commemorative interview with colby wright

00:01 Good evening. This is Norleah Harrington. Today's date is September 29. It's 850. And I'm currently recording with Colby Wright, my aunt. And here we go. This is the interview. Okay, so tell me a little bit about your early life, like, when you were born, you know, growing up in Brooklyn. Like, what do you remember your earliest memories?

00:25 My earliest memories, I grew up in a small apartment with my parents. It was just me, my mother, my father, and my twin sister. And then six years later, my parents had my middle sister, and then a year later, they had my youngest sister. So then there was four of us, and then the place was too small for us to live. And then my father bought the house on Hancock street, not too far from where we grew up. And, yeah, it was a normal life. We went to school. We all went to private school. When my youngest, my younger sisters, my two younger sisters were old enough, they came to school with us. So we all rode the bus together, and we went to school together. So I was, like, mainly responsible, me and my twin sister, for them, made sure they got home safe, and then we would come home, do our homework. Our parents worked a lot, so they were not really home when we came home. So we were, like, what you would call latchkey kids, and we would let ourselves in the house, wouldn't let anybody in the house. Those were, like, the rules. If we didn't know them, or even if we, you know, and we did our homework, we would wash dishes, we had chores. Usually after dinner, it was like somebody cleaned up the table, somebody swept the floor, somebody washed the dishes, and then we would go to bed, go to school the next morning. Then on the weekends, we would just do our own thing. My twin sister was in girl scouts. I wasn't really interested in that, so I like to stay home and watch tv. I was more into music and fashion and stuff like that. And then when I got in high school, we were not going to school with our younger sisters anymore. They went to a different school. Me and my sister went to a different school. So we were a little, like. Like, a little bit divided because they were at a different stage in their development. Me and my twin sister, we were more, you know, like, we were going through similar things, so we hung out more. And then, yeah, we went to college. My sister went away to college. I went to community college. So I would only see her, like, on the holidays or when she would come home. And then that kind of made us closer because we weren't together so much. So, you know, I missed her a little bit more. We missed each other, so we were more like friends. Yeah, when she went to college, and then I didn't really know what I wanted to do in college, so I went to the fire department and became an EMT, like when I was 21, actually, when I was 20, and then I did that. Am I going on too much?

03:11 This is perfect. Okay, I'll ask you questions after.

03:14 Okay. I did that. And then I did that for six years. And let me see, how many years in? I think I was five. No, four years in. I had my son, so I needed, you know, to make more money, so I left the fire department. I went to the police department in 2003. So I worked in EMS from 1997 to 2003. And then I was a cop for nine years. I got promoted to sergeant. I was a sergeant for eleven years. And I just retired in 2023 of last year. Well, yeah, 2023 of October. And, yeah, now I'm in college, back in college, pursuing nursing, my nursing degree. I'm studying as we speak. And, yeah, I figured, you know, at 48, I'm still young, so I could work, and, you know, when I get, like, in my sixties, I retire.

04:16 Wonderful. Thank you for that overview. I'm just gonna ask you, you know, since you had to, like, take care of your younger sisters, like, drop them off to school, make sure they did their homework when they came home, how do you feel like being an older sister has shaped the person you are today?

04:33 Oh, gosh. Well, it was more than that. It wasn't just me being responsible for my older sisters. It was the way I was treated in general by people in general, because, like, me and my twin sister are fraternal twins, so we don't look alike. We went through different stages of development. We were very different people genetically. So I was more developed. I was told Taller. You know, I developed faster than she did. I was, you know, I looked more like. I just looked older than she did. So people would always assume that I was older, so they treated me like I was an older person. So I was adultified a lot, okay, by people. I was adultified by men. You know, like, people talk about r. Kelly.

05:24 Yeah.

05:26 When I was growing up, there were a lot of r. Kelly's. There were a lot of guys who, you know, thought, like, would mistake me for an 18 year old when I was 13. By the time I was 13, it was like, oh, you ain't 13. You know, I thought I was older, right? And then even my parents, because I was more assertive than my youngest. I mean, my twin sister, which we still are. Like, that we have, like, polar personality or polar opposite personalities. You know, I'm more confrontational. I'm more, you know, assertive, I think. And so, you know, I was relied upon by my parents more than my twin sister was, even though we were the same age.

06:05 Yeah.

06:05 They looked to me to be the one in charge ultimately, you know, over everybody else.

06:11 That makes sense.

06:12 Mm hmm.

06:13 Okay, so then you were in high school. From high school, you went to the fire department, became an EMs.

