Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the
social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway
Murders Facebook page with my partner in crime, Bill Thomas.
Welcome to Mind Ever Murder. I'm Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 2: And I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 3: We are joined today by author Katrina Brownlee here to
talk to us about her brand new book and then
came The Blues, my story of survival on both sides
of the badge. Katrina, thank you for joining us today.
We really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm excited and just so you know, everybody, Katrina, being
former law enforcement was just grilling us before the podcast started.
She wanted to know everything good.
Speaker 3: Trina start by telling us about your twenty year career
with the New York Police Department. I should probably say
your twenty year illustrious career with the police department, because
I am very impressed that you're taking the time to
hang out with us today.
Speaker 4: I got to add a couple more years to that.
Speaker 5: It's actually twenty four years because I did almost four
years as a traffic agent okay the years. It's a
police officer slash detective. So it was a great experience
for me. I also had the experience to be able
to be in different units. And I started out as
a rookie cop in the seven seventh Precinct in Brooklyn.
Actually it's a neighborhood in which I grew up and
hung out in. And then from there, early on I
made detective. I had three years on it job and
I became an undercover. And I was an undercover five
and a half years, and I was an undercover actually
in every borough in New York City. That was a
great experience, and I went on to do community affairs.
From there, I got on to Mayor build de Blasios
Security Detail, and I did eight years there and I
retired from his detail, and here we are.
Speaker 2: You wore a lot of hats over a twenty four
year law enforcement career.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounded from the book that maybe community affairs
was where you really wanted to spend your time. Was
that the part that you would say you enjoyed the most.
Speaker 5: That's a good question. I think for me, community affairs
was different from everything else because I had my pros
and my cons. The community piece was I was able
to start my organization, Young Ladies of our Future. Starting
that organization allowed me to be able to get into
the community and be able to just hear the voice
of the community and be able to try to budge
a gap between a community and.
Speaker 4: A police department. So that was my aim there.
Speaker 5: The police department and the community have been broken for
so long, so I wanted to really get in there
and just listen to the people on the other side
and just see what they felt and be able to
contribute in a positive way to the community.
Speaker 2: How does something like that contrast then with working undercover? Oh?
Speaker 5: That was that was actually like acting. So that was
also something that I always wanted to do was to
be an undercover because I used to watch the show
New York Undercover. So when I got there, it was
like it was not no New York bal there just
to be living and being someone other than yourself for
so long, I had to literally like change who I
was and get into character every day. So even when
I was not working, I really had to stay and
stay in the character. So I did that for five
and a half years, and it took me a couple
of years to actually get out of character. I saw
myself still doing a lot of drug addic things and ways.
I should say, speak a lot about that in the book.
Speaker 3: You began working with the NYPD after you were shot
and left for dad by your then fiance, and I'm
not going to give him a name because he doesn't
deserve to have his name mentioned. How did that attempt
on your life lead to your decision to become a
police officer.
Speaker 5: Because of my past experience when I did call the
police to respond, they did not respond in a way
that I thought that they should have, and I got
the opportunity to become a police officer, and my goal
in my dream was to just be a good cop.
Speaker 3: You talked about wanting to be the good cop and
the people who are there for others when someone was
not there for you. When you look at your career
within your police department, what do you feel is ultimately
the most rewarding work that you did the best times
when you were a good cop who was there for
somebody who needed you.
Speaker 5: I believe when I was in community of is because
I was able to connect, I was able to relate,
I was able to serve, I was able to protect
at the same time, and I was able to start
my organization and to target at rich young women in
the community in which I work.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like the disconnect between community and law enforcement.
Obviously that's not unique to New York, but do you
feel like it's been more of a problem. As a
former New Yorker myself, do you feel like that's been
more of a problem in New York than in other
major cities around the country.
Speaker 5: I really don't think that it's. To be honest, the
New York City Police Department is probably, if I'm correct,
the biggest law enforcement police department right in the world.
So I think that's why it may seem that it's
more of a problem there because it's so big where
the other police departments are not as big. So that's
probably what the difference may be in terms of me
answering that question.
Speaker 4: If that makes sense.
Speaker 2: No, I think it does make perfect sense. So you
just feel like with the size of the community, And interestingly,
Los Angeles and Chicago have substantially smaller police departments than
New York, Right, So you think it's just the sheer
number of millions of citizens, thousands of police officers and
all of those day to day interactions that create opportunities
for things to go bad.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, I'll say, very well.
