NEXT GEN HEROES
Among new officers are two following in 9/11 dads’ footsteps
Policing is a family business for two of the 112 rookie cops graduating from the Port Authority Police Department academy this week.
The officers were given their shields and ID cards at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in lower Manhattan on Wednesday.
“I feel honored to wear my dad’s shield and carry on his legacy,” said Kara Schmidt, whose late father, William Schmidt, became a Port Authority police officer 24 years to the day before his daughter.
For Schmidt, the location of the ceremony was a poignant reminder of the risks officers take, just as her dad did on 9/11.
“It’s a scary job,” she said. “Every day you have to think about your loved ones at home and ‘what if I don’t come home today?’”
Officer Tom Leather was 14 years old when his father, Joe, a former PAPD cop raced to the World Trade Center from his post at Kennedy airport in 2001.
The elder Leather’s response to the terror attack further solidified his son’s desire to follow in his footsteps, so it was fitting that his dad pinned on his badge.
After the ceremony outside at the south reflecting pool, two recruits, Kenneth Dietrich and John Kinzel, laid a wreath of white roses and lilies alongside a row of 47 red carnations, representing each PAPD officer killed in the line of duty since 1928.
That includes the 37 members who perished on 9/11, whose names are engraved on the bronze parapets surrounding the pool.
This was the first shield ceremony overseen by new Port Authority Police Superintendent Edward Cetnar, who has led the department since May. He said he moved the ceremony from New Jersey to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum to remind recruit class 116B — which will graduate on Friday — of the department’s past.