When the jetliner crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Cathy Lanier was a district commander trying to make sense out of the chaos.
The Metropolitan Police Department was getting much of its information from the media, officers were uncertain whether there would be more attacks, and traffic was jammed so much that even with sirens blaring and sometimes driving up on the curb, it took Lanier an hour to travel a few miles from headquarters to her District 4 command office in Columbia Heights.
“It was confusion, mass confusion,”said Cmdr. Lanier, who grew just outside D.C. in Tuxedo. “We can’t have that happen again. We just can’t.”
It’ll be Lanier’s job to make sure it doesn’t: She will head the District’s newly created Office of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.
Lanier, 38, was previously in charge of the special operations division, where she oversaw nine units, including the SWAT, K-9, helicopter and harbor units. She was responsible for 430 special events throughout the year such as last week’s massive immigration demonstration on the National Mall. She was the first woman to hold that position.
At the same time, she was in charge of homeland security, a job that law enforcement agencies around the country are still learning as they go.
What started shortly after Sept. 11 with seven officers has grown to nearly 300 specially trained people to protect the city from terrorist attacks, pandemic diseases and natural disasters.
The job has grown too big for the same person to also handle special operations.
“What once was the elephant in the room has become the room,” Lanier said.
She plans to build up the
District’s intelligence center, expand the department’s reach to work more closely other agencies in
the region, and train all 3,800 officers in the police force to know
their role in the fight against terrorism.
“Everybody has done a lot of great things since 9/11,” she said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re integrating what we’ve learned.”
