On July 5, 2001, a police officer in Delray Beach stopped a motorist for speeding. He let the man go with a warning.
"Take a minute and consider how your careless driving affects the people you share these streets with and try to help make our streets a safer place to be," it said.
Nine weeks later, Mohammed Atta helped pilot Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. Federal investigators say he led the team sent by Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
"On 9-12, I was as shocked as anyone to learn that FBI agents were crawling all over South Florida," then-Boca Raton mayor and former Palm Beach Commissioner Steven Abrams told The Palm Beach Post in 2011.
It could be argued that, except for the actual locations of the attacks, no place played a larger
role than South Florida:
∎ At least 14 of the 19 hijackers lived in the area at some point.
∎ Hijackers took flying lessons in at least six Florida cities.
∎ At the time of Sept. 11, several had arrest warrants for outstanding traffic violations.
In fact, on Sept. 12, more than 400 FBI agents swarmed Florida.
But why here?
"There's been lots of stuff written about it and theories that South Florida is a more transient place, that it's easier to slip in an out, that it's very ethnically diverse," Abrams said.
In the weeks before the attack, hijackers took in naked lap dancers, intimidated hotel maids, gave lousy tips, and argued with bar managers.
They threw airplane manuals in Dumpsters. They went on the Internet at a Delray Beach library. And they quizzed a pharmacist about how to relieve irritated hands.
Atta was identified as having taken flight training the previous year in Venice. And three weeks before the attack, Atta spent at least four hours flying a four-seat Piper Archer plane he rented at the Palm Beach County Park Airport in Lantana.
He also was reported looking at crop dusters in Belle Glade. That lead to speculation he planned to spray a chemical or biological agent.
From June 21 to June 26, three suspected hijackers lived at the Homing Inn in Boynton Beach. They used its address for driver licenses and all three bought memberships at a nearby World Gym, now closed.
At the Homing Inn in 2001, housekeeper Valrie Williams told a reporter she was never allowed to clean the room alone; A man always sat in the doorway.
At the Denny's near the Homing Inn, waitresses recalled serving two Middle Eastern men who ordered little and said less, complained about their bills and left meager tips; one was Atta.
At the Delray Beach Public library, a librarian remembered two brothers using the Internet.
Two men rented units at the Hamlet Country Club condominium in Delray Beach. And at the nearby Delray Racquet Club, residents said two hijacking suspects were reclusive and always carried gym bags or duffel bags, At times as many as seven Middle Easterners were at the apartment. Neighbor Stacy Warm said they "wouldn't look at you in the eye."
Weeks after Sept. 11 came the anthrax attacks. While no one could make a direct link, the proximity was intriguing. And this: in the summer of 2001, a man later identified as Atta came into a downtown Delray Beach drug store. His hands were red and irritated. He wouldn't give pharmacist Gregg Chatterton a straight answer about how they got that way.
Perhaps because of the larger picture, the government couldn't or wouldn't be specific of what the Sept. 11 terrorists did in South Florida.
A 900-page congressional report issued in 2003 has one mention of the terrorists' movements in Palm Beach County.
And when the "9/11 Commission" report came out in 2004, it also gave scant attention to where so many had, at least partially, planned the greatest criminal act in U.S. history.
A closer look at where the terrorists were in Palm Beach County
Mohammed Atta, 33, and Marwan al-Shehhi, 23, piloted the planes that hit the World Trade Center, the North and South Towers, respectively. They were among the first to enter the U.S. in May and June of 2000. Atta was an urban planner who said he hated hotels and office buildings. Al-Shehhi attended a university on a United Arab Emirates army scholarship. He spent hundreds on sex toys and porn in Broward County.
Delray Beach: Terrorists in the All America City
Several of the hijackers lived in the All-America city, an accolade Delray Beach earned for the second time in July 2001, a month before the attacks. Hijackers’ names are associated chiefly with two apartments — one in the Hamlet Country Club and another near the Delray Racquet Club. Some of their activities during this period have been documented: They used the internet at the local library; Atta was stopped for speeding; they made use of a nearby Mailboxes Etc. We have since learned more about what they did at places like Lowe's and Target.
