Two weeks into his job, O'Looney was called on to help negotiate the peaceful end to a hostage stand-off at the 19th Police Precinct on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
On September 11, 2001, O’Looney was part of the WCBS TV anchor team that broadcast news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
[7] In December 2001, O'Looney was the first Western reporter to get an exclusive interview with Yasser Arafat following the PLO Chairman's speech renouncing suicide bombings.
[citation needed] After leaving the NYPD in December 2003, O’Looney joined Merrill Lynch where he was a managing director and head of U.S. corporate communications.
O’Looney appeared as a reporter in both the HBO series The Sopranos, and 1996 movie City Hall starring Al Pacino.