Katrina Brownlee: The Good Cop | Full Episode

foreign [Music] [Music] as an undercover I spent approximately 18 months walking the streets of Queens doing prostitution the only difference was that I was working undercover and this was their actual life but we had a lot of similar stories to hear their stories and not able to talk to them about my story and how I survived it was heartbreaking a lot of the times my name is Katrina cook Brownlee and when I was 22 years old I lived with my ex-fiancee in a house of horror I don't remember not having a black eye whether it been the right one the left one it was a busted lip it was always something that's why Shades became a signature for me I called the police on him several times he was at New York City correction officer then every time he would flash that badge and every time he flashed that badge they would walk away that badge was much more important than my life she got to the point where she feared for her safety and the safety of her kids and that's when she decided no more but when the decision was made to leave the risk factor for Katrina went through the roof my name is Carrie Herzog in January of 1993 I was an assistant district attorney I don't think she in any way could have foreseen what was going to happen to her when she came through that door [Music] he opened the door and he just had like a weird look on his face of a strange and he pointed a gun to me and said this is the day you die [ __ ] and he shot me in my stomach and then he shot me again and he emptied the gun after the first five reloaded and proceeded to shoot her again five more times each time he would say to Katrina are you ready to die Katrina bang is this the day you're going to die Katrina Bang you know you deserve this Katrina Bang this was a man on a mission and he was armed and deadly this could have easily been a homicide but because of Katrina's will to live and will to survive it wasn't God had a whole different plan for me my story starts from a very dark place and it becomes a story of Grace story of love and a story of Hope [Music] why did you want to become a cop I wanted to become a good cop there's a difference yeah a good cop has empathy a good cop cares about people that they have to protect and have to serve I was a great cop [Applause] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] this is the photograph that says suffering to me forget opening the case File this shows a path of blood through the living room and bleeding into the adjacent room it literally took my breath away Carrie rushed to the Intensive Care Unit at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital on Long Island as soon as she learned the victim was still alive there was a horror show unfolding right before my eyes the first thing that came to my head is how did this woman even survive in the afternoon of January 9 1993 a car came screeching up to brookhaven's emergency room entrance the driver hurriedly put a woman in a wheelchair and pushed her in the door then sped off that woman was Katrina cook Brownlee barely conscious and riddled with bullets the 22 year old mother of two somehow managed to tell authorities who did this to her and where he lived that's the house that's the house right there lead detective Raymond blasko raced to the house where a man calmly opened the door and said I was expecting you it was Katrina's ex-fiancee Alex Irvin I proceeded to arrest him at that point the crime scene indicated a violent brutal attack and that the victim during it was moving around from room to room trying to get away during the attack the floor of the bathroom there's a lot of blood on everything in the bathroom that shows extensive bleeding because of the blood loss I did not believe she would survive neither did the Young assistant EA Kerry took a dying declaration from Katrina at the hospital to use his evidence for a grand jury her voice was just above a whisper each breath took a certain amount of labor on her part but she was able to do what we needed to have her do I didn't think I'd ever see her again but Carrie didn't know just who she Trina had been beating the odds most of her life right there that was my bedroom right there Katrina was a killing 18 year old projects in thought would get her the house with a white picket fence she'd always dreamed of a correction officer on New York's notorious Rikers Island it was Alex Irvin so when I get into this relationship with this person it's a way out to where was in survival mode and he had a car wasn't used to riding around in a fancy car he was a correction officer he had a job he had a great a good a career a gun so to me it was like okay my man got a gun he got a good job I'm from the projects and look at me you thought you escaped correct right that's what I'm thinking like I'm winning when actually I was losing Katrina says he showed his violent temper almost immediately I swear began here out in those streets and yeah he would beat you in the street oh yeah Katrina knew she should end it but says her grandmother the only adult in her life she trusted convinced her to stay my grandmother said to me you know this man has a job and he can provide for you and you have a daughter and he's willing to take on your daughter and to take care of you and I think that this is something you should try