Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office

Sergeant Kevin Kenney of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office contacts colleagues of his who are with President Bush’s Secret Service detail after he sees the television coverage of the plane crash at the World Trade Center, and is surprised to find they are unaware of the incident in New York. Kenney was scheduled to fly the Sheriff’s Office helicopter, taking a Secret Service agent with him, to cover Bush’s motorcade as it made the journey to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, this morning (see (8:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). However, due to heavy fog over Sarasota, he had to cancel the motorcade cover. While waiting for the fog to clear, Kenney has been watching the news on a television in the hangar at Venice Municipal Airport. He therefore sees the coverage of the first plane crash at the WTC. [Sheriff, 9/2011; Longboat Observer, 9/8/2011] (The crash is reported on TV beginning at 8:48 a.m. (see 8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Bamford, 2004, pp. 16] ) Kenney immediately contacts colleagues of his from the Sheriff’s Office who are co-located with the president’s Secret Service detail and tells them about the news coverage he is watching. It is unclear if these colleagues are traveling in Bush’s motorcade or waiting at the Booker Elementary School for the motorcade to arrive. “Remarkably,” Kenney will later recall, the Sheriff’s Office personnel reply “that they were not aware of the incident [i.e. the crash at the WTC] at that point.” [Sheriff, 9/2011]