A single-engine Cessna 172 was flown into downtown Tampa’s Bank of America building by 15 year old Charlie Bishop.
Greco said it got to the point that every time his phone rang late at night, he worried that it would be the worst type of news–either a terrorist attack occurred or was coming, or a scared citizen turned vigilante and blew up an innocent Middle Easterner’s business. Throughout his four terms as mayor (1967 - 1974 and 1995 - 2003), Greco kept a police radio in his car and home. He would often race to the scene of a crime after hearing it broadcast. He said that doing so helped him understand the problems law enforcement officers had to deal with in Tampa, which enabled him to better provide them with the necessary resources. Following the October 2001 threat, he said he sat up late listening to the police radio in his home, wondering when the bad news of a terrorist attack would be broadcast. “I think everybody, every law enforcement officer nationwide, had a new sense of awareness after 9/11,” said Castor. “We all had a different perspective on the world. The things you may have driven past prior to 9/11, like something as simple as a car parked in front of a federal building, began to look suspicious. The world is just different now.” 34
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While listening to his police radio a few weeks after the nuclear threat, Greco said he heard about a shooting in downtown Tampa and he rushed to the scene. When he arrived, the first thing he saw was a pool of blood surrounding a sheet-covered body. The police shot the young man as he fled a robbery in his car. An officer pulled up next to the suspect’s car and the man pulled a gun, so the officer shot and killed him in self-defense. Greco said that he had been to dozens of such crime scenes over the years, but he said that this one was different; he didn’t feel as much empathy for the dead man as he normally did. “Usually, especially when the victim was a young person, I’d think about what a shame it was and wonder how the kid got to that point in his life,” said Greco. “But I didn’t think that way that night at all. I was actually relieved. I wasn’t happy that someone was dead, but I was happy that it wasn’t worse. I was happy it was a robbery because after all the nation had been through since 9/11, anything that wasn’t terrorist-related seemed like a relief. So I went up to Benny Holder and asked him if he felt the same as I did and he said he did. I made a point to ask every cop there and they all said exactly what I was thinking, that they were just happy it wasn’t something worse. And I couldn’t help but to think what a strange world we lived in that we could all be relieved when someone was killed.” The downtown shooting paled in comparison to the incident that occurred in downtown a few months later. Shortly after 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 5, 2002, Greco received a call informing him that a stolen airplane purposely flew into the side of downtown Tampa’s Bank of America building. “I thought, ‘Oh my God. The worst has happened,’” remembered Greco. He raced to downtown, thinking it was going to be a repeat of what happened in New York City. He expected to arrive and find the building crumbling to the ground, covering the city with ashes and killing everyone around it. He was expecting a second or even a third plane to follow. And he was expecting to hear Osama bin Laden broadcasting a message over the radio and television, talking about how more attacks in Tampa will follow because the city is home to the U.S. military’s Central Command. But when he arrived, he was relieved at what he found. The plane was “only” a single-engine Cessna 172. Because the plane was small, the damage was minimal. It was hanging from the 28th story window it flew through, half in the office and half sticking out. It damaged the office it flew into, but it didn’t puncture any interior walls or even touch the adjoining room. It was Saturday, so no one was in the office. The pilot died on impact, but no one else was injured. And police did not believe the crash was terrorist-related. “We were so thankful,” said Greco. “We went home thinking that while it was a big accident, it wasn’t that big of a deal.” In the ensuing days, the story of the pilot unfolded and Greco again realized how warped he had become since 9/11. Greco was so happy that the plane crash was not a terrorist