It Didn’t Start On 9/11
In it’s obituary of a retired police officer, the Miami Herald lets it slip out: Tom Brodie, Bomb expert kept Miami safe
Brodie worked many of the high-profile cases that by 1974 had made Miami what he called “one of the terrorist capitals of the world.”
During the 1960s and ’70s, political passions frequently boiled over into violence — a subject about which Brodie testified before Congress. In 1968 alone, 44 bombs went off in Miami, including one aboard the ship Caribbean Venture docked in Miami during the Republican convention.
During that era, Cuban-American radio host Emilio Milián lost his legs in a car bombing. Explosives detonated at four federal buildings, at the homes of the British consul and a magazine editor who advocated dialogue with Fidel Castro and in a Metro Justice Building restroom.
Yes, there were a lot of terrorist attacks before September 11, 2001, and we managed to deal with them. We didn’t have to give up our civil liberties, and Mr. Brodie didn’t have to torture anyone to defuse bombs.
Mr. Brodie was good at his job, and not because he was awarded an MBE by the Queen for working on cases involving Britain, but because he died at 78 as a result of Parkinson’s, not the result of a bomb.
2 comments
Very true Bryan. And even I’d heard of Mr. Brodie in my *circles*. Ye was very highly regarded, as are/were others. Sadly, i think he’s one of the last of a rare breed. 78 is bloddy impressive for someone in his *line of work*!
R.I.P Mr. Brodie!! You did more to keep people safe an alive than the entire Bushmoron Government!! That’s better than most can claim and should be on your headstone.
The saddest thing is that most people are too ignorant or stupid to understand what they have lost.
What a World. 🙁
I would have been in major panic mode to have started experiencing Parkinson tremors while working in EOD.
As the article mentioned, there were no tools, just whatever he could rig up to do the job.
The Hedgemony ginned up the whole “terror” issue to cover their incompetence and panic.
I still think my squadron was pretty damn cheap noy covering the cost of coolers and a barbecue grill for the parking lot of the unit barracks for us to use when the bomb squad was clearing the building of explosives. The NCO club wouldn’t let you in wearing slippers and a bathrobe.
Actually we starting leaving flight suits in cars to get dressed when they roused us out.
That was the world Mr. Brodie worked in: Palestinians, Pro and Anti Castro forces, IRA, Red Army… there were dozens of groups from all points in the political spectrum trying to get attention for their cause. Many of them were not exactly clear on what their cause was, but it required blowing something up.
What a World, indeed.