An NYPD sergeant who helped lead 9/11 recovery efforts “from day one” at the Staten Island landfill has died, according to a police official.
Detective Sgt. Robert Fawcett died of a 9/11-related illness on Sept. 14 and was laid to rest Saturday, said Vincent Vallelong, his longtime friend and Sergeants Benevolent Association president.
Fawcett, 64, spent 21 years with the police department.
“There was no better partner or better friend you’d want around you,” said Vallelong, who worked with Fawcett in the Brooklyn South detectives squad.
“The guy gave his life working at the landfill from day one. He was there when there were pools of water that were bubbling,” he said.
Fawcett, a lifelong resident of Staten Island, “was known for his unwavering dedication to his family and community,” according to his obituary.
He is survived by a daughter, three sons and five grandchildren.
“His son was there with him when he went into hospice and stayed with him until he end,” the union president said about Fawcett’s son, who is a nurse. “It was tragic.”
The 2,200-acre landfill in Fresh Kills was closed in March 2001 — the last vestige of the city’s garbage dumps — but a section of it reopened on Sept. 12, 2001, after Islamic terrorists crashed two commercial jets into the World Trade Center, collapsing the twin skyscrapers and killing more than 2,800 people.
It stands as the worst attack on American soil.
Up to 18,000 tons of debris were delivered daily from Ground Zero to the landfill over the next eight months, before the site closed again for good.
A portion of the dump has since been turned into city parkland.
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