Chief James A. Romito - PAPD NY/NJ
End of Watch: September 11, 2001
Photo Credit:
Port Authority Police Department
Chief James A. Romito of the Port Authority Police Department did not have to be at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. His workday began at Port Authority Police Headquarters in Jersey City, New Jersey. He arrived in Lower Manhattan shortly after American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the North Tower. Upon doing so, he took the time for one final telephone call with his fiance' Mary Pat Brew Sturdy. She pleaded with him to be careful. He responded, "I love you. I have to save people!"
And off he went - up into the North Tower. He was last seen helping get people out of the building. How many he saved is unknown but what is known is that he died while doing so. On September 11th, Chief Romito went up to the twenty-seventh floor of the North Tower and was supervising rescue workers who were trying to find survivors. He sent some officers outside for first-aid supplies. As the floors above them began to cave in, he ordered personnel to retreat. A colleague said that Chief Romito turned back from a clear stairwell to go back for a group of firefighters. He was found burned under the rubble with colleagues Officers James Parham and Stephen Huczko, Lieutenant Robert Cirri, and Captain Kathy Mazza, along with a woman they tried to rescue. He was just fifty-one years old.
Chief Romito simply could not walk away from others in need. During his 30-year career at the Port Authority Police Department he never did. His final posting was as the commander of the Port Authority headquarters support team and oversaw emergency operations. Prior to this command, he was chief of the Field Aviation Section for two years and was responsible for the Port Authority police operations at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Airports. An inspector at the time of the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, he helped federal and local authorities coordinate information. He received a commendation for valor for his work in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In addition to Mary Pat and her son, Chief Romito was survived by his parents and by his daughter, Elizabeth. Tragically, his death was not the first one the Romito family experienced in 2001. His son, Robert, was killed in a car accident in February 2001.
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