Duluth Police Chief Gordon Ramsay recalls going to work at city hall on Sept. 11, 2001, after learning of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
The day shift sergeant at the time, Ramsay and other city officials kept tabs on the latest news from New York while making emergency security plans and preparing for the possibility that as many as 10,000 airline passengers could land in Duluth after all flights nationwide were ordered to land.
Duluth never fell under threat and the influx of passengers never came, but police work was forever changed that day, Ramsay said Thursday at a Sept. 11 commemoration ceremony.
“(Before 9/11) there was very little information sharing among other departments, never mind with the federal government,” Ramsay said. “As we look throughout the country at potential terrorist activities and some of the events that were thwarted by good police work across the country, it was because people came forward with information. That is going to have to continue to be a focus as we move forward with some of these latest terrorist threats.”
Several dozen people listened to Ramsay deliver the keynote address at the event on a chilly morning near the city’s Statue of Liberty replica outside the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.
The chief stressed that collaboration among law enforcement agencies will be crucial moving forward. He noted that terrorists are being recruited on Minnesota soil to fight for the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, a militant group in the Middle East.
“Nine 11 changed the way we look at things in our community: infrastructure, the lift bridge, our water system, other bridges,” Ramsay said. “Those are all susceptible to potential terrorist attack.”
Ramsay said the department has embraced information sharing among departments, but he expressed concern that Minnesota has not yet signed on with the National Data Exchange, an FBI program that asks local police departments to dump records into a nationwide database.
The data-sharing program has raised concerns from some officials and advocates about privacy rights and civil liberties. The FBI says the database creates a one-stop shop for local agencies to investigate crimes and suspects, but it would take a change in state law to get Minnesota on board.
Still, Ramsay said he takes the position that concerns for homeland security trump some privacy concerns and said he will continue to be a proponent of giving law enforcement every tool necessary to prevent terrorism.
“We all need to consider our blessings that in the 13 years after 9/11 we have not had another major terrorist attack,” he said. “It really is amazing. And I think a lot of it has to do with the reports that law enforcement get from the public and the work that law enforcement has been doing proactively to keep our communities safe.”
