HENRYK SIWIAK: New York City's Only Murder Victim of 9/11

 

New York City has only one official homicide recorded for September 11, 2001. This apparent logical puzzle actually makes sense on consideration. Authorities do not count the nearly 3,000 deaths resulting from the attacks on the World Trade Center as they argue (not unreasonably) that they misrepresent crime statistics. And yet it is because of the terrorist attacks that the murder of Henryk Siwiak has garnered so much attention. Had it occurred even a day after it would have been lost in the annals of New York City homicides. But as the only official murder victim of in the city of that fateful day, the tragic story of Henryk Siwiak endures and its coinciding with the terrorist attacks has fueled speculation.

There is no doubt that on the night of September 11, 2001, Siwiak was at the wrong place at the wrong time but with robbery doubted as a motive and his lack of connections in Bedford–Stuyvesant reducing the probability of personal vendetta, the case has taken on a more baffling turn.

By all accounts, Siwiak was not a man associated with acts of violence. A year earlier, at the age of 46, Siwiak left Poland to join his sister Lucyna in New York, leaving his wife and two children back home. Despite lacking legal documentation and proficiency in English, Siwiak managed to keep a job throughout most of his time in New York even sending hundreds of dollars to his family back home. Ultimately, Siwiak hoped to save enough to return to Poland and settle down comfortably.

On the morning of September 11^th, Siwiak was working at a construction site in Lower Manhattan. When the area was evacuated following the attacks, Siwiak made his way back to his apartment in Queens and was made to understand that the site would be closed down until further notice. Immediately upon returning home, Siwiak called his family in Poland to tell them he was safe and began scouring newspapers for job listings. A listing for a floorwasher at a Pathmark supermarket in Brooklyn’s Farragut caught his eye. Siwiak contacted his family back home to confirm he was safe. Despite his wife pleading with him not to leave his apartment that day given the tense situation, Siwiak asked his landlord for a map and directions to the supermarket where he was to begin working that night.

His landlord echoed his wife’s concern with the added warning that that particular area of Brooklyn (the north end of Albany Avenue) is among the city’s most dangerous, known widely as a haven for drug dealers and robbers. Siwiak, however, was still determined to begin work that night.

Dressed in a camouflage jacket and dark boots, Siwiak made his way to Brooklyn. The last moments of his life are well documented. At around 11p.m. he stepped off the A train at Utica Avenue Station and walked west along Fulton Street to Albany Avenue. Unbeknownst to Siwiak, however, he was heading in the wrong direction and followed them nearly four miles away from Pathmark.

At 11:40, a resident of Decatur Street heard an argument between some men outside her window. “I heard a couple of men talking, arguing and I heard a shot. I don’t know if I heard a shot or couple of shots but I didn’t come to the window because I don’t dare come to the window,” she said.

Seven shots had been fired, in fact, and one hit Siwiak in the chest. Wounded, he staggered onto a stoop on Decatur and rang the doorbell in a desperate call for help. Paramedics were called but Siwiak died on the scene.

Almost twenty-four years later scarcely any answers have been found in the murder of Henryk Siwiak. Perhaps an encounter with foul play was an inevitability the moment he arrived in that area of town especially unaware of his surroundings. But the $75 he was carrying in his wallet were left untouched, casting doubt on the theory of robbery.

His sister holds the theory that with his broken English and military attire he may have unwittingly stroked the paranoia already running rampant in the city that day. Police, however, have not classified the murder as a hate crime.

Detective Michael Prate, who was assigned to the case does not fully discredit the idea, but also believes Siwiak may have simply run up against the wrong crowd.

 “At this point everything is possible,” Prate said. “We haven’t heard anything like that from any people in the community; nobody has indicated that to us. There is no significant targets that a terrorist would target here.”

He added, “The block at that time was an active block for both narcotics and street robberies. He spoke very little English so if it was an attempted robbery maybe he didn’t understand what was going on.” 

Related or not, though, the terrorist attacks that shook the city earlier that day played a strong hand in the murder of Henryk Siwiak. His search for a new job in a new neighborhood he didn’t know was set into motion when the devastation in Lower Manhattan closed his work site. Further, with police overwhelmed by the attacks, there was far less personnel than usual available to investigate Siwiak’s murder. A forensics team that is typically sent to such crime scenes was replaced by a small team of evidence collectors who found Siwiak’s backback and shell casings from the .40 caliber handgun used by the murderer.

"The Police Department gave that investigation what it could do that day,” Prate said.

When Henryk Siwiak called his wife to assure her he was safe following the attacks in Manhattan, he could not have guessed that he had not escaped the cloud of that terrible day. Setting the wheels for his death in motion and then incapacitating the investigation, the attacks of September 11 claimed another victim in Henryk Siwiak.