Policing Matters

Twenty-five years after Sept. 11, 2001, FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito joins podcast hosts Jim Dudley, Rob Lawrence and Aaron Zamzow of Police1’s Policing Matters, EMS1's EMS One-Stop and FireRescue1’s Better Every Shift for a deeply personal conversation about 9/11, its enduring impact and the lessons that continue to shape fire, EMS and law enforcement. Esposito was a newly promoted FDNY lieutenant on Sept. 11, 2001. He recalls returning to the city after the towers fell, the collapse of command and communications, the desperate effort to account for missing members, and the realization that FDNY had suffered unimaginable losses.

The discussion moves beyond remembrance to examine what emergency services learned: stronger accountability, controlling self-deployment, incident management teams, interoperable communications, interagency cooperation, intelligence sharing and peer support. Esposito also reflects on the continuing toll of World Trade Center-related illness and explains why “never forget” must mean more than remembering 343 names. For him, it means remembering the decisions responders made, the conditions they faced and the thousands of lives their actions helped save. His challenge to today’s generation is simple: know your job, keep learning, take care of your people and ask whether you are prepared to “measure up” to those who came before.

Key quotes from FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito

“Never forget is not just their names and who they were, how they lived their lives, and most importantly, the decisions that they made that day and the actions that they took.”

“They're like, ‘No, we think we lost everybody.’ And that was when it started to sink in that no, this is gonna be as bad as it could be.”

“If we never showed up and we had no losses that day, the loss of civilians is in the tens of thousands.”

“This is your legacy. This is our legacy, this is what we do, and these are the people that did this before us.”

“I believe that some of them knew that they were not going to make it home that night. And they still did their job.”

“September twelfth came, the doors of the firehouse went up, people got on fire trucks, and they went out and did their job.”

“It was like an all-star team that we lost. Some of the best people to ever do this job we lost that day.”

“I see my job here and our job in this building and headquarters is to take care of the people that take care of the city.”

“We have no idea. We're in a firehouse or an ambulance one second and in five minutes we could be in the worst situation we've ever been in.”

“It's our job to make sure that the people in the field are prepared and when they need something, it's our job to get it for them.”

Episode timeline

00:25 – Introduction: EMS1, FireRescue1 and Police1 come together to reflect on 25 years since September 11

02:30 – Introduction: FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito

03:30 – Chief Esposito recalls Sept. 11, 2001 as a newly promoted lieutenant with a day off and plans to study for the captain’s exam

04:30 – Chief Esposito details arriving in lower Manhattan and finding command structures and communications devastated

05:00 – The desperate process of identifying who was alive, missing or lost

07:00 – Chief Esposito describes his initial response and why he never imagined the towers could collapse

09:00 – “We think we lost everybody.” When the magnitude of FDNY's losses began to become clear

09:30 – Accountability and self-deployment emerge as major lessons from 9/11

10:00 – How FDNY now wants off-duty members to report to firehouses and EMS stations rather than directly to an incident

10:30 – Modern digital accountability, riding lists and identifiable radio transmissions compared with 2001's paper systems

12:00 – The human factor: firefighters desperate to get aboard apparatus headed toward the World Trade Center

12:30 – Leadership decisions that removed extra firefighters from overloaded apparatus ultimately saved lives

14:00 – The continuing human toll: FDNY's memorial walls and deaths from World Trade Center-related illness

16:30 – How FDNY will commemorate the 25th anniversary

17:30 – Why September 11 remembrance is intensely personal for individual firefighters and families

21:00 – Chief Esposito discusses the emotional effect September 11 continues to have on him

22:00 – “Never forget” means remembering actions and decisions, not merely names

24:00 – The actions of responders helped prevent civilian deaths potentially reaching into the tens of thousands

25:00 – Managing the overwhelming desire of responders to help during catastrophic incidents

27:30 – How outside incident management teams helped FDNY solve problems after 9/11

28:30 – FDNY repaying the assistance it received through deployments around the United States

30:00 – How today's incident command and dispatch systems control resources and prevent uncontrolled response

31:40 – Sponsor message

32:30 – Improved interagency collaboration between FDNY, NYPD and other agencies

36:00 – Peer support, firehouse culture and challenging the stereotype that firefighters do not talk about emotional distress

38:30 – How FDNY's peer-support system works after difficult incidents

42:30 – September 11 demonstrated why the fire service needs to be part of the intelligence community

44:00 – FDNY members are trained to recognize suspicious activity during routine fire and EMS responses

46:00 – How information spotted by firefighters may become the missing piece in a larger investigation

48:30 – What Chief Esposito wants responders who were not alive on 9/11 to understand

49:00 – “This is our legacy.” Measuring today's performance against those who came before

52:00 – Know your job and do your job — while recognizing that not every emergency fits an SOP

52:30 – A recent Bronx explosion illustrates the need to adapt principles to situations for which no exact procedure exists

53:30 – Applying the overarching principles of life safety and rescue when the situation is unprecedented

54:30 – What does “never forget” mean 25 years later?

56:00 – September 12: despite catastrophic losses, FDNY opened its firehouses and continued protecting New York City

56:30 – Chief Esposito describes those killed as “an all-star team” and some of the best ever to do the job

58:00 – Aaron Zamzow reflects on the responsibility to “measure up”

59:30 – The nationwide impact of 9/11 and seeing FDNY remembered on apparatus thousands of miles from New York

1:01:30 – Jim Dudley reflects on intelligence, prevention and acting on warning signs

1:03:30 – Chief Esposito discusses the difficulty of measuring successful prevention

1:05:00 – Warning signs, intelligence and lessons shared with other historic disasters

1:06:00 – Rob Lawrence reflects on September 12 and the emergency services reality that tomorrow brings another shift

1:07:00 – “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember.”