Al-Shehri brothers: Sons of a wealthy man
Waleed and Wail al-Shehri, 28 and 22, respectively, were both part of Mohammad Atta’s crew on the flight that crashed into the North Tower. In their home province in southwestern Saudi Arabia, their father, a businessman, was the richest man in the area. He built a mosque as a gift. One of their 15 brothers told a Boston Globe reporter that they became devout after Wail sank into a deep depression, quitting his job as a gym teacher at an elementary school.
Boynton Beach: Three hijackers living normally
Three hijackers, all part of the crew that hit the North Tower, lived in Boynton Beach. The trail in this city seems to be comprised of places to do errands: the bank, the grocery store, a trip to the mall.
2 more hijackers: The money man and the stock boy
Frequent visitors to Boynton were Fayez Banihammad, 24, and Hamza al-Ghamdi, 20. The 9/11 commission pointed out that Banihammad was the money man, who worked with one of the financial masterminds overseas behind the attack. Banihammad bought four of the tickets for hijackers on the flight that hit the South Tower. In Saudi Arabia, Al-Gamdi worked as a stock boy in a housewares warehouse. During their time in South Florida, he and al-Shehhi spent hundreds of dollars on porn.
Lake Worth: Terrorists hiding in plain sight
Just north and south of Lake Worth’s funky downtown were some small, privately owned apartments and hotels where some hijackers stayed when they first came to Palm Beach County in early June.
Hijackers: Prayers and fighting for freedom
Satam al-Suqami, 25, (North Tower) and Ahmad al-Nami, 23, (Pennsylvania) roamed all over south county. Al-Suqami was once a prayer leader in Saudi Arabia. He and another hijacker tried to muscle their way into Maria Siskar Simpson’s Delray Beach condo to retrieve a towel that had fallen off their balcony onto her back window. As a teen Suqami wanted to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan but arrived too late. The Soviets had pulled out, so Suqami worked for a refugee organization.
Greenacres: Work-out city for the 'muscle hijackers'
Many of the 12 hijackers here bought gym memberships to keep in shape. Why? Most were the “muscle hijackers,” ones who took control of the planes.
Fighters of foreign wars
Saeed al-Ghamdi, 21, spent time with the al-Shehri brothers. He tried to fight in Chechnya against the Soviets. Nawaf Al-Hazmi and his brother, Salam, are from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Nawaf, 25, was a veteran of at least two wars – Bosnia and with the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance.
Boca Raton: Terrorists taint trendy spot
Right after Sept. 11, as former Boca Mayor Steve Abrams remembered it, FBI agents were swarming the City for All Seasons. They were to find some clues and sightings but not nearly as much as Delray Beach to the north.
Hijacker: Party boy, pilot, failing student
Ziad Jarrah, 26, was a party boy who attended Catholic school in Beirut, Lebanon. He was trained to be a pilot and had a degree in Aviation Mechanics. The Delray Beach Dotterell Road address in The Hamlet is associated with Jarrah. Mohand al-Shehri, 22, (no relation to the al-Shehri brothers) failed his courses at a university in Riyadh and dropped out.
The FBI found a Florida road map at the Dotterell Road address after the attacks. “Shehri” was written on it. Mohand was the only al-Shehri staying there. The FBI believes the map depicted special airspace areas over the Gulf of Mexico.
Lantana: Training for terror in flight
Lantana, once known as the home of the National Enquirer, also hosted the two pilots who trained there to hit the World Trade Center. Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi spent time at businesses headquartered at the airport and nearby on Lantana Road.
Loxahatchee: Terrorists encounter lions, elephants
On July 3, 2001, Wail al-Shehri bought three adult admissions ($15.50 each), parking for $2 and sales tax of $2.91 to drive through Lion Country Safari, the animal sanctuary in Loxahatchee.
Belle Glade: Poison from the skies?
In March, July and as late as Sept. 8, 2001 – Mohammad Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, dressed in collared shirts and Bermuda shorts, pestered the operator at South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade about buying and flying crop dusters. They wanted to know how hard they were to fly and to sit in a cockpit. Employee James Lester remembered Atta literally on his heels. “I just about had to push him away from me,” Lester said.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: At least 14 of the 19 hijackers terrorists were in Palm Beach County
