Remembering GA Native Killed 25 Years Ago In 9/11 Attacks

ATLANTA, GA — A statewide moment of silence early Friday morning marked the state's observance of the 25th anniversary of the deadly 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, including a Georgia native.

Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday ordered the moment of silence for 8:46 a.m. He also ordered the lowering of flags across Georgia.

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"A quarter century has passed since those acts of terror shook our nation, but the impact of that day remains," Kemp said in the order.

On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida extremists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed them into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

The attacks brought down the World Trade Center's twin towers — icons of U.S. economic power, and among the tallest buildings on Earth — and blew a hole in the Pentagon, the U.S. military's fortress-like headquarters near Washington. The fourth plane was headed for the nation's capital, officials concluded, but the aircraft went down in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members stormed the cockpit and fought the hijackers.

Two decades after U.S. authorities locked Khalid Sheikh Mohammed away at a military detention center in Cuba, the purported mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks sometimes seems barely any closer to being put on trial than the day he arrived.

A judge recently set a 2028 date for Mohammed to finally be tried before a military tribunal, but some lawyers predict it will never happen — not that year or any other year. They say the maze of legal issues that arose because Mohammed was tortured following his 2003 capture in Pakistan is too twisted to ever be straightened out.

A plea agreement that would have kept Mohammed imprisoned for life, but spared him from a possible execution, began to collapse shortly after it was announced in 2024, and finally died for good last year.

Meanwhile, Mohammed remains jailed in Guantanamo Bay, where he was brought on Sept. 5, 2006, following more than three years in secret prisons in other countries.

Remembering A Georgia Native Killed On 9/11

Michael Gann, a Cobb County native, was killed at age 41 during the attacks, according to school officials Wednesday. Gann was attending a trade show at the World Trade Center at the time.

The father of three got married two weeks before he died, county school officials said. The couple never went on a honeymoon.

Gann was a 1978 graduate of Wills High School, which later merged with Campbell High School, school officials said.

After high school, he went on to receive a degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and continued to live in metro Atlanta several years, school officials said.

"I hope everyone remembers Mike the way he lived his life. He was adventurous and driven. He loved being outside, and he loved to travel and see new places," Jeff Gann said of his late brother in a news release.

"I think most of the people who knew and cared about him will remember his kindness, his endless energy and his genuine interest in the lives of those around him. When he asked someone a question, he truly listened to the answer. It wasn't a hollow gesture. He never turned someone down that needed help. He was a caring person."

Features of Campbell High pay homage to Michael Gann and his alma mater, school officials said. They include the Wills gym, fragments of Wills' basketball court and school signage.

At Campbell, educators and students continue to learn about Michael Gann's story 25 years later, school officials said.

"It's a responsibility to help our students understand that they have a connection. This is a Wills student who would have been a Campbell student walking the halls with them," Campbell social studies teacher James Crawley said in the release.

"Learning the Michael Gann story and finding out about who he was as a student is important because we at Campbell High School still see Wills as a part of who we are. It's a part of our history and a personal connection to us. We talk about being one school district, we talk about being one school, and this was one of us."

The Associated Press contributed reporting and writing.