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Editing out 'serious pain or embarrassment'

BY LIAM PLEVEN | STAFF WRITER

August 13, 2005

New York City on Friday released more than 500 firefighter interviews full of first-hand accounts of the pain, heroism, chaos and bravery they experienced when responding to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

But there was still something missing.

In some of the transcripts were portions the city blacked out, because it believed the statements "would cause the person who made them serious pain or embarrassment," said Marilyn Richter, an attorney for the city.

"Serious pain or embarrassment" was the standard set by the state's highest court in March, when it issued the ruling that led to Friday's disclosure.

Many interviews had nothing omitted at all. In some cases, the redactions were brief, such as the two lines of text missing from a passage where a paramedic was urging a detective to use his gun to open the door to a store where they were trying to get refuge near the site. Part of another line also was redacted.

The paramedic, Manuel Delgado, said he has mixed feelings about the release of the transcripts, but he agrees with the redactions in his.

Some of the redactions were longer, including the more than a page long response of an assistant commissioner when an interviewer offered him "an opportunity to give us any further recollections or observations before we conclude the interview, if he has any."

The redactions were "extremely limited and made in good faith," Richter said.

If the parties that sued for the interviews to be disclosed feel differently, however, they could try to get a judge to review what was deleted. As a result, Friday's release may not represent the final conclusion.

David McCraw, an attorney for The New York Times, which was one of the parties that sued for the interviews to be released, said, "I have every reason to believe that the city has acted in good faith and tried to redact in accordance with the court's order."

But while McCraw did not say that the Times would try to challenge any of the redactions in court, he also did not foreclose that option. He said he would review the transcripts personally.

Attorney Norman Siegel, who represents members of eight families that each lost a relative at the World Trade Center and joined in the lawsuit, said, "If in our review of the oral histories we find that parts have been improperly redacted, we will advocate for the complete release of the oral histories in their original form."

Staff writer Ainsley O'Connell contributed to this story.