Phil Pulaski has a background in law enforcement spanning nearly four decades and was the Chief of Detectives of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) where he managed 3,600 personnel. One of the noteworthy accomplishments in Phil Pulaski’s extraordinary career was being selected as the NYPD’s “bioterrorism czar” during the October 2001 anthrax terrorist attacks that followed in the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Having prior NYPD experience as a Deputy Chief managing major investigations in Manhattan and the Bronx, Commanding Officer of the Forensic Investigations Division, acting Director of the Police Laboratory and a managing attorney in the Legal Bureau, Phil Pulaski was the most logical choice to lead the NYPD’s anthrax response, mitigation and investigative operations. Phil Pulaski, together with his FBI counterpart SAC Gregory Jones, managed the FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force men and women who investigated the anthrax attacks and worked collaboratively with medical doctors and scientists from the NYC Department of Health, US Public Health Service, US Centers for Disease Control and US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) bio-weapons laboratory.
The first reported case involved a 62-year-old photojournalist who was hospitalized in Florida on October 2 with emergency-room symptoms that were at first mistaken for meningitis. Subsequent spinal fluid analysis under a microscope and lab tests revealed that the culprit was anthrax, a deadly bioterrorism weapon. With lethal anthrax spores sent by mail to recipients across New York, New Jersey, Florida, Washington DC, and Connecticut over the next two months, the result was a new wave of panic among Americans already traumatized by the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Prominent recipients of anthrax-laced letters ranged from then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw. Additionally, numerous US Postal Service regional mail sorting facilities were contaminated with the deadly anthrax spores. In addition to anthrax spores, several envelopes contained letters with messages such as “Death to America. Death to Israel.”
With the anthrax bio-weapon agent ultimately killing five people, intensive FBI investigations ultimately identified the likely culprit as a US Army microbiologist who had been involved in efforts at USAMRIID to develop an effective anthrax vaccine. However, this individual, who committed suicide prior to being arrested, was not conclusively proven to have undertaken the attack.
Having prior NYPD experience as a Deputy Chief managing major investigations in Manhattan and the Bronx, Commanding Officer of the Forensic Investigations Division, acting Director of the Police Laboratory and a managing attorney in the Legal Bureau, Phil Pulaski was the most logical choice to lead the NYPD’s anthrax response, mitigation and investigative operations. Phil Pulaski, together with his FBI counterpart SAC Gregory Jones, managed the FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force men and women who investigated the anthrax attacks and worked collaboratively with medical doctors and scientists from the NYC Department of Health, US Public Health Service, US Centers for Disease Control and US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) bio-weapons laboratory.
The first reported case involved a 62-year-old photojournalist who was hospitalized in Florida on October 2 with emergency-room symptoms that were at first mistaken for meningitis. Subsequent spinal fluid analysis under a microscope and lab tests revealed that the culprit was anthrax, a deadly bioterrorism weapon. With lethal anthrax spores sent by mail to recipients across New York, New Jersey, Florida, Washington DC, and Connecticut over the next two months, the result was a new wave of panic among Americans already traumatized by the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Prominent recipients of anthrax-laced letters ranged from then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw. Additionally, numerous US Postal Service regional mail sorting facilities were contaminated with the deadly anthrax spores. In addition to anthrax spores, several envelopes contained letters with messages such as “Death to America. Death to Israel.”
With the anthrax bio-weapon agent ultimately killing five people, intensive FBI investigations ultimately identified the likely culprit as a US Army microbiologist who had been involved in efforts at USAMRIID to develop an effective anthrax vaccine. However, this individual, who committed suicide prior to being arrested, was not conclusively proven to have undertaken the attack.
