Statement from WTC Families for Proper Burial

After yesterdays horrid news that remains of some 9/11 victims went to landfill, according to Pentagon report , The WTC Families for Proper Burial has issued the following statement: 

It is with great sadness that we read the reports of human remains from both Shanksville and the Pentagon having been treated with the same indignity as the remains from the World Trade Center.

We have said for ten years that not only was the dumping of human remains, in a garbage dump, an outrageously callous act, but also it set a terrible precedent.  We were proved right by the similar desecration of military dead. The line between decency and expediency was crossed causing great pain to many friends and family members of those who were killed.  We have said that such an act would not only cause immediate pain but would open the door for newer, similar atrocious acts.  What was done flies in the face of human kindness and most religious commitments.

When we asked for justice for the World Trade Center victims, we were told that our dead were merely “undifferentiated dirt.”  Our courts allowed people like Mayor Bloomberg to think of our dead as “dirt” and the city’s attorneys actually claimed that throwing such remains, since they were comingled, into a toilet and flushing them away would not shock the conscience.  Today’s news merely reflects these consciences that cannot be shocked but that continue to shock the rest of us.

I am so very sad for the other families and loved ones who now must face the same reality that the World Trade Center families have had to face for 10 years.  I would not want anyone to walk in my shoes.  The call remains for a protocol to be put in place preventing any further such horrific disrespect for our dead.

What sad news for us all.

Diane Horning

WTC Families for Proper Burial

February 28, 2012