In the New York Times Newspaper, there was an article about the bombings in New Jersey and in Manhattan, New York. These bombings were so intense that, “the bomb in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood on Saturday night was powerful enough to vault a heavy steel Dumpster more than 120 feet through the air, according to the complaint.” (David Patton, the chief federal defender in Manhattan). I wanted to bring this to the Rampage because I know we are in Maine, and that’s not that close to the bombing in Manhattan and the bombs in New Jersey. I wanted to bring something other than just the bombings to everyone’s attention: some people don’t feel the world is as safe as it used to be. Ask yourself this question: Do you feel safe walking downtown at 11 o’clock at night by yourself? Why or why not? What is going to happen down the road to other generations? Will things get better or worse?

I asked some of these questions to Mrs. Moy, a history teacher here at KHS, who was around before September 11th. I wanted to get her opinion on the world then versus now, as well as how the bombings affected her. She said, “yes, it certainly affected me and Mr. Knoepfel, because we have family that live in New York, and in New Jersey.” Since Mrs. Moy was around when 9/11 happened, I asked her, “How do you feel the world has changed since September 11th?” She told me, “since the terrorists who attacked were a stateless terrorist organization, and certainly ISIS is along the same lines and are a stateless organization, it’s a tremendous loss of our civil liberties and civil rights that I do not necessarily feel comfortable with. The government is taking care of it and the government is keeping it a secret on the way they fight this, and we go on with our lives, but I am not necessarily content with the government keeping it a secret.”

I asked her how she feels about our police and how safe she feels. She then continued to tell me, “What is happening in police departments is an abomination, and it is anti-American, it is wrong. In 1960, police abused their authority and court stepped in and prevented them from abusing it, this authority abuse acceptance just keep the abuse going… it creates a culture of fear.” Then for my last question, I asked Mrs. Moy this last question:  “Do you feel safe walking downtown at 11 o’clock at night by yourself?” She replied with “today, yes, because I would not go to New York without meeting someone who lives there and have them tell me if I am or am not safe there. In the 1970s, no, it was incredibly unsafe and more unsafe then it is now. We have been in New York when it was 11 o’clock and there are still a ton of people out.”  

I then went and asked a friend from school, Dan Behrens, a student here at KHS,  who was too young to remember September 11th, to see his thoughts on the world today and the bombings, because his brother goes to college in New York. He told me that when his brother was going to college, he didn’t think much of bombing or terrorist attacks, but that he and his family thought “more along the lines of muggings and robberies.”

I then asked him how he felt about the bombings because of how close his brother was, and he said, “I wasn’t that worried because I knew it was sort of a contained event, and I felt like if something had happened then we would have heard about it pretty quickly.” After that, I proceeded to talk about the work perspective he had. He said, “I don’t have much of an opinion on bombings around the world because I don’t feel threatened personally”. I then asked him the same question: “Do you feel safe walking downtown at 11 o’clock at night by yourself?” Dan Behrens replied, “in general, yes I do, but also depends on the city or town.”  

For some of my facts in this article I went to the New York Times newspaper.

 SANTORA ,MARC. “ Ahmad Khan Rahami Was Inspired by Bin Laden, Charges Say.”  New York Times Newspaper.