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Bernard Kerik
Thursday
November 15, 2001
You can usually find him standing next to Rudy Giuliani, but in many ways, no one represents the toughness and grittiness of the city more than police commissioner Bernard Kerik.
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“I don't know of many other police commissioners, if any, who do some of the things that I do," Kerik said of his job.
Just three minutes after the second World Trade Center attack, Kerik was at Ground Zero. He recounts that day, “After the first plane hit Tower 1, to watch those people jumping from the towers, it's absolutely the most horrifying thing I had seen in my life."
Kerik lost 23 officers in the attacks, but is proud of the fact that his men saved thousands of lives that day.
Amazingly - just eight-hours before the attacks - Kerik had just finished his emotionally draining autobiography. It’s a book that's generated headlines because of Kerik's stunning confessions about his dark and troubles past.
As a teenager, Kerik was angry and confused, abandoned by his mom at the age of four.
While researching the book, Kerik learned his mom, Patricia, had been an alcoholic and a prostitute, and that several years after abandoning him, she was found beaten to death.
He is only now dealing with that pain.
Speaking of his mother, Kerik said, “It was sort of stunning to know that this was someone who gave birth to me."
Kerik says the martial arts and a stint in the military turned him around and led him to become the perfect man to work with Mayor Giuliani, who has been known to call Kerik in the middle of the night demanding to know why a certain crime took place.
Kerik says, “Rudy Giuliani is a very different mayor. The guy runs at 120 miles per hour."
Kerik has been running his whole life, searching for his past and building for the future. He’s a man - who like the city he protects - keeps bouncing back.
He says, “No matter where you come from, what you've done, what you've been through, you can get ahead if you really try.”
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