After 9/11, a Fatal 24/7

FBI Counter-terrorism Agent Remembered… The Los Angeles Times has a sobering profile of Brad Doucette, a former FBI counterterrorism agent who committed suicide two years ago. Early one morning, after receiving two phone calls in the middle of the night, Doucette shot himself with his FBI-issue 9-millimeter pistol just behind his right ear. Doucette was a 20-year veteran at the FBI and at the time of his death was head of an elite unit at bureau headquarters that targeted suspected espionage by Iran, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and other Shiite Muslim extremists, the Times reports. Larry Mefford, who retired as the the bureau’s head of counter-terrorism two years after 9/11, and is now head of global security for Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas, says that the pressure on the FBI to catch terrorists was exhausting work. “People come to counter-terrorism wanting to make a difference,” Mefford says, “and three years later, you come out gasping for breath.”