Rage. It’s what Rich Marx, a Raleigh police captain, said was his reaction as nearly 3,000 of his countrymen and 72 of his fellow officers died on 9/11. “We were caught with our pants down on 9/11,” John Walls, Raleigh master officer and purple heart recipient, said. Ten years into the new terror threat world, Raleigh police officers shed light on their 9/11 memories and the difficulties and controversies in keeping America safe. For Raleigh Captain Chris Bertram, 9/11 was a dreadfully long day of trying to locate his brother who worked in Manhattan. “He ended up having to walk out,” Bertram said. “He walked across the Brooklyn Bridge along with a lot of other people to get out of >it.” Since the attacks, the job of law enforcement has never been the same. Marx found an immediate role as some civilians nationwide took matters into their own hands following 9/11, attacking many store owners of Middle Eastern heritage. Marx made a point to protect the Middle Eastern store owners on his beat at Glenwood South. “I made extra patrols to those areas and got to know those people even better just so we wouldn’t have a similar incident here in Raleigh — and I don’t think we did,” he said. “But from that, I became much closer to those store owners and situation.” Having met one of the men in the terrorist cell as a deputy, Walls said he was “super U.S.” Today, police continue to train for whatever scenarios intelligence says is possible, which Walls said could very well involve Raleigh. “With the intel we have now, terrorists aren’t trying to hit [high value targets] like the Sept. 11 attacks,” Walls said. “They want to do multiple, small Americans.” Wiretapping and the recent airport security scanners remain divisive issues in the nation. “I don’t know a good answer to it,” Walls said. “I think it’s far above my time.”