Officers from Mass SP, New York PD, Cambridge Police, and MIT Police come together to honor 9/11, marathon victims

BOSTON/NEW YORK/CAMBRIDGE – According to Massachusetts State Police, earlier this week, Trooper Russell Lloyd and his partners on the Massachusetts State Police Motorcycle Unit organized a visit from the New York Police Department Highway Patrol – the NYPD’s motorcycle unit — to tour local memorials to victims of the 9/11 attacks and the Marathon bombing. Cambridge Police and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Motorcycle Units also participated in the ride, and Boston Police helped facilitate the tour.

The 13 riders visited four memorial sites: NYPD Officers placed flowers at the 9/11 Memorial at Logan Airport, the 9/11 Memorial in the Boston Common, the Boston Bombing Memorial at the Boston Marathon finish line, and the Officer Sean Collier Memorial at MIT.

One Boston resident who met the Troopers and Officers during the ride noted the emotional connection between the two cities, especially in times of tragedy. “New York is like Boston’s older brother who punches you in the arm a lot … but we are always there for each other,” she said.

That connection between the cities caused some of the officers to think of Welles Crowther, the “Man in the Red Bandana,” so known because he always carried a red bandana that had been given to him by his father when he was a child. A New Yorker who played lacrosse at Boston College, Crowther was working as an equities trader at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. He would lead more than a dozen people who were trapped in the building to safety that day. Attempting to save others, he made one final trek up the stairs, but never made it back down.

Troopers looked back on Welles Crowther’s last minutes, undertaking repeated acts of bravery in the face of death with a quote of his: “Everyone who can stand, stand now. If you can help others, do so.”

Crowther’s courage, along with the bravery of many others, is what led Massachusetts State Police, NYPD, Cambridge Police, and MIT Police to come together to honor the victims from September 11, 2001, and April 15, 2013.