Speaker 3: Say, one of the things I want to make sure
we talk about is your various organizations. You had referenced
Young Ladies of Our Future. So can you start by
telling us a little bit about the organization and then
how you started it.
Speaker 5: The organization is called Young Ladies of Our Future. It
is a mentor program life coaching program program where I
allfer different workshops up to sixteen weeks, and then after
the workshops, the I give a formal commencement to the
young ladies and hand them out roses. And it also
it's geared towards at ris young women in some of
the property stricken communities. I started it in when I
was a community affairs officer in the NYPD, so that's
where I got my start from. So now I've decided
to take the organization in a different direction.
Speaker 4: People reach out to me all.
Speaker 5: Over the world, and I want to be able to
reach out to people and about the different workshops that
I offer in terms of self awareness, self esteem, etiquette, law,
one on one here, and makeup day just to make
the girls feel good about themselves. I'd go out and
do volunteer work twice a year, which is Thanksgiving and Christmas,
where I give back to the community, which is a
homeless shelter where I feed the homeless because I once
was homeless.
Speaker 4: I also give out.
Speaker 5: Pay for vouchers for people to get food during a
Christmas time because I understand and I can relate to
being hungry during those times such as the holidays. So
I want to be able to open up that globally
and I go out and do speaking engagements all over
the country.
Speaker 2: What's the reaction like from young ladies, for example, that
are participating in the mentorship program for Young Ladies of
the Future. When you were on active duty, were they
stand offish because you are a police officer. Is there
a distrust? How does that relationship develop over time.
Speaker 5: In terms of what the young ladies that I worked
with in terms of the community.
Speaker 2: Both actually, but I was thinking about young people who
some of them are at risk and they're participating in
a mentorship program. There's a lot of good that can
be created by something like that. But I was wondering
if they were distanced or distrustful because here you are,
You're coming in as an active duty police officer. Do
they trust the police? Did they hold the police at
the arm's length?
Speaker 5: Well, it's a lot of distrust in the community and
especially with the younger people when it comes to the police.
And so that's where I come in to try to
bridge that gap and teach them about law one on one,
teach them about their rights, and teach them how to
interact when they all stopped by the police or have
an interaction with the police. The distrusts and I understand
people's distrust of the police department, right, because that was
my experience years ago, right, And so now I come
on the other side. So I was able to be
able to experience on both hands. So I think that's
what made me be able to go in and be
very effective in a different way and not go in
with knowing that it's going to change. I went in
with the hope that it would change, and I was
able to get the children. Not the children, but I
was able to reach the young ladies in that way
because of my own personal experience is that I had
with the police department. So I think that's where I
was able to have one up on someone that maybe
didn't have that same experience.
Speaker 3: Is that a program that you've ever thought about. You
said you wanted to take it global, which I think
is a fantastic idea. Have you ever thought about doing
partnerships with schools? As an English teacher, a high school
English teacher during the year, I definitely see that there
is a need in the community for some additional bridging
the gap between the school and community, and that sounds
like a really great way to do that. Is that
something you've ever thought about doing in conjunction with any
of the schools.
Speaker 4: I would love to.
Speaker 5: Actually, it's funny you say that, because that's something that's
been on my mind. I would love for it to
be into the school system because a lot of times
children they come from broken homes, so with my workshops,
they can be able to teach you something that you
may can't get at home. I also would like to
put it into the juvenile the detention centers also because
it is supposed to be reformed. So if you're not
giving them anything to be able to be reformed, how
can they be reformed?
Speaker 3: Absolutely now that I think that's fantastic because we are
missing something in that piece, especially with the juvenile justice system.
And I love this idea that you have that we're
supposed to be We're not supposed to be giving up
on these kids if they're in the juvenile justice system,
we're supposed to be helping them reform the behavior. So
I love that if you were going to take such
a step, do you have any idea how you would
do it? One.
Speaker 5: I would like to go through policy and government because
if you go through that way, then you know that
it's in We speak all day about it, and everybody
won't say yes. Just because you have a story and
people may be interested in the story, it doesn't mean
that they'll be interested in your yes and saying listen,
I want this in the school. So I would like
to go through government so it can be mandated.
Speaker 3: I think that's a fantastic idea. You also have a
second organization called Can't Be Silenced. Can you talk to
us a little bit about the work that you do
with Can't Be Silenced.
