Port Authority police doctored an official report to hide the embarrassing truth about how one of their own lieutenants green-lighted a PATH train feared to have a bomb aboard, the New York Post reported Monday.
The altered Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) report is rife with false and misleading information, sources claimed, and provides a sanitized account of what actually took place on the evening of June 1 in Jersey City, N.J., when a suspicious package was found on a Red Line train that was allowed to continue under the Hudson River to the World Trade Center (WTC) station without being checked out first.
The original report, which contained a damning chronology of events, was never made part of the record, the sources charged.
Instead, the second police report — created after the New York Post published a story June 6 that highlighted the lieutenant’s role in the incident — was officially entered, a veteran PAPD source said.
“You only do one [police] report for a job — it’s that simple,” the source said. “You can’t change an original report. There are supposed to be strict protocols to be followed, and that clearly wasn’t done in this case.”
Sources said the new police report was designed to cover up how PAPD lieutenant James O’Neil ignored angry warnings from fellow cops that the suspicious package should be checked out before the train was allowed to make the six-minute journey to the WTC station.
Passengers were evacuated before the trip, but there were still six crew members on the train.
The package was eventually investigated — but not until after the train arrived at the WTC. It turned out to be a remote-controlled toy helicopter in a box.
A Port Authority spokesman declined comment.
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