6/11 Was Detroit's 9/11

[Danny]

Do you all remember June 11, 1982. In Downtown Detroit, a crazy man holding weapons in a bag, bypass security, walked into the Buhl Building and went upstairs and started to attack innocent workers demanding his insurance check. He kills a female employee, through a Molotov Cocktail in the workspace and tries to escape. Part of the Buhl Building was on fire, most of the people were trapped. It hits the national news like crazy. Even Detroit Mayor Coleman Young was furious!


This year's marks the 40th anniversary of this terror attack! Here is the article.

https://www.firefighterwriter.com/fire-talk-014.php

At that day, me and my two older cousins were just left Downtown Detroit shopping when it happens.

[Kathleen]

Saw this story on last night's WDIV 11 o'clock news. Sad memories!

I was working in the Book Tower when we heard the unbelievable news!! We couldn't imagine that someone could walk into an office building and wreak such havoc and death!!

From the WDIV Vault: 1982 coverage from attack at Detroit's Buhl Building
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QAgXnQ_4Lw

Survivors Of 1982 Buhl Building Rampage Will Remember The Woman Who Died
https://deadlinedetroit.com/articles...woman_who_died

[Ray1936]

Dang, I sure don't remember that. My barber was on one of the top floors of the Buhl Building; went there once a month. The fog of time, I suppose.

[Zacha341]

^ I recall it in my early undergrad college days. I was working downtown in the Book Building.

[Meddle]

Were there foreign nationals? Planes?


No?



Ok then.

[stasu1213]

Can't compare this terrible story to 911

[preserve]

Funny, I can remember when a piece of cornice fell from a bldg and stuck a pedestrian but I really can't remember this incident.

[Lowell]

A former girlfriend was in that mayhem. As some may recall the highest fire truck ladder was short of the escape window, so another regular ladder had to be taken up and added as seen in the picture. When I asked her, "Weren't you scared to go down that little ladder?" she said, "Hell no, when my turn came I was on it in a heartbeat."

[jiminnm]

I worked across the street in Guardian Building when that occurred, and watched some of it from there.

Like Ray, my barber was also in the Buhl Building, but on the first floor.

[Meddle]

I don't recall it either and I was kind of active in some things that should make me recall it.

[Lowell]

Another image. Somehow I thought they ran the extension ladder up the fire truck ladder. It makes me wonder how they got this up the steps or elevator from inside.

[Jimaz]

Revisiting the massacre at Detroit’s Buhl Building 40 years later

The video and pictures from June 11, 1982 in Downtown Detroit are as unnerving as they are impressive.

[Danny]

Robert Harrington now 76 is still serving life in prison in the UP. His brother Gerald Harrington worked Downtown; he is not a criminal just a honest man making ends meet. When he heard that his crazy brother attacking the law firm at the Buhl Building, he quickly react to tell his brother put down the weapon the let the DPD turn him in.

[EastsideAl]

I had just started a job at the City-County Building [[now CAY Municipal Center) as a summer intern the week before. We were so deep in the building that no one let us know that anything was happening, but we were all set for an early release for the weekend at Friday lunchtime. But when we got downstairs the lobby was jammed, no one was being let out of the building, fire trucks were coming screaming from all over and cops were running around like crazy. But no one seemed to know what was going on. They finally let us out after an hour, with instructions not to go west of Woodward. I got on an eerily empty Jefferson bus and went home and didn't find out until I turned on the TV what had happened.

[One Shot]

9/11.... um no.

[Jimaz]

... Somehow I thought they ran the extension ladder up the fire truck ladder. It makes me wonder how they got this up the steps or elevator from inside....

At 1:29 in the video they show firefighters wrestling a ladder up the fire truck ladder. Maybe there were multiple ladder attempts?

Thinking about all the safety warnings on ladders today, I'm wondering how they cobbled the ladders together. Duct tape? Maybe firetruck ladders are designed for this contingency with some kind of clamp or brace for an extension?

[Richard]

It says it in the link in the first post

. When they extended the 100 foot aerial ladder they were one floor short of the trapped victims. The Captain of Ladder 1 ordered a ladder splice operation. This is a rare tactic but it was necessary under the fire conditions at the scene. Several Firefighters took up a sixteen foot roof ladder and placed it on the upper rungs of the aerial ladder. The roof ladder was secured with leather belts.

Interesting how in the posted newspaper GIF it says the city traded 2 helicopters for a fixed wing aircraft to transport prisoners with.

As they could have basket lifted people from the roof.