Speaker 5: Can't be Silenced is my domestic violence organization. Can't Be
Silence came about because I was silenced for so many
years about what had happened to me, and so now
I get to be able to have a voice, and
I begin I have the ability now to be the
voice for the voiceless and the hope for the hopeless.
Speaker 2: I don't want to dwell on all of the challenges
that you've faced, but I think it's important to talk about.
Tell us a little bit about your experience in terms
of encountering abuse and the lack of response from law enforcement.
I know that ultimately helped inspire you to become a
police officer. What would happen that law enforcement would come
to a report of a problem domestic violence and then
do nothing? Why was that happening?
Speaker 5: I think the blue Wall of silence, the family of
blue law enforcement, I think that's what it was about.
I think it was to protect the blue and not
protect the victim. I don't want I don't want my
brother or my sister to really get in trouble. Or
maybe it's not as bad as I think it is.
Speaker 2: And that was as a result of we haven't said
this yet. Your then fiance was a corrections officer. Correct
So how's that work? Does the officer responding to a domestic?
What happens?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 2: Does the cop flash their badge and that's the end
of it. How's it work?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Pretty much exactly just like that black eye. You can
see the visual on me. So it's so right there.
That's so you see the abuse, right, It's not like
I'm saying it. You physically can see it. This person
comes in and say listen, I work for the Department
of Corrections, and then the cop is okay, you guys
do work it out and they leave.
Speaker 2: That's it. There's no the cops.
Speaker 5: I called the cops twice, and the first time it
was working out, and the second time he had a
conversation with them, and they never even said anything to me.
Speaker 3: That is reprehensible. I am so sorry that you underwent that.
I cannot even imagine. I love this idea that you
are trying to give a voice to the people who
have not had a chance to tell their own stories,
because surely you're not the only person that this has
happened to who is with a partner who's in law
enforcement and the abuse just gets overlooked. Did you have
a specific audience in mind when you were writing the
book or is it just something that you feel everybody
can benefit from hearing about your abuse and your overcoming
of it.
Speaker 4: I didn't have an audience.
Speaker 5: I wanted to be able to share a story because
I said to myself, if this is happening to me,
it's happening to other people. And if it's not happening
to you, it might be happening to someone that.
Speaker 4: You might know.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Mind over Murder. We'll be right back
after this word from our sponsors, We're back here at
mindover Murder.
Speaker 3: The book is done in two parts. The first obviously
is about the abuse and then near murder. The second
part is about your career with the NYPD. Was there
one part that was more challenging to write than the other?
Speaker 5: Definitely. The beginning my childhood was very difficult. The abuse
with my ex fiance was difficult. And it was some
parts even within writing about the NYPD, because I have
my prolls and my cons with the NYPD, so it
would be and I wasn't able to get everything out,
so I got I was able to put in what
I thought would be important for people to want to
read and hear about.
Speaker 3: We obviously don't want to spoil the book. We want
people to buy it, so we're not going to spoil
too terribly much here. There is definitely a miraculous la
element to your recovery that just found absolutely amazing. At
one point, after you were shot by your ex fiance,
you were initially told you were going to be paralyzed
from the waist down and you recovered to what do
you attribute that? That is amazing?
Speaker 4: God, Almighty.
Speaker 5: That's the only thing that could have allowed me to
be having this conversation with you. It has to be God.
It has to be I take no credit for anything.
Speaker 3: It's definitely a through line in your book, this idea
of God never giving you more than you can handle,
and that is one of the things that I really
liked the most. Is a nice underlying message. English teacher
always looking for themes, but I love that through line
in the book that you're a strong, capable woman, but
God is there too. I found that very hopeful and
very helpful, so I'm glad that you included that in there.
Thank you for that.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: One of the things that you mentioned in the intro
to thek is that law enforcement officers actually and sadly
are often involved in domestic abuse cases like yours. What
do you make of that?
Speaker 5: I think domestic vialance, it's just not It's a crisis
and it affects everyone. It's not a race thing, it's
not a gender thing, it's not a religion thing. It's
a crisis that affects everybody.
Speaker 2: And do you think this high stress of law enforcement
jobs and the fact that we ask a tremendous amount
of our law enforcement officers, do you think that creates
additional strain?