to consider so when your grandmother tells you that then you think well maybe you know what maybe I should do this this is knowing that he had physically assaulted you [Music] how do you see that now was the worst advice that I could have ever got they soon had a baby together a girl Katrina's second daughter but Katrina says it didn't stop the beatings what would spark his anger um maybe it was just a bad day at Rikers Allen maybe I didn't want to have sex with him maybe the baby was crying maybe I had on something he didn't like to see me in he was that abusive yeah it was that abusive Katrina says she called 9-1-1 several times every time that I called the police on him they either would come and tell us to work it out or he would have a separate conversation either outside or in the room with them and they would walk away she called it the blue wall of Silence the minute they saw his badge she says they left after a while Katrina says she stopped calling I had no respect for cops I had no respect for them at all in 1992 Alex Irvin moved Katrina and the two girls from Brooklyn to a small house in Medford Long Island but she says the abuse continued and only got worse finally after five years of getting beaten black and blue Katrina said enough I was pregnant and I said to myself I'm not bringing another child into this toxic violent relationship with this man and that I am going to save my money get some strength from somewhere somehow and get out of this relationship and that's what I did Katrina and her daughters moved to a local motel but after a month she ran out of money desperate she called Alex Irvin Katrina says he was like a different person and even offered to help her get back on her feet we talk and were friendly with one another something that I had never experienced with him ever you were hopeful yeah and I didn't think he was clever enough to like try to set me up on January 9th Katrina says she walked straight into a trap she left her older daughter with a neighbor and went with her younger daughter to Irvine's house this is what she told us happened next a warning you may find it disturbing he opened the door and he just had like a weird look on his face of a strange I went to place my youngest daughter in her bed because she was asleep and as soon as I came out he shot me in my stomach and then he shot me again fell back on our couch and I looked down and my stomach had flattened and I wasn't like bleeding and I said to him I'm like why am I not bleeding and I remember him saying shut up and down I remember trying to get up and crawl and he shot me in my arm here I remember picking up the phone and trying to call 9-1-1 the phone lines were cut you're in the living room they're crawling on the floor like a dog remember I looked up to him and he took his foot and he kicked me in my face this man tortured me fortunately tortured me foreign [Music] this was an angry angry man Alex Irvin didn't just want Katrina dead says Carrie Herzog he wanted her to suffer you can almost hear the defendant saying it ain't over till I say it's over he was mocking her as he was firing on her is this the bullet that's going to do it Katrina and he was in no hurry says Katrina when she could no longer crawl he put her in the bed and covered her gunshot wounds with Band-Aids at one point he carried her to the bathroom leaving behind a blood-stained blueprint of the attack this didn't happen like within light 20 minutes or 30 this was like a long period of time that he's torturing me and shooting me over the course of an hour and a half the correction officer emptied his service revolver two times at the pregnant mother of two and ultimately he shot me 10 times Alex Irvin had planned for everything says Katrina the locked doors and windows the cut phone line everything but a knock on the door as Katrina lay bleeding on the floor There Was An Unexpected visit by a family friend of Katrina's fiancee and upon entering the home he looked at something which can only be described as something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre according to the friend statement to police Alex Irvin told him he had shot Katrina and then he flipped out Irvin then LED his young friend only 20 at the time to the bathroom Katrina was lying face down on the bathroom floor Panic the young man picked her up and carried her to the car Irvin helped him put Katrina in the back seat the two men headed to the hospital with the friend driving the entire way Katrina was in and out of Consciousness and he was begging her to hold on that they were close to getting help don't go Katrina don't go it was the young man who put Katrina in the wheelchair that day her wounds still covered with Band-Aids if he hadn't come by that house I wouldn't be talking to you I would not be talking to you Katrina was rushed into surgery as soon as she got to the hospital after the attack multiple operations followed in the days ahead the doctors were unable to remove six of the bullets that it entered her body says Carrie the placement removal could have been more dangerous to her than leaving the bullets in place after days of drifting in and out of Consciousness Katrina finally woke up the first thing I wanted to know where was my baby that I was having with my children that was the first thing I said there she was having