(New York) During her last day in the NYPD, on June 30, 2021, Katrina Brownlee was entitled to a tête-à-tête with the mayor of New York at the time, Bill de Blasio. In the previous seven years, the police had been one of her bodyguards, the next everywhere, including on vacation.
Sitting in his office, the first citizen of New York questioned his interlocutor on his retirement projects.
By taking a large breath, the one that had reached the highest level among the NYPD detectives and who was then 50 years old replied: “I am writing a book. »»
“What is the subject?” asked the mayor.
– My life. I was reached by ten balls.
-Can you repeat what you just said?
-My ex-fiancé shot me ten times and I have been paralyzed. »»
Four years after this conversation, Katrina Brownlee, wearing, made up and dressed with care, poses with her book in the office of her publicist, whose large windows offer a breathtaking view of Bryant Park, a green island located in the heart of Manhattan.
Photo Richard Hétu, special collaboration
Katrina Brownlee when she released her book
The attempted feminicide of which Katrina Brownlee was obviously has an important place in her memoirs, entitled And then Came the Blues: My Story of Survival on Both Sides of the Badge.
But this is only a number of others who have survived this woman from Bedford-Stuyvesant, disadvantaged district of Brooklyn.
At the time of her last meeting with Bill de Blasio, Katrina Brownlee had finished a first version of her book.
Photo provided by Katrina Bronwlee
Katrina Bronwlee and the former mayor of New York Bill de Blasio
“But I had to rewrite the whole manuscript,” she explains in an interview. “I had written the first version with a certain dignity. I didn’t want to strip myself. I didn’t want to share everything. However, I am naked in the book. I say everything. »»
Toxic relations
The result is a story that throws raw light on a New York life marked by abandonment, violence, drugs and resilience. The abandonment is attributable to these men who make children to women with whom they turn away.
Violence is that suffered by women-grandmothers, girls and granddaughters-in toxic relations with men who seem to them preferable to emotional loneliness or financial insecurity. The drug is the one of men and women take or sell to survive.
And resilience is that of Katrina Brownlee, rejected by a mother addicted to crack, raised by an alcoholic grandmother, forced to carry out a first pregnancy at 14 and more than one partner, including Larry, a correctional agent.
On several occasions, Katrina Brownlee called the police after taking this man’s blows. Each time, the latter got out of it by showing the police of his correctional agent insignia.
By reading each of these scenes, the reader wonders: “But how could this woman succeeded in the police, this institution which betrayed it so often?” »»
“I wanted to be a good policewoman,” replied Katrina Brownlee in an interview.
But several years have passed before it came there. She first had to leave Larry. Now, the day she thought she could recover her business and those of her two daughters from his home, one of which was the fruit of her relationship with him, Larry was waiting for her with her service weapon.
I learned later that Larry had shot me ten times. Police found ten sockets on the crime scene and discovered bullet impacts in my abdomen, my arms, my buttocks and even my vagina.
Katrina Brownlee
“My daughter’s father Melissa, and of the child I had, had wanted to make sure I could never give birth again,” writes the author ofAnd then Came the Blueswhich was saved by the impromptu arrival of a cousin of his fiancé.
Married to a prisoner
At the end of nine days of Coma, she heard the voice of a doctor telling her that she could no longer walk. But a young physiotherapist refused to accept this verdict.
“He didn’t want to hear anything,” recalls Katrina Brownlee. I was her first patient. He had to perceive or feel that this girl could work again. He simply did not give up. He was very motivated. And he ended up convincing me. I give thanks to God for what he did. »»
But Robert, a childhood friend, returned to his life before God entered it. Imprisoned for a murder of which he had been found guilty at 18, he convinced the lonely miracle to marry him by telling him that a new trial would allow him to recover his freedom shortly.
Katrina Brownlee saw in this muscular and 24 -year -old man not only a companion, but also a possible protector after the release of Larry, whose imprisonment sentence was likely to end after only five years.
Robert lost his second trial. And the marital visits of Katrina Brownlee in the private unit of the penitentiary where her husband was serving her sentence are spaced. They ended after Robert discovered that his wife was cheating on him with an important drug dealer from Brooklyn. But not before it wildly drums it.
Ironically, it was the death of Robert’s mother, an ex-toxicomaniac of which she was very close, who pushed Katrina Brownlee to change her life and to leave Quar, this drug trafficker with whom she lived and who paid her an “allowance” of $ 5,000 per week.
“She always wanted the best for me and always said to me,” You can do better, “recalls the New York.
When she died, I ended up looking in the mirror and I said to myself: what are you doing? What you do is bad. You must be better. You have to give an example.
Katrina Brownlee
“This is the reason why people can identify with my story. Many people find themselves in bad situations and do not even realize it because they have normalized them, as I did myself. »»
“I was a superstar”
She was a traffic agent before joining NYPD in 2001. Her beginnings as a policewoman were not easy. It attributes part of its difficulties to the intimidation culture of which the recruits of the NYPD are paying and by the “residue of the street” which still stuck to her skin.
She had an old dream by becoming an infiltration agent in the narcotics division.
Photo provided by Katrina Brownlee
Katrina Brownlee during one of her infiltration missions
“When I was young, I was fascinated by the show New York Undercover. Once it became an infiltration agent, I realized that there was not even 1 % of the show that corresponded to reality, ”says Katrina Brownlee laughing.
In the show, agents never be beaten up. I got beaten up. Everything happened to me, when nothing ever happened to agents of the show.
Katrina Brownlee
In her memoirs, Katrina Brownlee tells a mind-blowing scene where she enters a drug lair to buy crack from an armed dealer of an AK-47. Distrustful, the dealer asks him to smoke a rock on site. The agent refuses. She fears the worst, until the trafficker ends up selling her poison without her having to taste it in her presence, Error that will lead to his arrest later.
“I was excellent, a superstar,” says Kathleen Brownlee, who participated in more than 500 drug seizures. “I enjoyed doing this job. And I thought it was important to do it correctly, with professionalism and integrity. I was confronted with drugs in my family. I didn’t like drugs. I was in this relationship with a trafficker. I made an effort to get out of this relationship when I realized that it was not normal. »»
Kathleen Brownlee worked in other NYPD units before completing in the mayor’s security team, one of the most prestigious assignments. A way, she discovered the darker sides of the NYPD, including corruption, racism and sexism.
In her private life, she also discovered God and the reason why her mother had never been able to love him.
“I forgave her everything,” she said after learning that she was born from a brutal rape.
His faith in God even pushed her to forgive him who almost kills her.