Speaker 5: Definitely. I think that when it comes to law enforcement,
people think that law enforcement that they're human beings, just
like people that do not wear a uniform. They have
real life issues like everyone else. They have stress like
everyone else. You can get a boss that just doesn't
like you, or a boss that just you just can't
work together.
Speaker 4: You may have a partner that you can now work with.
Speaker 5: It's a lot that comes with it behind the scenes,
and people don't realize the amount of stress that police
officers are under. You have to be a police officer,
and then you have to also be a family person,
even a mom, being a dad, and a husband being
a wife, whatever that looks like for you. So it's
like you're doing two You're doing two lives, and people
expect for you to still be able to hold up.
And then you can't really go and get certain type
of help because you're afraid that you're gonna have a
sort of stigma on you, so you don't want to
say anything that.
Speaker 4: Will get you in trouble with the job. So now
you got this amount of stress.
Speaker 5: On you, and so now I take it out on
who's the closest person to me.
Speaker 2: Ah, Yes, I get it.
Speaker 3: Because you've been on both sides of this, because you
have been a victim of abuse and violence, and because
you have responded to abuse and violence as a police officer.
Help our listeners understand what are the most helpful things
that someone in law enforcement who is working a domestic
violence call can do to support victims.
Speaker 5: Empathy, that's the number one thing that's it haveen empathy
and being able to just allow the person to have
a voice and to be seen at that moment, at
one of the darkest moments of their life. That's what
I think.
Speaker 3: I agree one hundred percent. What are the things that
you feel are most commonly misunderstood about domestic violence and
intimate partner violence? Again, because you've been on both sides
of the badge, you've experienced it, and you've responded to it.
What are the things that people who have never been
in this situation don't tend to understand about being in
the situation.
Speaker 5: It ain't that easy to get out. It's easy to
get in, but it ain't that easy to get out.
You can maybe not get out because of children, because
of finance's low self esteem, brokenness, fear, It's so many
different elements to it. I advise anyone that's in it
have an exit plan. Don't just get out because it's
very dangerous that way, and never tell the ABUSA that
you're going to leave. Always have an exit plan and
find somebody that you can be able to trust and
tell to help you to get out of the situation.
Speaker 2: What are the kind of resources then that are needed
to help survivors of abuse create that escape plan. Is
that family, community, places of worship. What do you think
the best plan is for someone who's struggling with domestic abuse.
Speaker 5: I think the best plan would be one first, just
believing in yourself that you have the will to get out.
Speaker 4: That's the first thing.
Speaker 5: You have to have a made up Your mind has
to be transformed to the will. And then community, then policing,
showing up, having empathy shown up, and allowing the person,
like I said prior, to have a voice so they
can feel comfortable telling we need more safe houses and
we also most importantly, it's about getting healed from the
inside to the outside. And what I mean and what
that looks like is people are broken that are in
these relationships. So if they get healed mentally, emotionally, physically,
being made whole, nothing missing, nothing damaged. That's how one
can be made whole. So you won't even get into
these relationships because if you see it from the beginning
and you see the red flags, you'll go and exit
early on, opposed to staying.
Speaker 4: You only stay in these.
Speaker 5: Relationships because of the brokenness in you, because of the
self esteem that you're lacking within yourself, and that a
lot of times it comes from coming from an abusive
home or coming from seeing someone being abused, and you
think and think that it's okay, And a lot of
times you in abusive relationship and you don't even realize
you in a domestic violence relationship, because domestic violence is
not just physical, it's emotional and it's mental.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. My next question was going to be one are
the ways that someone who's left an abusive relationship can
go about recovering and establishing healthy relationships? But you answered
part of that just now by saying that it helps
to become whole again. It sounds like therapy and healing
and rebuilding yourself is the first step in not repeating
that cycle. Is that about writer? Is there more that
you think needs to be done for somebody who has
left and now wants to have a healthier, better relationship.
Speaker 5: And you have to believe that it's something greater than
you and a meaning in faith, it's something bigger than you.
But everything starts for yourself. Everything starts for yourself.
Speaker 2: Switching gears for a minute. As a former New Yorker
and someone who has a soft spot for Bill Deblasio,
what was it like being on his security this hel
I believe you said for six years? It is? What
was that like? Was it? It has to be challenging
because it's a big city and mayors move around and
they have to address a lot of concerns. Did you
enjoy that part? That's a third of your law enforcement career.
