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A friend of George Zimmerman, the man who shot unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., told ABC News today that the voice heard howling on the tape of a 911 call was Zimmerman's, not the teen's. The man, a black friend of the family who spoke to Zimmerman tonight, told ABC News that Zimmerman was weeping for days after the shooting, which sparked protests across the country, and he insisted that Zimmerman, who is Hispanic, is not a racist. "We wanted to come forward because allegations of racism just aren't true. His friends speak highly of him," said attorney...

NEW YORK — The city has sent out letters to 24 families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks advising them that partial transcripts and recordings of 911 calls made by the victims soon will be released to the public because of a court order. The letters, sent by express mail on Friday, advised only family members whose dead relatives could be identified from the calls recorded by police and fire department operators. The imminent release of the records was ordered by a judge in a case brought by The New York Times and nine family members of victims...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Fire Department yesterday released 12,000 pages of oral histories recorded by firefighters on September 11, and radio transmissions, a vast mine of records that evoked anew the chaos and horror of the attack. Firefighter Kirk Long, whose Engine 1 was sent to the World Trade Center's north tower -- the first to be struck by a plane and the second to collapse -- described rushing up a stairway as evacuees were coming down. "I was watching every person coming down, looked at their face, just to make them happy that they were getting...

Excerpts of more than 500 firefighters' oral histories of their experiences on Sept. 11, 2001, released Friday along with more than 15 hours of radio transmissions: "People were grabbing onto us. We were picking up people, because they were still after it was black, there was screaming in the beginning and we were shouting. We were saying 'Don't worry, we're with the Fire Department. Everybody is going to get out.' I remember saying stuff like that, which is pretty wild, actually. We were just as scared as anybody else. We were just victims too. Basically the only difference between us...

CBS/AP) In gripping, vivid accounts of individual heroism and organizational chaos, firefighters describe their response to - and escape from - the World Trade Center in 12,000 pages of oral histories made public today.

Radio transmissions, firefighters' oral histories to be made public FridayNEW YORK - Families and colleagues of firefighters lost on Sept. 11, 2001, were preparing to revisit the chaos and loss of the day with the release of hours of radio transmissions and thousands of pages of firefighters’ oral histories. Compelled by a New York Times lawsuit, the Fire Department of New York planned to make public Friday 15 hours of radio transmissions and more than 500 oral histories recounting the rush to the World Trade Center towers that saved an unknown number of civilians but cost 343 firefighters their lives....

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York City's Fire Department must release audiotapes and transcripts of interviews conducted with firefighters who responded to the 2001 terrorist attacks, but it can withhold portions that could cause serious pain or embarrassment, the state's highest court ruled yesterday. The decision by the Court of Appeals was part of a three-pronged ruling that also determined what portions of 911 calls and dispatch communications must be disclosed by the city. The ruling came in response to a Freedom of Information request by The New York Times. The newspaper wanted to examine tapes of 911 calls made from...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Chilling radio transmissions by the Sept. 11 hijackers from the planes they commandeered were played publicly for the first time Thursday, providing a vivid and horrifying window into the events that unfolded during the worst terrorism attack in U.S. history. "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be O.K. We are returning to the airport," a hijacker, believed to be Mohamed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 19 hijackers, told the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11. The tape was played at the Sept. 11 commission's final public hearing, which was attended by some of...

[snip]Investigators believe Atta thought he was talking to the passengers, but instead he was broadcasting to controllers. The voice of Atta first crackled over the radio at 8:24 a.m., about 10 minutes after the plane was commandeered. Only 22 minutes later, the aircraft smashed into the tower. Tapes of hijacker Ziad Jarrah, who flew United Flight 93, were also played. About 46 minutes after that plane took off, a Cleveland-based controller heard "a radio transmission of unintelligible sounds of possible screaming or a struggle from an unknown origin," commission investigators said.

9-11 transcripts illustrate bravery, fatal mistakes By JOEL LEYDEN Digging crews worked constantly for months after the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. (Photo: Joel Leyden) For some it was reliving a nightmare, for others closure, but for most the release of the September 11 transcripts provided glimpses of bravery and fatal mistakes. The transcripts were created from tapes of Port Authority emergency calls and radio transmissions that day and released Thursday after The New York Times won a court order for their release. The documents illustrate the utter disorientation, shock, disbelief and human courage produced...

