Seven Shots: An NYPD Raid on a Terrorist Cell and Its Aftermath »

Jennifer C. Hunt is a sociologist and university professor. She has done fieldwork among police in New York City and Philadelphia and also worked in the training division of the NYPD. Her publications include police department training materials, as well as a book on ethnography.

On July 31, 1997, a six-man Emergency Service team from the NYPD raided a terrorist cell in Brooklyn and narrowly prevented a suicide bombing of the New York subway that would have cost hundreds, possibly thousands of lives.

Seven Shots tells the dramatic story of that raid, the painstaking police work involved, and its paradoxical aftermath, which drew the officers into a conflict with other rank-and-file police and publicity-hungry top brass. Jennifer C. Hunt draws on her personal knowledge of the NYPD and a network of police contacts extending from cop to four-star chief, to trace the experience of three officers on the Emergency Service entry team and the two bomb squad detectives who dismantled the live device. She follows their lives for five years, from that near-fatal day in 1997, through their encounters inside the brutal world of departmental politics, and on to 9/11, when they once again put their lives at risk in the fight against terrorism, racing inside the burning towers and sorting through the ash, debris, and body parts. Throughout this fast paced narrative, Hunt maintains a strikingly fine-grained, street-level view, allowing us to understand the cops on their own terms—and often in their own words. The result is a compelling insider’s picture of the human beings who work in two elite units in the NYPD and the moral and physical danger and courage involved.

As gripping as an Ed McBain novel—and just as steeped in New York cop culture and personalities—Seven Shots takes readers on an unforgettable journey behind the shield and into the hearts of New York City police.

http://www.seven-shots.com

Library Journal

Sociologist Hunt here details the NYPD cops who took down a terrorist cell in 1997. Acting on a tip, the NYPD Emergency Services team raided a Brooklyn apartment and shot two suspects, who had a fully operational suicide bomb that they planned to detonate in the subway during rush hour. The officers should have become decorated heroes, but the politics of the police hierarchy complicated their stories. Hunt, who has spent years studying police culture in the NYPD and elsewhere, unfurls the operation and its consequences from the perspectives of five participants. The raid, the petty jealousies, and the politicking of publicity-hungry superiors all the way up to the police chief and the mayor are brought vividly to life. The book ends with 9/11 and the responses of those same police officers to another terrorist plot with a much more tragic outcome. VERDICT There is a distinctly academic tone to some of the chapters, which may put off some readers, but the story stands on its own. By turns inspiring, heartbreaking, and infuriating, this will appeal to readers interested in police culture as well as both students and fans of the real-life police procedural.—Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH

Preface: Studying the Police

Acknowledgments

Nypd Organizational Chart, 1997

Rank and the Chain of Command

Introduction 1

1 Rookie 33

2 10-1 38

3 Seven Shots 76

4 This is Going to Hollywood 101

5 Blood Trail 123

6 Ricochet 144

7 Top Cops 167

8 Friendly Fire 204

9 9/11 234

Conclusion 293

Epilogue 323

Appendix: Methodology 327

Notes 335

Bibliography 347

Index 353