He is the regional intelligence coordinator of the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center in Cleveland, a three-year-old agency that monitors activities with law enforcement agencies in Cuyahoga, Ashtabula, Lake, Geauga and Lorain counties.
On the 10th anniversary of the attacks, Zeigler, 32, said Americans need to remain vigilant and alert, and mindful that the heightened security at airports and other public facilities is for their continued protection.
“The way terrorist organizations, extremist organizations work, they like historic dates,” he said. “That kind of heightens the stakes.
“There are people that don’t like us. They don’t care about killing civilians.”
Seeking to accomplish more
Ron Zeigler recalled how his son has always strived to go beyond the routine.
By age 10, his son was a state track champion, earned a black belt in karate and was an honor roll student.
“There was never enough time in the day for him to do the things he wanted to do,” his father said.
A standout in track and football, Zeigler graduated from Trotwood-Madison High School, then walked on as a receiver for the Buckeyes before graduating in 2001.
“You could always see responsibility in Major’s face,” said Roy McGill, Zeigler’s junior high football coach and police chief in Germantown. “You could see he was always thinking about what he was doing, what he was going to do next.”
Shortly before the 9/11 attacks, Zeigler enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served as a captain and squad leader in Iraq.
On Feb. 24, 2005, Zeigler and his squad were attacked on a mission in Takrit, Iraq. “It was like the second time I went out the gate,” he said.
An anti-tank grenade crashed into the vehicle windshield, projectiles firing through the back of the vehicle. He was wounded in the face, chest and arm by shrapnel and was awarded a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
After eight weeks of light duty, Zeigler returned to active duty and finished a one-year deployment.
“Luckily that was the worst thing that happened,” he said.
Zeigler returned to Ohio from Texas, where he tried to carve out a career in corporate America in 2007 after his mother, Catherine, became ill and died.
In 2009, he went through 24 weeks of police academy training in Columbus before being diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a condition in which skeletal muscle cells break down. His kidneys and liver shut down, but he recovered.
After he graduated, Zeigler served a short stint as a police officer in a Columbus suburb, before he was hired as a special sheriff’s deputy assigned to the Cleveland fusion center.
Fighting terrorism
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has provided more than $420 million in funding to 72 fusion centers across the country that gather, analyze and disseminate information obtained from public records, the Internet, confidential sources, incident reports and periodicals about potential terrorist threats and other criminal activities.
There are three centers in Ohio, including the Cincinnati/Hamilton County Regional Terrorism Early Warning Group and the Ohio Strategic Analysis and Information Center in Columbus and focus entirely on terrorism warnings.
The Cleveland center is among those that focus on felony crimes in addition to counterterrorism. Zeigler’s office has been credited with cracking a fake-identification ring linked to China. “We connect local, state and federal law enforcement agencies (so that) everybody’s on the same page,” Zeigler said.
The fusion center program has been criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union for straying from counterterrorism into investigations of other felony crimes and spying “on Americans in virtually complete secrecy.”
Mike Brickner, ACLU of Ohio’s director of communications and public policy, said some fusion center investigations have targeted Muslim or Arab residents who do not have terrorist or criminal backgrounds. He said by gathering so much data, investigators are hard-pressed to catch crucial evidence.
Brickner said the centers have resisted public records requests and suffer from a lack of chain of command. Unless they open up to public scrutiny, problems are inevitable, he said.
“Whenever the government is allowed to operate in the shadows, someone oversteps their boundaries,” he said.
But both Brickner and Karen Dabdoub, the executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations’ regional office in Cincinnati, said they are unaware of any problems with the fusion center covering the Miami Valley.
Zeigler said as the nation reflects on 9/11 a decade later, Americans should never forget the damage terrorists committed on U.S. soil.
“Everybody needs to be reminded about that,” he said. “This 10-year anniversary should put that thought back in everybody’s head.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2261 or lbudd @DaytonDailyNews.com.
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