‘My life changed’: Fort Mill police officer shares memory of working in NYC on 9/11

FORT MILL, S.C. — “I went to bed the night before just waiting to do my job the next day, and my life changed,” said Victor Mele, a former NYPD officer.

More than two decades later, images and sounds from 9/11 remain vivid in the mind of Fort Mill police officer Victor Mele.

The former New York City police officer was assigned to work in the subways back then.

So he was underground when the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center.

“I heard a female officer screaming for help, saying a plane struck one of the towers. At first, I wasn’t sure exactly what I heard,” Mele said. “So I took my radio out, cranked it up, looked at my partner and said, ‘Did you hear what she said?’”

They walked to a satellite police station with a TV.

“And we witnessed the second plane strike, and we knew at that point it was a jet and that we were under attack or something serious was going on,” Mele said.

Mele said he wanted to head to the towers to help, but instructions on the radio told him to shut down the subway.

“And then they told us to look for bombs because they didn’t know what was going on,” Mele said. “So we did that. And then I wound up responding later on that day to do search and rescue.”

Some of his co-workers and close friends were among those who died that day.

Mele, who is now a Fort Mill police officer, read their names at this memorial service on Friday.

“And my friends, Antonio Rodrigues, Port Authority; Ramon Suarez, Transit District 4; Mark Ellis, Transit District 4,” Mele said.

He wants everyone to remember the sacrifice of his friends and other heroes from that day.

“Some of them had kids, but they don’t get to watch them grow up,” Mele said. “You know, my friend Mark was engaged. He never got to get married and have a family of his own. So it’s kind of the thing that I remind myself: I get to do a lot of things that these people didn’t.”

Mele is now a school resource officer in Fort Mill, where he gets to tell kids the story of 9/11.

He is ensuring new generations of young people know what happened that day and never forget.

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