been brutalized and her first concern was for her children it made me want to cry it makes me want to cry right now Katrina was told her two daughters were safe and staying with a relative sadly Katrina says the baby she was carrying a boy didn't make it most of the injuries were concentrated between her chest and her pelvis and it became evident that future children were were not going to be in the cards for for Katrina that wasn't all says Carrie she was very limited in her Mobility there were concerns that she might not be able to walk again Katrina remembers the day the doctor delivered the Grim news I said what when you say that and I'm not gonna walk again and never have a normal life like what does that mean and he said you know you you're gonna be confined to a wheelchair and you'll have people to have to take care of you and then I said to him I don't have anybody to take care of me I'm homeless I don't I don't have a place to live I said I didn't have a place to live before I came here and you're thinking what am I going to do was it fear desperation at your Wood's end or all of that wrapped up into one yeah I mean I'm now I'm really all alone I really am Rock Bottom I'm at the lowest place that I think a human being can be in at that point sun is murdered can't take care of your children you have nowhere to live you have no family it doesn't get no worse than that [Music] Alex Irvin's mother let Katrina move into her house in Brooklyn unoccupied at the time Katrina had round-the-clock care and daily sessions with the speech and physical therapist but deeply depressed she refused to work at her therapy Katrina fell into a hole that was so deep and so wide that she couldn't see bottom and she couldn't see side to side then one day her physical therapist gave her hope that she would fully recover he said I believe something tells me that you're going to walk again and I don't know what it was that day gave me the will gave me the hope that it would be done and I started from the wheelchair then I went to the Walker and then I went to a cane and then I started to walk so that was a process Katrina devoted her entire being to showing the doctors she could get better so what were the things they said you couldn't do I wasn't going to walk again I wasn't going to have a normal life again so you went check right it was like check check check check she also checked off another box self-esteem I started to believe in myself I started to build up who I was as a person but the fates weren't done with Katrina cook Brownlee he was about to be tested yet again [Music] there were many stops along the way that could have derailed Katrina cook brownlee's Journey out of Darkness Katrina says that getting thrown out of Alex Irvin's mother's house in Brooklyn while still recovering was one of them she asked me to write a letter stating that I shot myself 10 times so that her son did not go to jail when Katrina refused she says the mother booted her to the street I became even more homeless I don't know how much homeless you could be but then I really became homeless I am standing in front of a shelter and where I used to live Katrina who by then had her two girls back ended up in this homeless shelter on the Lower East Side of New York rats were there roaches was there it was really really bad here really bad what is going through your head as you were looking at your two daughters I'm in survival mode everything for me at this point is survival stay alive just stay alive protect my girls protect my girls because I felt like I had already failed they didn't choose him I chose him you know Katrina says the shelter was so filthy she wouldn't use the bathroom I remember putting my youngest daughter in the sink in McDonald's to bathe her and me as a grown woman having to wash up and at a thing while Katrina and her girls were struggling to survive [Music] Carrie Herzog was methodically building a strong case against Alex Irvin I was going to do everything in my power to bring Justice to Katrina I fought for her tooth and nail operating with the prosecution started backing away Kerry discovered that Alex Irvin against court orders had been calling and threatening Katrina from jail I wanted to rain down on him with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns the arrogance for him to be having this conversation with her from inside the jail was outrageous he needs to pay but then the defense presented this letter to the judge purportedly written by Katrina herself I Katrina cook the victim in this case has decided that I don't want to press charges due to duress at the time of my accident this is a woman who had been shot 10 times and here she's portraying it as an accident and then the icing on the cake if I am subpoenaed to court I will testify on the defendant's behalf I was horrified but I wasn't necessarily surprised Katrina had already been placed in the position of nearly seeing her life ended if she showed any cooperation with me or the court it could be worse for her years later Katrina would tell Carrie she did not write that letter but at the time Carrie was convinced she had she got Katrina on the phone she said I'm not coming in I'm not going to talk about it in fact I'm going to disappear and you're never going to find me rage was starting to build up inside of me I let