NEW YORK -- Displaying frustration and anger, relatives of World Trade Center victims strongly criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday over the city's search for remains.
Widows and mothers of Sept. 11 victims were joined by elected leaders at a midday rally to repeat their requests to Bloomberg to call in a highly specialized military unit to look for remains at the site. They also demanded the city return to a landfill on Staten Island to sift through debris for remains.
Despite the city's announcement recently to expand the underground search area around the World Trade Center site and hire additional forensic anthropologists to sift through materials, some relatives say the job will remain incomplete unless the Joint P.O.W.-M.I.A. Accounting Command is called in by the city.
"I'm so dissatisfied with the mayor," said Leanne Shay of Staten Island, who lost her brother, Robert Shay Jr. "He's a nice man, but if this were his daughter he would have done things differently. So I'm hoping he does what he should have done five years ago."
Bloomberg has refused to call in JPAC, saying the city's medical examiner's office has the expertise to get the job done. Asked about it Thursday, the mayor held his position.
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Bloomberg added that the city shouldn't shirk its duties and turn the job over to outsiders. "It's the city's responsibility," he said. "We're not going to walk away from our responsibility and let somebody else bear the pressure of the work."
The rally took place a day after the medical examiner's office announced it was able to obtain DNA matches for three victims using remains found soon after the attacks.
The remains were identified as flight attendant Karen Martin of Danvers, Mass., and passenger Douglas Stone of Dover, N.H. A third was of a man whose family wanted to remain private, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office.
