was to identify all the injured people who his team expected to enter New York hospitals.

“Because of the nature of the collapse and how severe it was, there was nobody who came to the hospital,” Gallagher said. “If you didn’t get out of that building that day, you died.”

Gallagher ultimately moved to New Mexico and continued to spend his life in law enforcement, serving as Santa Fe police chief and Truth or Consequences police chief. He said 9/11 came with anger and pain, but a number of valuable lessons.

“If it taught us anything, it taught us to always be prepared for the unexpected,” Gallagher said. “Every day in law enforcement is different, and that day was a beautiful sunny day, just like today is. Happened to be a Tuesday just like today is, and in a few short hours, the world turned upside down.”