1:08:00 – Esposito discusses how 9/11 affected his career and leadership journey

1:09:00 – Leadership, doing the right thing and measuring decisions against the memory of colleagues lost

1:10:00 – “Take care of the people that take care of the city.”

1:11:30 – Emergency responders never know when the next call will become the worst situation they have ever faced

1:12:00 – The responsibility to ensure frontline personnel are prepared and supported

1:12:30 – Closing message: “Keep learning and keep moving forward.”

About our sponsor

This crossover episode of the Policing Matters, Better Every Shift and EMS One-Stop podcasts is sponsored by FirstNet — the only wireless network built with and for first responders.

Twenty-five years ago, first responders faced an emergency unlike any other. They stepped forward to protect and care for others, demonstrating extraordinary courage and resolve. This September 11th, we remember and honor those who answered the call. The example they set endures through the values that continue to inspire the profession today.

Learn more about FirstNet, Built with AT&T, at www.firstnet.com.

Rate and review the Policing Matters podcast

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Financial crime is no longer a slow, paper-based investigation that can be pieced together through records requests and manual review. Fraud networks can use synthetic identities, social media recruitment, cryptocurrency, real-time payments and AI-generated impersonations to move stolen money through multiple accounts in hours or even minutes. For law enforcement, the challenge is not only following the money, but doing so quickly enough to act before it disappears.

In this episode of the Policing Matters podcast, host Jim Dudley speaks with Daniel Kurz, a retired U.S. Secret Service senior executive and financial crime consultant for Cognyte. Kurz describes how modern criminal enterprises combine cyber fraud, money laundering and other offenses in shared networks — and why investigators need connected data, faster analysis and clear processes to keep pace with technology-driven financial crime.

About our sponsor
More data has not made investigations faster. Cognyte changes that. Its AI-powered decision intelligence correlates massive volumes of multi-source data across the systems and silos your teams already work in, so analysts spend their time on decisions instead of on assembly. The result is clearer leads, faster assessments, and intelligence you can stand behind. Book a demo and see it on your own data at Cognyte.com.

Police agencies will never have unlimited personnel or time. As workloads expand, administrative demands grow and recruiting remains difficult, leaders must make deliberate choices about where officers, investigators and supervisors spend their working hours. Artificial intelligence may ease some of that pressure, but automating a task is only valuable if an agency uses the resulting capacity to improve policing.

In this episode of the Policing Matters podcast, host Jim Dudley speaks with retired Police Chief Jim Bueermann, founder and president of the Future Policing Institute, about where AI can make police work more effective — and where human judgment must remain firmly in control. They discuss AI-assisted report writing, continuously operating investigative agents, the need for agencywide AI policies and audits, and the central leadership question behind adoption: If technology gives personnel time back, what should the agency do with it?

Visit the Future Policing Institute’s Center on Policing and AI.

About our sponsor

This episode of the Policing Matters podcast is sponsored by Veritone, a leader in enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software and solutions. Since 2014, Veritone has focused on building intuitive technology that solves problems for its customers in the public sector. Veritone Public Sector enables teams in law enforcement, government and public safety to manage and analyze evidence faster, accelerate redaction, easily generate stop-data reports, automate transcription and translation, and more. For more information, visit Veritone.com.

Law enforcement agencies have access to more information than ever before. Real-time crime centers, license plate readers, drones, cameras, CAD systems and digital evidence platforms can give officers and investigators unprecedented visibility into what is happening in their communities. But collecting more data does not automatically produce better decisions. The challenge is turning that constant stream of information into timely, actionable intelligence that helps officers prevent crime, solve cases and make better decisions in the field.

In this episode of the Policing Matters podcast, host Jim Dudley speaks with Lt. Eugene Kim, a 27-year law enforcement veteran and Innovations Director for the National Real-Time Crime Center Association, about what separates information from intelligence and how agencies can close that gap. Kim discusses building workflows before buying technology, measuring whether new tools actually improve operations, strengthening information sharing between agencies, preparing crime analysts for increasingly real-time roles and maintaining human judgment as AI becomes more deeply embedded in public safety technology.

About our sponsor

This episode of the Police1.com podcast is sponsored by Leonardo, pioneers in advanced license plate recognition and vehicle identification technologies. Leonardo provides a proven, scalable ecosystem of license plate readers and consumer electronic signal intelligence technologies designed to identify vehicles for law enforcement and public safety agencies worldwide. Combined with a renowned data analytics suite, Leonardo fixed, mobile and covert solutions assist real-time policing and investigations with actionable data and insights to improve public safety in communities of all sizes and ideally suited to enhance productivity in real-time crime centers and future U.S. Department of Justice Model Cities. Learn more at LeonardoCompany-us.com/#.

Today's police leaders are expected to do more than reduce crime. They're responsible for building organizational culture, developing future leaders and ensuring their people are equipped to thrive in one of the profession's most demanding careers.

In this episode of the Policing Matters podcast, host Jim Dudley sits down with Santa Clara County Sheriff Robert Jonsen to discuss the leadership philosophy that has guided his career. Jonsen explains why officer wellness should be a leadership priority, how he's embedded resilience into academy training and organizational culture, and why succession planning begins on day one. He also shares the inspiration behind his upcoming book, “Got Your Six,” his law enforcement-themed music, and an innovative partnership with NuCalm that uses music and neuroscience to help officers better manage stress and build resilience.

About our sponsor
This episode of the Policing Matters podcast is sponsored by OfficerStore. Learn more about getting the gear you need at prices you can afford by visiting OfficerStore.com.