out this Bellow and said Katrina I will hunt you down like a dog if I have to and then she hung up on me Carrie didn't expect Katrina to appear in court but even without her star witness Carrie believes she would win a conviction in April 1994 one year and three months after the attack jury selection began they were on day four when suddenly the courtroom door flew open I turn around and I I see her she's in a brightly colored dress and her presence that day actually made me gasp out loud I never ever expected her to appear but there she was I had decided that I'm gonna walk in this courtroom and whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen I didn't even look at him I wasn't giving him that power because at that point I had got back my power and got back my control so I wasn't even gonna look at him he didn't even matter to me I think that the defendant saw the whites of her eyes that day and knew that the game was over and she was going to do whatever she needed to do to take him down it was back she was back with a vengeance soon after Alex Irvin pled guilty to all charges attempted murder in the second degree assault in the first degree and criminal use of a firearm there would be no trial his sentence was now in the hands of the judge I was very angry that he took the plea she was a little angry I think than I was she lost her mind I was calming her down because I told I said I've been through this already ain't not gonna happen to him he got that Shield is nothing gonna happen to him Carrie made an impassioned plea to the judge to give Katrina's abuser a minimum of 20 years behind bars but the judge did not heed Carrie's pleas he gave Alex Irvin the lightest sentence possible 5 to 15 years after hearing that it was almost a Blind Fury that that took over me I gathered up my belongings and returned to my office and I kicked my garbage can from one end of the office to the other and I actually kept that garbage can for the rest of my career with this huge dent in its side Carrie couldn't deliver the sentence they both wanted but she did deliver something perhaps even more important nobody of a kid enough to fight for me she fought for me when I couldn't fight for myself she gave me hope when I didn't have hope for myself I'm grateful to her [Music] thank you what do you think of the prison sentence that Alex Irvin received go inside the case at 48hours.com [Music] would be killer in prison Katrina cook Brownlee focused on her future a future that included a job at a very unlikely place the New York City Police Department [Music] so the criminal justice system failed you they failed me and then you go and enter the criminal justice system yeah that was logical for you yeah I was like nope I'm doing it you could have knocked me over with a feather no one was more surprised than Katrina's former Advocate and now friend Carrie Herzog Katrina and I actually talked about why she would join the police department and one of the things she mentioned that you know the best way to change a system is from the inside out a system that Katrina says repeatedly turned its back on her when she'd call 9-1-1 after being beaten in the years before she was shot Katrina wanted to become what she says she needed all those years ago a good cop [Music] why not why wouldn't I want to help protect and serve just because I didn't receive it um it doesn't mean that I shouldn't want to help others [Music] in July 2001 eight and a half years after her brutal attack Katrina was one of 1600 new recruits sworn in at the nypd's police academy they would go on to be known as the 911 class when just two months into training Katrina and her fellow police Cadets became First Responders on September 11th that was like one of the times where I was like uh maybe I don't think I can do this [Music] other people that was in the academy also you know we always feeling the same and I think we just basically was going off of each other's strength as Katrina started a new life within the criminal justice system Alex Irvin the correction officer turned convict was released from prison after serving 10 years Carrie recalls Katrina's reaction it was almost a sigh of of resignation when the time finally came up I was at the beginning of my career and I wanted to really just put the energy into that and not into him coming out from the start Katrina sought out a tough assignment going undercover in Brooklyn and Queens even adopting this cigar smoking Persona to catch drug dealers anything that would eat entailed undercover I did it anything anything so it puts you in some dangerous situations oh absolutely I asked myself why would would someone who's been through what Katrina has been through put herself into that situation and then I think what can anyone do to scare her at this stage of her life she was right at death's door and came through right now we are on a strip that I used to work when I was in Vice doing undercover work and this was kind of like home to me many days many nights though the mission was to arrest pimpson those soliciting prostitution Katrina felt a connection to the women she encountered being out there um in the streets I realized that each and every one of these young ladies were or me in some form or fashion it allowed me to realize how it was important for me to do my work to the best of