If ever a man was to the bomb squad born, it was Detective Claude Richards of the New York Police Department. Fearless, meticulous and disciplined nearly to a fault, Detective Richards, 46, the bomb squad's intelligence coordinator, spent his off-duty hours working, working out and planning his next workday. When he took some time off, it was to defuse land mines in Bosnia with a United Nations peacekeeping force.
All the way from boyhood, Dan, as Detective Richards was known, "always wanted to charge up to the front," said his brother, Jim, "just to prove himself." He was in the Rangers in the Army, and on the bomb squad his command presence allowed him to give orders to colleagues who far outranked him as he oversaw security logistics for events ranging from presidential visits to the United States Tennis Open.
Detective Richards, who lived in Chelsea, was a complicated man. True, he could yell at a co-worker who borrowed his stapler and put it back in the wrong place, but he also didn't think twice before taking his shoes off on the street and giving them to a vagabond, Jim Richards said.
Detective Richards's work ethic left him little time or space for relationships, his brother said, but added, "He was so devoted to his work I don't think he had a problem with it."
Profile shared from original published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 15, 2001