Speaker 5: I was grateful for the opportunity because there were not
people that looked like me in the prior details for
other mayors. So I was grateful for the opportunity. As
if people would read in the book, it's in the book.
I share a lot of different moments in things that
had transpired. His wife actually kicked me off of detail,
and so I talk about that in the book. But
for the most part, I did my job. I was
professional and I did what was needed to be done with.
Speaker 2: The mayor's wife want you off the security detail? Here
you are, if I'm not mistaken, she's a woman of color.
You're a woman of color. I'm not saying that means
that you automatically would be best these Why would she
want you off the security detail? And as you said,
for a long time, the security detail kind of looked
the same A bunch of white guys. And now we've
got something that I think at least more accurately reflect
the people of New York City, that is having a
woman of color on a security detail. What was the problem?
Speaker 5: I don't know what the problem was. I really don't
know what the problem was. I speak about my thoughts
about it in the book, but I don't have an ansense.
Speaker 2: So you get moved on, but you don't get any
kind of explanation. It just you've been reassigned.
Speaker 4: Pretty much. It didn't make sense. It just did not
make sense.
Speaker 5: And I believe that if you if someone does something wrong,
I always believe that tell them what they did wrong.
Speaker 4: So they can correct it.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, yeah, would they know what.
Speaker 5: To correct if you don't tell. But I got reassigned
and that kind of worked out a little bit better.
So what people may look at as bad it turns
into good.
Speaker 3: Trina. There are a couple of other three lines in
the book. Like I said, teacher always looking for themes,
and so there are a couple of other three lines
that I saw in the book that I wanted to
get you to speak to here while we have you.
There are definitely things that I noticed about substance abuse,
generational trauma, and then breaking the cycle of both of
those things. Can you speak to the role that substance
abuse and generational trauma play in continuing a cycle of
domestic violence.
Speaker 5: The transgenerational trauma. It's what you have seen, what you
have experienced, and so it trickles down. So if you've
seen a substance abuse, you think that it's okay. If
you're seeing domestic balance, you think that's okay. If you
are seeing child abuse, sexual you think all of this
stuff is okay, and you normalize it because nobody tells
you that it's wrong until you have this aha moment
and then you say, you know what, I need to
correct this, This needs to change, and where does it stop?
Speaker 4: So I made the decision to stop.
Speaker 3: So was part of your work in the community affairs
trying to educate about why it's important to break the
cycle in all senses of the word.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, absolutely, definitely, Even when I responded, my experience is
being a police officer, I would have conversations with people
because a lot of times people don't even realize the
condition that they're in. They've never been exposed. And if
you don't have exposure how would you know. There's not
a book to teach you how to be a parent.
There's not a book to teach you how to be
a husband or a wife. Right, there's not a book
to teach you how to be a daughter or a son.
There's no books for that, right, there's no school for that.
A lot of things we learned is learned behavior.
Speaker 2: I remember being shocked years ago when my then wife
and I had a son together. He came with no
owner's manual. No, it really is pretty shocking, actually, because
it's probably the most important role you're ever going to perform,
and there really isn't much to prepare you for it
other than you're having a baby.
Speaker 5: That's it, and you have to just do the best
that you can. But what tools that you have at
that particular moment.
Speaker 3: Pittrina, What are some ways that our listeners can support
both of your organizations young Ladies of our future and
can't be silenced because these are obviously very worthy causes
and we would love to help and we would love
for our listeners to be able to help. So what
can we do to support your organizations?
Speaker 5: Tell people about them, book me for speaking engagement, Donate
to the organization because it's funding that allows me to
get things done.
Speaker 4: Pretty much. That's it.
Speaker 3: And where can our listeners find your book? It does
come out tomorrow, yes, so where can our listeners find
your book.
Speaker 4: On Amazon in all stores that sell books.
Speaker 3: The book is and then Came the Blues, My Story
of Survival on both Sides of the Badge by Katrina Brownlee. Katrina,
thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate
you taking the time.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: We'll include links in our show notes to your websites
and a link to where you can buy the book.
And then Came the Blues. We really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you so much, and thank you for
having me.
Speaker 3: That is going to do it for this episode of
mind Ever Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll
see you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McCloud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral space Media.
Speaker 2: You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
murders on Facebook.
Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
Bill Thomas. Five six.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Mind Over Murder