9/11 remains transferred
NEW YORK — The unidentified remains of those killed at the World Trade Center have returned to the World Trade Center site in a solemn procession.
The remains were moved at dawn Saturday from the Chief Medical Examiner’s office in Manhattan. They were accompanied by police and fire department vehicles with lights flashing but no sirens.
The remains will be transferred to an underground repository in the same building as the National September 11 Memorial Museum.
The disposition of the remains has been contentious.
A group of victims’ family members say the remains should be stored in a separate above-ground monument. About a dozen wearing black bands over their mouths protested the transfer at the site Saturday.
“Let us have a voice! Let us have a say!” said retired firefighter Jim Riches, who lost his son, also a firefighter, in the 2001 terrorist attacks. “We are outraged, and we will never rest until our loved ones, America’s heroes, rest in peace.”
Sally Regenhard, who also lost her firefighter son at the World Trade Center, said the family members dread the opening of the museum on May 21.
“It’s a day of sadness and a day of outrage,” she said.
Not all family members agree. Other victims’ families have been forthcoming about their support of the plan, saying the repository is a fitting site for the remains.
“It will show the world the way we treat our dead,” Lee Ielpi, who lost his son in the attacks, said earlier in the week. “Let’s get them back to the site.”
The repository will be overseen by the medical examiner with hopes that improvements in technology could eventually help identify the 7,930 body parts.
City officials have said that family members were consulted about the plan, but the opponents say all relatives should have been polled.
“The city won’t do a survey because they know we’re right, that the majority of family members would say no,” said Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer who is representing family members opposed to the city’s plans.
Phil Walzak, a spokesman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said de Blasio’s administration “has engaged the community of 9/11 families continuously since entering office four months ago. This includes talking with and listening to families who have questions about this plan — as well as many families who are supportive and comfortable with this plan.”
The remains transfer plan was put into motion in a memorandum of understanding completed on Dec. 31, the final day of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration.
