Sunday, August 20, 2023

The Pancake King

 
Police Officer Liam Callahan 
Port Authority Police Department
End of Watch:  September 11, 2001


Liam Callahan, 44, spent half of his life in the service of others as a Police Officer in the Port Authority Police Department.   He and his wife, Joan, lived in Rockaway, New Jersey with their four children.   On September 12, 2001 they would have celebrated their 20th anniversary.  Tragically, they did not get the chance.  He died in the line of duty on September 11, 2001, while saving others at the World Trade Center.  

In his twenty-two years of serving and protecting the people of New York and New Jersey, he earned a half dozen citations for exemplary service, beginning with the one he earned as a rookie on September 9, 1982, when he talked a 20-year-old man who was distraught out of killing himself by jumping off the roof of the Port Authority bus terminal.  When he was not serving and protecting, he was making pancakes for his kids in the morning and taking them to school.  

On what proved to be the final morning of his life, Liam Callahan was one of the first first responders to arrive at the World Trade Center.  He was last seen on the 65th floor in the North Tower trying to help those in the building get to safety.   He, himself, did not.  Officer Callahan was one of thirty-seven members of the Port Authority Police Department killed on that terrible Tuesday morning.  


Port Authority Police Dept. Memorial Pin
Photo Credit:  Port Authority of New York/New Jersey


-AK








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