Widow of 9/11 first responder repeatedly denied benefits even as pols use husbands words as rallying cry
The family of a 9/11 first responder has been denied disability benefits more than a dozen times — even as City Hall uses his words as a rallying cry for the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks.NYPD Det.Michael Hanson, who spent eight months digging at Ground Zero after the 2001 attacks, died of Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 2018, with his wife and daughter maintaining it was because of his work on the pile — a claim the city has denied them 13 times.So it stung the family when Mayor Mamdani last week quoted Hanson’s inspiring words to his fellow ESU detectives — words memorized over the memorial wall in the unit’s headquarters.
They were especially upset that he got the quote wrong.“Does he know that the man he’s quoting died worrying about his family being taken care of because the city has denied him benefits that should’ve been there for someone sick or dying from 9/11 exposures?” Hanson’s daughter, Kate Hanson, wrote on Facebook this week.
“Does he know that despite how easy it is to rip a quote off of a wall, he didn’t even get it right?! Nope that’s right.He left off the end of it,” she wrote.
“Now 25 years after 9/11, the mayor not only uses that quote and my father‘s name and reputation in his fluffy political speech.” It is not clear if the family applied for the benefits since Mamdani took office.The mayor invoked Mike Hanson last week during a briefing just days before the upcoming 25th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center that killed nearly 3,000.“Last week, Officer Perry was honored with a street named after him in East Harlem,” the mayor said.“Today, we honor every NYPD officer who died on or after 9/11, those who gave so much to protect and to serve.
In the words of ESU Detective Mike Hanson, who before he passed gave his younger officers a rule to work by: ‘Do what you can for who you can, with whatever it takes.'”Hanson’s widow, Cathy Hanson, said he left out the last part of the quot...