Charles Wells

Charles Wells died on October 29, 2026, in the emergency department at Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island. The Staten Island Advance reported his age as 81. No cause of death was made public. Visitation was arranged for November 1 and 2, 2026, at Matthew Funeral Home on Victory Boulevard, with a funeral Mass on November 3 at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church. The family asked for donations to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation in place of flowers.

Public sources give few details of Charles Wells's childhood. His funeral home lists his birth year as 1947, while the Staten Island Advance gave his age at death as 81.

He served in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, where he worked as an ordnance specialist, experience that later shaped his police career. He was wounded in service and received the Purple Heart in 1967, and he was honorably discharged.

Wells joined the New York City Police Department after leaving the Marines and served for 37 years. Thirteen of those years were spent in the Bomb Squad, where he was credited with personally disarming more than 100 bombs during the 1970s and 1980s, earning the nickname Boomer.

On December 31, 1982, the FALN, a group seeking Puerto Rican independence, planted a series of bombs in lower Manhattan. Several went off, and three police officers were badly injured. Wells, then a sergeant, and his partner Detective Frank DeCicco dealt with the last device, a bomb hidden in a fast food box outside the United States Attorney's Office, crawling up to it, opening it and cutting the wires to the dynamite. The recovered device helped investigators identify those responsible. Both men received the NYPD Medal of Honor. Wells tracked the FALN for years afterwards, debriefed a convicted bomber and testified as an expert witness at trials.

He later rose to inspector, commanding the Special Investigations Division, Detective Borough Staten Island and Detective Borough Brooklyn, where he oversaw more than 500 detectives. After the September 11, 2001 attacks he was commanding officer of the FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force. He retired in late 2005 as executive officer of Brooklyn detectives.

Wells lived in West Brighton, Staten Island, for more than 53 years. He was married to Lois Wells, and they had three daughters, Kathy, Suzie and Jenny. His family described him as a devoted husband, father and grandfather. His daughter Jennifer Wells Urs said he had taught her what it means to love and to be strong.

Wells is remembered as one of the NYPD Bomb Squad's most experienced technicians of the era before bomb disposal robots, and for the New Year's Eve 1982 defusal that earned him the Medal of Honor. Colleagues recalled him as a leader whose combat service and street level work gave him unusual credibility, and his later commands placed him at the centre of the city's counterterrorism work after 2001.