my ability while I was out there [Music] after five hard years working Undercover on the streets Katrina took to the streets again as a Community Affairs officer I just felt that I had so much that I could give back being a police officer despite being the good cop she had always wanted to be Katrina worried that the secret of her past would hurt her career so you're on your dream job you're doing a great job and yet you're living with always the fear of being discovered correct your past my past coming back to haunt you yeah every single day I went to work I always thought that you never shared the secret so it was painful not to be able to [Music] painful because Katrina believes that the traumas she suffered would have made some at the NYPD question if she was fit to serve I don't want her on this job she's a domestic violence she may go off and kill somebody she might not be mentally stable though still in fear of being outed Katrina forged ahead becoming a detective first grade the nypd's highest investigative rank it wasn't many women that were first grade detectives [Music] no one handed anything to Katrina what Katrina has done she has earned it's still amazing to me now to think about progress that she made and not not just progress success she and I have talked about it that success is the best revenge and Katrina wasn't done yet [Applause] never ever ever give up on yourself I don't care who's against you believe in yourself [Music] Katrina cook Brownlee had spent a lifetime defying the odds climbing out of poverty surviving a near fatal attack walking after believing she would never walk again and in the final years of her NYPD career she would Buck the odds once again when you were growing up in Brooklyn did you ever expect you would be working at the mayor's Mansion oh enough not even even remotely close in 2014 Katrina became one of the few black women in NYPD history assigned to protect a New York city mayor when she was chosen to serve on Mayor Bill De Blasio's Advanced security detail you're just one step ahead I'm just one step ahead if I if I'm walking into a ditch he's gonna follow me into that dish right if I'm walking into the sunset he coming in that sunset in 2021 after 20 years on the force Katrina retired from the NYPD in our last meeting with the mayor she finally opened up about something she had been hiding for decades her past [Music] and I said um well Mr Mayor I wrote a book and he said well what is the book about and I said well um Mr may I got shot 10 times and he took a deep breath and he was like but you never said anything and I said he wasn't I wasn't supposed to she was carrying around a secret and now she has been unburdened I think people looking at you would never have an inkling that you had lived the life you've lived I often wonder and ask myself that do I look like this has happened to me you know and I have scars right um so for a long time the scars used to bother me so I put tattoos on my stomach so that when I looked in the mirror when I'm getting dressed I didn't see it if I may be so bold to ask what are your tattoos roses there's a bunch of roses and flowers because that's why I feel like that's what I became Katrina has also found a way to let go of the emotional scars in spite of everything that has happened to me Ryan I forgive [Music] I forgive you forgave your assailant your abuser yeah ah I had to I had to forgive you so I can get back my control so I can get back my power and so that I could have a peace Within Myself there's no peace when you Harbor in Anger when you're mad there's no peace in that you remember when she was young yes I remember her we went back with Katrina to the projects where she had grown up I remember when you was growing up with your grandmother she's moved away but not so far that she has forgotten all the other katrinas who are now where she once was um what's next for you um just to tell my story and um to continue to work on my organization with my girls young ladies of our future Katrina's organization has been mentoring young ladies for the past 10 years you don't want any other girl or woman to ever ever ever have to go through five percent of what I went through [Music] if you build and you teach and give young people these tools you save them every single time oh you know I'm checking report cards she has that helping Gene in her this is what I have to give to these girls is love oh God she is offering help that surpasses what she had how does the Katrina sitting here today differ from that 22 year old Katrina oh wow the 22 year old Katrina was lost broken forgotten violated at the lowest point that a person can be and now today I feel like I am a beautiful black Queen that fought the fight [Music] a young woman vanishes her missing phone could provide critical Clues just one problem a needle in a haystack and a huge moving body of water how can police do what seems impossible I think I got the phone 48 Hours next on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus thank you

Channel: 48 Hours

Views: 1,911,842

Keywords: 48 hours, cbs news, crime documentary, investigation documentary, attempted murder, true crime, police investigation, Katrina Brownlee, NYPD, domestic violence

Id: epGr4RfbYFQ

Length: 41min 20sec (2480 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 18 2023