Responses

DEA's Initial Responses

DEA personnel sprang into action and were integral parts of the country’s response in the weeks and months following. In Arlington, special agents in plainclothes were quickly on the scene, evacuating DEA staff, directing traffic and crowds, and securing the perimeter of the Pentagon.

DEA special agents in New York were told not to go to Ground Zero, lacking the proper equipment, training, and safety gear. But duty called some to join other first responders, including DEA New York Task Force Officers. They went to Ground Zero to assist with rescue and digging.

Special agent pilots from the Aviation Division delivered critical blood supplies and flew daily camera missions over Ground Zero.

Witnesses later remarked on the “deafening” silences from the lack of commercial air and vehicular traffic as highways and airports around Washington, D.C., and New York remained closed to civilians after the attacks.

United We Stand

Many people felt called to serve their communities in recovery efforts, or to join the U.S. military to serve in Afghanistan. DEA shifted its resources to help with intelligence gathering, data and phone analysis, and searches to investigate the attacks.

The U.S. needed more air marshals to keep the skies safe. Over 1,000 DEA special agents responded to DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson’s call for volunteers. They used their law enforcement skills to serve as temporary air marshals on flights as new air marshals were recruited and trained. A DEA special agent during 9/11, later remembered:

“I still wanted to serve and I wanted to contribute, and I felt like the air marshal opportunity was probably the fastest way…I certainly wasn't going to sit in San Francisco and work drug cases while the nation was at war.

The country had really come together as one. There was this unified sense of purpose. And I think all of the agents that were serving as temporary air marshals, they all felt strongly that this was not going to happen again on their watch.”