A DC Cop From NoVA Remembers His Work To Recover Bodies After 9/11 At The Pentagon.

ARLINGTON, VA — On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Officer Steve Griffin was laying out evidence for a murder trial. As a crime scene investigator and police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., he had handled dozens of murders.

When his wife called and told him a plane had struck the World Trade Center in New York City, he didn't think much of it. He asked her to keep him apprised. Less than 20 minutes later, she called back and said a second plane had plowed into the Twin Towers.

"That's not a coincidence," Griffin said later. "We were under attack." He began to pack up the evidence; there would be no trial that day.

As he exited the courthouse, a third plane slammed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River.

"I was able to get in touch with my wife and said, 'I'm probably not going to be home for a few days,'" said Griffin, a Woodbridge, Virginia, resident. "And then I went back to work."

As Griffin returned to the Mobile Crime Lab in Washington, D.C., other officers began to pour in. Though Griffin said they weren't required to report to work, they came anyway.

Initially, the officers at mobile crime waited to hear how they could help. Some of them stood on top of the building and watched the smoke billow out of the Pentagon.

Editor's Note: D.C. Officer Steve Griffin shared his memories of responding to the 9/11 attack at the Pentagon with his son, Patch editor Liam Griffin.

It wasn't until two days later, on Sept. 13, that they were called to help at the Pentagon. The fires had been put out, and 20 volunteers from the crime lab crossed the Potomac River to begin recovering bodies.

"We were there picking up bodies by parts," Griffin said. At first, Griffin noted he was dealing with it well. "I'd handled hundreds of homicides."

Still, the trauma took a toll.

"So I'm picking up body parts and putting them into biohazard bags, and when we finished that I took off my gloves," Griffin said. "At my feet was a pair of shoes belonging to a female naval officer, her handbag, and her hat. I could see her ID on top, and they were all stacked together. I looked at it and I just started crying."

Inside the building, Griffin saw the craters the plane left in the building. They were massive holes, about 100 feet apart, caused by the engines of American Airlines Flight 77.

That night, Griffin and his colleagues slept in their vehicles. Their job wasn't done, and there were still more bodies to recover.

The next morning, Griffin and the rest of the police officers from the crime lab went to recover bodies from the Pentagon's basement. "Well, it wasn't bodies," Griffin explained. "It was skeletons."

Though he had been a member of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department for more than 15 years at this point, nothing could have prepared him for that scene. "It was like you walked into Hell," he said. "Everywhere was black. I mean, I've seen a lot of arson scenes and death scenes. Nothing like this."

Griffin said he could still smell the jet fuel on the scene. The police officers were accompanied by firefighters who were measuring carbon monoxide levels, and they were only allowed to stay in the basement for five minutes at a time.

"I was able to recover one and a half bodies," Griffin said. The other half of the second body was later recovered after several other officers helped him lift the file cabinet that trapped it.

For the most part, Griffin doesn't think about his experience with 9/11. Although, when the anniversary comes around, he has trouble listening to the experiences of others.

"It was a very traumatic experience," he said. "But I know I can't pass the Pentagon without looking at that building, where it was struck."

In the past, Griffin participated in a 9/11 memorial motorcycle ride to the Pentagon. He couldn't bring himself to walk over by the wall where he saw the impact of the plane's engines and picked up bodies piece by piece.

"It probably still bothers me a little bit, more so than I'm probably willing to admit to myself," Griffin said.

Looking back, Griffin hopes more people remember how the country came together in the wake of 9/11. "Everybody pulled together," Griffin said.

Griffin said he and his fellow officers were given coffee, food, and facilities from people who just wanted to help. "Companies were coming out of the woodwork to volunteer, small companies were coming to help."

More than 2,700 people died at the World Trade Center alone on 9/11, including the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. Another 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and 44 died when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Now, 9/11 is a historical event. In 2021, high school students don't have any memories of 9/11; they weren't born yet. What Griffin remembers from 9/11 is how people supported each other. He hopes future generations will do the same.

"When people are in need, drop what you're doing and go help," he said. "That's the thing. That's what I saw that day."