Bernard Kerik, nicknamed “Bernie”, Chief of Police of New York at the time of the attacks of September 11, 2001, died at the age of 69 “after a personal battle against the disease”, this Thursday, May, May, announced the head of the FBI.
In X, he praised the memory of a “warrior, patriot and one of the bravest officials that this country has known.”
Bernard Kerik was the New York police chief when on September 11, 2001, two aircraft deviated by Pirates Air, of the jihadist terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, destroyed the twin rounds of the World Trade Center located in the Manhattan district of New York. The same day, a third plane crashed into the Pentagon near Washington and a room in Shanksville, one hundred kilometers from Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania).
A “brother”, a “friend”
His face, crossed by a black mustache, became familiar with the Americans from all over the country after September 11, because he worked hand in hand with the Mayor of New York of the time, Rudy Giuliani, in the days and weeks followed the attacks of the World Trade Center.
“We have been together from the beginning. It’s like my brother,” said Rudy Giuliani crying Thursday on a television program. I have become a better man since I met Bernie. It was certainly braver and stronger. “
According to the information of Associated Press (AP), the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, also former New York Police officer, said he had visited Bernard Kerik, his “friend for almost 30 years”, in an earlier hospital during the day.
A violent childhood
In your autobiography, The lost son: a life in search of justicePublished in 2001, Bernard Kerik revealed her difficult childhood with a young alcoholic mother and workers in sex and the universe of violence in which she grew up. It also evokes the years that pass with their father, marked by school failure until their discovery of martial arts and the military world.
After the September 11 attacks, Bernard Kerik, an army veteran, was acclaimed as a hero and appointed head of the United States Internal Security Department, specifies AP.
In 2009, Bernard Kerik fell out of favor after declaring himself guilty in the corruption and fraud of 2009. He admitted to having accepted $ 255,000, for the renewal of his apartment, a company in the operation of contracts with the government. When declaring himself guilty, he avoided a heavier sentence of up to 61 years in prison and was sentenced instead of four years in prison.
Source: BFM TV
