Former 9/11 NYPD Captain Dies Through Self-Inflicted Gunshot

A retired New York Police Department (NYPD) captain, who responded to the 9/11 attacks, died of an apparent suicide near his residence in Greenlawn, New York, reports said Wednesday.

Sources said Doug Greenwood, 61, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a park near his home in Greenlawn late Tuesday, according to a report by New York Daily News. Greenwood was a long term employee of the NYPD, who worked with the department for more than 20 years. He was mostly part of the Manhattan South Task Force where he was promoted to captain.

The report stated, after his retirement from the police force, Greenwood became the co-owner of a pizza outlet named Bleecker St. Pizza, which operated on Seventh Avenue and Bleecker Street in Manhattan, New York. The outlet was also featured in the New York Times list of top five places where one “must definitely eat” in the city.

The pizza outlet’s website wrote, “Doug Greenwood had not one, but two amazing careers."

It said, as a member of the Task Force, Greenwood was one of the initial responders to reach Ground Zero on the day of 9/11. "Doug’s unit spent long hours recovering limp bodies and other evidence from the crime scene,” the website added.

The biography on the pizza outlet’s website also mentioned how Greenwood helped after the attacks took place. It went on to say Greenwood was forced to retire.

“After 40 consecutive days of exposure to synthetic dust and toxins, Doug's lungs decided they'd had enough and he was forced to retire.”

New York Daily News reached out to Greenwood’s family for a comment, but did not get any response. The news agency also approached a manager at the pizza outlet, who refused to comment on the matter Wednesday.

This is not an isolated instance where a police officer who operated on Ground Zero during 9/11 killed himself.

According to another New York Daily News report in March, Gerard Benderoth, 48, shot himself in the head after he was pulled over on Rockland County road by agents investigating his connection to a Westchester County police officer, who was charged with killing four men in a foiled drug deal.

The report stated Benderoth, who was a 9/11 responder from the 44th Precinct station house, never moved on from the trauma after working at Ground Zero, his friend John Livesay said. It was reported he also lost his best friend in the terrorist attacks.

Livesay said, “He [Benderoth] stayed there for three days putting body parts together on the sidewalk. … I don’t think you can see that and come away normal.”

According to another friend of Benderoth, Albert Thompson, he had to leave NYPD in 2004 due to his depression.

Thompson said, “The last time I talked with him, a year ago, he was not good. He suffered from 9/11-related depression. ... He went to the Haverstraw Police Department because of the trauma. He couldn’t be a cop in New York.”

Benderoth was named the 10th-strongest man in the country by Strongman Corporation, a sports governing body, in 2008.