Loganville-area Law Enforcement Officials With 9/11 Connections Share Thoughts on Bin Laden's Death

Shock, disbelief and ultimately exhilaration - those were the feelings of two Loganville school resource officers on hearing of the death at the hands of American forces of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Both officers have close connections to the events of 9/11. For , it was just elation.

"It was good news - I wish I could have been the one to have done it myself," said Chapman, a veteran who served in Guantanamo Bay detention camp in 2002. He also has two sons who served in the military during the wars that followed 9/11.

Chapman said the fact that news organizations are reporting initial intelligence for the raid was gleaned from prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is proof of the need to maintain the detention center.

"It kind of blows the other theory out of the water," Chapman said, adding it was a series of text messages from fellow soldiers who served with him in Guantanamo Bay that alerted him to the successful attack that resulted in the death of bin Laden.

For Officer Sgt. Dustin Peterson, walking the halls of Loganville High School as a school resource officer is a far cry from that day almost 10 years ago when he was a beat cop in New York City.

“Things are so different now, but when I heard it this morning, it took me right back to that day,” Peterson said. “It was very emotional.”

Peterson was at home in bed Sept. 11, 2001, when the attacks occurred, having just come off the night shift. He was awoken by a phone call from a family member who was watching the news. He went out onto the balcony of his New York City apartment, where he could see the smoke and destruction as the towers came down. He lost three friends that day.

“The New York Police Department lost 23 in all,” Peterson said. “I went on duty immediately and worked the next three months – From Sept. 11 until December 2001.”

Peterson worked search, rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero as well as the landfill on Staten Island where body parts were taken for identification. He said he didn’t hear about the successful attack that took down the world’s most wanted terrorist until he switched on his computer Monday morning.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” he said. “I thought someone had hacked into a site. I went from news site to news site and saw it was reported on all of them - then I realized it had to be true.”

Peterson said he didn’t think bin Laden would ever be caught.

“I thought he might have already died, or nobody would ever know what happened to him - he would die a legend. I almost wanted to cry,” Peterson said. “I mean this is the guy who almost single-handedly was responsible for the death of 3,000 people in a short space of time – and there were also all those deaths before and since then.”

Peterson said the only person he had really spoken to about it since hearing the news was fellow school resource officer Bob Gilbert at . Gilbert, a member of the Army Reserves, spent seven months in Iraq in 2003. He too experienced some of the same emotions as Peterson.

“I was in shock when I first heard it,” Gilbert said, adding he heard it on the news Monday morning. “I knew it had to be true because I heard it from the president and I knew he wouldn’t be announcing it unless they were absolutely certain it was bin Laden. I guess then it was followed by some exhilaration. I just hope it now brings closure, but there’s a long way to go. We have to change the perception of how we are viewed here in America. People need to know it’s about freedom here.”

Gilbert uses some of his experiences in Iraq to help coach at-risk children in a boot camp through . He said he had intended getting out of the Army Reserves until the attacks of 9/11, but just couldn’t leave after that.

Both officers now work in Loganville schools, but the events of 9/11 are never really far from their minds – especially for Peterson, who joined many of his fellow officers in getting a tattoo in memory of the NYPD officers who died trying to rescue victims of 9/11. The tattoo on his lower leg reads “In Memory of the Fallen – Fidelis ad Mortem.”

“Faithful unto death – it’s the NYPD motto,” Peterson said.