<p>August 30, 2003 -- The "man who didn't care" - a Port Authority clerk who callously kept copying reports after the first plane hit the World Trade Center - was later fired from his job for slacking off, his former boss told The Post yesterday.</p>

<p>August 30, 2003 -- Anger at terrorists - and sadness for their victims - marked the mood at Ground Zero yesterday as visitors talked about newly released transcripts of World Trade Center occupants' last desperate calls for help.</p> <p>New Yorkers and tourists lined the fence around where the Twin Towers once stood, pondering the last moments of the thousands trapped in the buildings when they collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.</p>

'Should we stay or ... not?' Friday, August 29, 2003 BY MARK MUELLER Star-Ledger Staff [New York, NY] -- In the chaotic moments after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, desperate workers trapped inside the flaming towers begged for instructions and help. Husbands and wives at home flooded police phone lines, frantic for information. On the streets, bystanders described an apocalypse of fire, debris and falling bodies.Transcripts of phone and radio communications released yesterday by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey provide a frightening portrait, albeit a fragmentary one, of what it was like in and...

he Port Authority of New York and New Jersey yesterday released transcripts of radio transmissions and phone conversations that it recorded in the moments immediately after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The transcripts, together with written accounts by Port Authority employees, numbered about 2,000 pages and covered over three hours of recorded conversation, most of it between agency employees, rescue workers and people trapped inside the towers. They were made public in response to an order by a New Jersey Superior Court judge, who last week ruled that the authority must abide by...

Advice at WTC: Just stay put This story was reported by: Kerry Burke, Tracy Connor, Alison Gendar, Greg Gittrich, Maggie Haberman, and Eric Herman. It was written by: Greg Gittrich Smoke billows from the twin towers of the World Trade Center. "Should we stay or should we not?" "I would wait till further notice." Two thousand painful pages of emergency calls and radio transmissions made after the first of two hijacked jets exploded into the twin towers reveal that the Port Authority told some people to stay put. The PA, which lost 37 police officers and 47 civilian employees in...

When I read this stuff, I don't get sad. I get pissed. Who do we bomb next... North Korea, Syria? And don't tell me they had nothing to do with 911 and are innocent. Syria / North Korea innocent? Innocent of what? ‘BODIES, PEOPLE JUST JUMPING’ There were also accounts of people, in disbelief, calling about people plunging from the buildings to their deaths. “Yo, I’ve got dozens of bodies, people just jumping from the top of the building onto ... in front of One World Trade,” says a male caller. “People. Bodies are just coming from out of the...

<p>August 29, 2003 -- Call him the man who didn't care. The 9/11 transcripts show cops shocked and speechless at the scope of the attack — but one cop working at Port Authority headquarters in 5 WTC callously continued copying reports and chatted with a woman on the phone about the cost of her new muffler.</p>

<p>August 29, 2003 -- An increasingly panicked assistant manager at the Windows on the World restaurant called cops four times to beg for help that never came, as smoke filled the posh restaurant, transcripts show.</p> <p>All 72 Windows employees who were present died in the 9/11 attack — including Christine Olender, the restaurant's assistant general manager, who made the calls from the 106th floor of the north tower that morning.</p>

<p>Relatives of World Trade Center victims yesterday said the release of transcripts of 9/11 emergency communications was a wrenching and emotional experience.</p> <p>Teresa Raggio said she was anxious about how the transcripts would be presented in the media, but believes their release will paint a favorable picture of how people reacted — including her brother, Eugene Raggio, 55, who was a Port Authority operations supervisor.</p>

<p>NEW YORK — A man on the 92nd floor called the police with what was - though he did not know it - the question of his life.</p> <p>"We need to know if we need to get out of here, because we know there's an explosion," said the caller, who was in the south tower of the World Trade Center. It was Sept. 11, 2001. A jet had just crashed into the Trade Center's north tower. "Should we stay or should we not?"</p>