No. Was I expected to prepare one?
Not at all. A few witnesses have asked to read their statements into the record. I thought you might…
I’d like to try to help clear this thing up. I came here to answer questions. It’s your investigation, Mr. Skinner-you ask them, I’ll try to answer them.
The commission appreciates your cooperation, Mr. Swarthout. All right, let’s begin with the chronology. When did the incident first come to your attention?
You mean the time of day
The time and the circumstances.
I was ready to go to lunch-it must have been about twelve twenty. I had a call from the Police Commissioner’s office-Deputy Commissioner Toombes. He said he’d been on the horn with the president of Merchants Trust-he said they had this nut on their hands.
By “this nut” you mean Harold Craycroft?
No. Craycroft was the one in the airplane. The one in the bank was Charles Ryterband, but we didn’t know that at first. He’d given his name as something else-William Roberts, something like that.
According to Deputy Commissioner Toombes’ log, the call to your office was placed at eleven minutes past twelve. Does that jibe with your recollection? Just now you said it was about twelve twenty.
It probably took a few minutes to get through to my desk. I had a lot of calls that morning.
What I’m trying to get at, Mr. Swarthout, didn’t your switchboard break in and tell you there was an emergency?
No.
No? That’s all-just no?
Nobody said anything about an emergency. When Andy Toombes came on the line, he said just what I’ve told you. He said, “We’ve got a nut on our hands, Phil.”
In other words nobody seemed to be taking it very seriously at that point, is that right?
Mr. Skinner, you’re not a police officer. I understand the Mayor’s intentions-setting up this independent review commission-but I think you’re going to have to accept the fact that those of us who are involved full time in security procedures have to contend with cranks and nut cases all the time. Most of them are just trying to attract attention, in their warped way. They threaten to assassinate the mayor or pollute the Central Park reservoir or off the pigs. They’re crazy people-they wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to go about actually doing what they threaten to do. I don’t know what motivates them-you’d have to ask a psychiatrist-but in my experience nearly all these crazies are attention cravers. Who knows? Maybe they’re just lonely-they want to be arrested so they’ll have somebody to talk to.
Then you’re saying neither you nor Deputy Commissioner Toombes took the threat seriously.
We take every threat seriously, Mr. Skinner. That’s our job.
Isn’t that a contradiction to what you just told me?
Not at all. Toombes took Ryterband seriously. Seriously enough to call me.
But not seriously enough to instruct his secretary to make it an emergency call?
It wasn’t an emergency yet. Look, every time there’s a parade down Fifth Avenue we get crank calls threatening to snipe at the parade from the rooftops. We have to sift every call, post men on every rooftop sometimes. But it’s not an emergency unless you actually find a guy up there with a rifle. Do you see what I’m trying to get at?
In other words you’d heard Ryterband’s threat but you didn’t know whether there was any truth in it.
We didn’t have any confirmation. Not that early. It was just another crank at that stage. Every business day somebody walks up to a bank teller in New York City and hands over a note saying, “I’ve got a gun in my pocket. Clean out your cash drawer.” Ninety-nine percent of the time there’s no gun in his pocket.
But it’s standard procedure for the tellers to hand over the money anyway, isn’t it?
Sure. He might turn but to be the one percent who’s got a real gun. We’ve got camera surveillance in the banks. Silent alarms. It’s SOP to let the guy walk out with the money. Nine times out of ten he’s nabbed before he gets across the sidewalk, or identified from the photograph and arrested within twelve hours. We’d have done the same thing with Ryterband except his demands were so outrageous.
Could you explain that a bit more?
If a guy walks up to the teller’s window and hands over a note that says, “I’ve got a gun in my pocket. Give me five million dollars in cash,” I mean, let’s face it, you’re going to have to see the gun before you think about handing over that much money, even if you were able to. And you couldn’t anyway, obviously, because nobody’s got five million dollars in cash lying around, have they? You’ve got to be certifiably crazy to make demands that can’t possibly be met.
All right, let’s move ahead. The Deputy Commissioner called you. What action did you take?
Well, the first thing I did was to ask him what action he’d taken. There’s no point in duplicating effort. Toombes told me he’d already notified the FBI, and he’d dispatched a team from Special Investigations down to the Merchants Trust to talk to Ryterband. The bank’s own security guards were holding Ryterband in custody in Maitland’s office. He wasn’t going anywhere. I told Toombes I’d get back to him, and he said he’d get back to me as soon as he had further word from the SI sergeant on the Ryterband interrogation. Then I got on the horn to the Port Authority security office and told them to check out the airplane.
By “check out the airplane” you mean give it a close looking over?
No, Mr. Skinner, by “checking it out” I mean finding out whether the airplane existed at all.
Couldn’t you see it? Hear it?
We work in sealed offices you know. Like this one. Air-conditioning, climate-control ventilation systems. The windows don’t open. They’re double-pane thermal glass. Look out that window, Mr. Skinner. What do you see? A steel-and-glass egg crate just like this one. You’d have to crane your neck and push your nose against the window to get a glimpse of a patch of sky. No, I didn’t hear anything and I didn’t see anything. I asked the Port Authority people to send one of their helicopters up and have a look.
Tell me this. How much time passed between Ryterband’s first appearance on the scene and the Deputy Commissioner’s call to you?
That would be hearsay, wouldn’t it?
We’re not in court.
I know. But I also know what you’re getting at.
I’m not trying to trick you, Mr. Swarthoui.
You’re doing your job, Mr. Skinner. Your job is to find out whether we made mistakes in handling the situation. To find out how efficiently or inefficiently we handled it. That makes it a sensitive question, from my point of view. You see that? That’s why I’d just as soon not make guesses at how long it took. I wasn’t in Maitland’s office. I don’t know how long Ryterband had been there before they called me. All I know is what they told me, and I’d just as soon you got that information from the people who were actually there. Maitland talked to Ryterband, then he called in his own security people, then they called the police, and it went up the ladder of command in the PD, and at some point the police called me. That was the order of events. It’s standard. Now as to how long it all took, I’d rather not speculate. I’d prefer to testify to my own participation and the things I observed firsthand. Is that unreasonable?
Would you like a cup of coffee?
Yes, thanks.
Maitland
Could you give us your name and title please, for the record?
Paul Bankhead Maitland. I’m fifty-four. I maintain residences in Brewster in Putnam County, and at Sixty-two Sutton Place. I’m the president and chief executive officer of the Merchants Trust Bank. Our head offices are at Sixty Beaver Street.
In the Wall Street area.
Yes, certainly.
