15 years later, UF, Gainesville shaped by 9/11

Iman Zawahry doesn’t like to leave her house on Sept. 11.

When the twin towers fell in 2001, the then Islam on Campus president watched news reports on television. Her first response was shock and horror. Then she heard the suspected terrorists were claimed to be Muslim.

The 20-year-old went into survival mode, she said.

“I wish that I was able to grieve like every other American, but I couldn’t, because I was put on the defensive,” Zawahry said.

Fifteen years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, the changes in UF and Gainesville are undeniable, seen in the students and faculty who watched them unfold and the officers who protect the city.

Zawahry, then a religion major, went to the Reitz Union after UF canceled classes that afternoon to meet with her board about what to do, the now 35-year-old UF adjunct professor said. The campus was a ghost town.

The organization condemned the attack and held an interfaith walk, Zawahry said. In the weeks that followed, other groups like UF Hillel reached out, offering assistance. UF’s Student Government upped the group’s funding.

In the aftermath of the attacks, UF came together.

“From a tragic event, a beautiful thing happened from unifying the community,” she said. “From that point on, people were reaching out to us to learn more about us.”

Still, she tries to stay inside, as a gesture of respect to those who may not understand that Islam preaches love and doesn’t support killing anyone.

But in the weeks following the attacks, UF changed in other ways, said George Esenwein, a UF adjunct professor who specializes in European political violence and terrorism.

In 2002, Florida passed a statute requiring every public K-20 state institution to display the American flag in each classroom.

This reaction almost forced students to take a loyalty oath when universities are supposed to be places to discuss controversial subjects, he said.

“It had a negative impact in the fact that it put a real damper on intellectual discourse,” he said.

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Living in Long Island as a child, Anthony Ferrara would often take field trips to the World Trade Center.

The Gainesville Police captain and New York native said memories of the city’s skyline are among his most cherished.

But after the 9/11 attacks razed the twin towers and killed nearly 3,000 people, the context of Ferrara’s memories — and his job as a law enforcement officer — changed forever.

“This was nothing we had ever seen,” he said.

Within minutes of the terror attack, all non essential police activity was suspended, and off-duty officers were patrolling the city.

The attack bred a new fear, a new type of criminal: one who wouldn’t mind dying for a cause.

After the towers fell, GPD officers received briefings from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Ferrara said.

A new policy, enacted by the federal department, tasked police to report suspicious activities.

Suspicious Activity Reports, which would be sent by each department to the Department of Homeland Security, added an extra layer of responsibility to officers’ shoulders, Ferrara said.

Cars parked in front of government buildings. Chemicals stored in bathrooms. Airplanes flying low.

These were reasons to worry, he said.

Violence from abroad had trickled down onto the country’s doorstep. In Gainesville, police felt this new threat, said Lt. Tscharna Senn.

Before 9/11, officers’ training centered on proficiency in shooting, driving and fighting, she said.

“After 9/11 it was more of trying to prepare for the unknown, something we weren’t really comfortable with training for,” she said. “It’s scary — it’s very scary.”

A visitor reaches to touch a name engraved at the Sept. 11 memorial site to remember the victims of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Thursday Sept. 8, 2016, in New York. Sunday marks the 15th anniversary of the terror attacks.