Feb 2024. Blues Vol 40 No. 2

WORDS BY AMANDA SELLERS
Twenty-three years later, two UCF Officers
reflect on responding to 9/11
While honoring the nearly 3,000
people killed from the 9/11 attacks,
Eric Walton and Joel Witherspoon
share their memories
from providing services at the
World Trade Center and Pentagon.
The smell of jet fuel still
transports UCF Police officer Eric
Walton to the Pentagon — even
20 years later.
Walton and fellow UCFPD
officer Joel Witherspoon were
two of the first responders who
responded to the terrorist attacks
in New York, Washington
D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Nearly 3,000 people were
killed on 9/11, making it the
deadliest day in United States
history. Countless others were
wounded or have since passed
away due to lingering effects of
the tragedy.
As we mark the 20th anniversary
of the day the world
changed, Witherspoon and
Walton share their experiences
and the significance that 9/11 still
holds for them.
GROUND ZERO
Witherspoon, who joined the
New York Police Department in
1984, remembers the call coming
over the radio when the plane hit
the north tower.
“My partner and I had just
finished our breakfast and had
started our patrol,” says Witherspoon.
“When we heard about
the first plane, we thought it was
just a terrible accident.”
After the second plane hit,
Witherspoon knew something
was very wrong and his police
instincts kicked in.
“From that point on, we knew
something was going on, but we
still didn’t know what,” he says.
“But the radio started getting really
crazy, and then they started
mobilizing us, calling us in to go
to different locations.”
Although Witherspoon and
his partner weren’t sent to the
World Trade Center immediately,
in the days that followed, he was
one of the officers stationed at
UCFPD Officer Joel Witherspoon
Ground Zero to ensure the security
of the scene.
“Everything was covered in
gray soot and ashes — the whole
street, the buildings, everything,”
Witherspoon says. “It was just
eerily quiet, obviously there were
no people there other than the
cops responding. It was definitely
something out of the scene of a
movie.”
Witherspoon later found out
120 The Blues -- February ‘24