06:20 No, no, I'm from high school. I went to college.

06:22 Oh, college, right. You went to college.

06:23 Yeah, I went to BMCC, and I was there for two years. While I was in. While I was studying to do ems, I was also in a program at John J. To become an EMT.

06:36 Okay.

06:37 Okay. So you had to be in college, you had to be full time, and then you went to. So I had my classes Monday through Thursday. Then on Friday, I went to John Jay.

06:47 Okay.

06:47 And then I was doing an EMT course. I think that was for, like, ten months. Ten months, or, like. Yeah, yeah. I think it was two college semesters.

06:56 Okay.

06:57 And I did that, and I trained, and then once I was done with the training, then I just kind of left college. You know, I was done with it, and then I started working.

07:06 Okay.

07:06 And back then, like, in 1997, I was making, like, 42,000.

07:12 Okay.

07:12 Which was good money. Good money. Yeah.

07:17 So what was it like? What kind of things did you see when you were working?

07:22 I saw everything.

07:23 Everything.

07:24 I saw people shot. I delivered eight babies.

07:27 Wow.

07:28 During my time there, in the six years that I was there, I saw dead bodies. Like, everything that you could think of, car accidents, people would have seizures right in front of me, and my man literally dropped dead in front of me. Like, just everything. I mean, like, it was in East New York.

07:49 Yeah. Okay.

07:50 Yeah. So we saw a lot of stuff, you know, and the way that people, like, it has to be said, though, the way that a lot of people approach their own healthcare and mental health.

08:02 Right.

08:04 It's not good. Like, people take a lot of that stuff for granted. I've, like, come across a lot of people who are supposed to be on medication. Not taking, like, very non compliance with medication was probably, in my opinion, the biggest reason why a lot of people got sick or not seeing a doctor, not checking up on their health, not, you know, just ignoring things, using home remedies for, like, serious stuff.

08:28 Right.

08:28 And I'm like, you know, tea is not gonna help HIV. Like, you have to. You know, it's not a cure for cancer. And so you had a lot of that. A lot of that.

08:38 Do you feel like any of that influences your decision now to.

08:42 Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Like, just having family members, like some family members that I know are like a lot of people that I ran into in Ems and friends and, you know, everybody, like people, you know, like, I think health is the most important thing.

09:01 Right.

09:01 So, you know, people tend to listen to you more when they know that you're a nurse or they know that you're a doctor.

09:07 Right.

09:08 You know, just like people used to always ask me questions about law when they knew I was a cop. Even if I didn't know what I was talking about, they would take what I said as gospel because, you know, they didn't know any better. And not that you want to tell people things that are wrong.

09:21 Right.

09:21 But, you know, people tend to listen to you more when you have the credentials. So. Yeah.

09:27 Okay. Before we end, I want to ask you a little bit about your time as a sergeant because you did that for eleven years.

09:36 Yeah.

09:36 Right. So how do you feel like your responsibilities changed when you went from an.

09:41 Officer to a lot?

09:42 A lot.

09:43 Because when you're a cop, you're just a shield number. You know, people. You know, like, if you need somebody to stand in front of a store because there was a shooting, you just take a cop and you put them there.

09:57 Right?

09:57 Like all they want is a uniform there. When you're a sergeant and somebody gets shot, they want to know who was working that day, who was the patrol supervisor, who was on the desk, you know, who was supervising these cops. Where were the cops when this happened? You know, were they doing patrol where they were supposed to be within their sector, you know, when they heard the job come over, when they heard shots fired, how long did it take for them to get there? All of that rests on you, okay? All that you are responsible for whatever a cop does or what they don't do. Like, I had a situation one time. It ended up on the news.

10:38 Really?

10:38 And it was at au bon pain, and it was this big, tall guy. He was slapping this girl in the face. Like. That's all you saw on camera. Uh huh. So you know how when you have fights in public, people take out their phones? So somebody took out the phone, they sold the video to the news, so it was on the news. And the deputy commissioner of public information called the precept.

11:01 Wow.

11:02 And wanted to know who had patrol that day, and it was me. So a sergeant called me and told me, you have to call this number and speak to the deputy commissioner. So I spoke to him. Well, not him, but somebody who worked for him. And they asked me what happened. So I went to Omar. I told him. I said, me and my driver, we went there, and he told us that there was a girl who worked there who wanted more hours. So they just hired her for the lunch rush.

11:30 Okay?

11:30 So she went to the supervisor, and she asked her for more hours. And she was like, I don't have any hours right now. So the girl cursed out the supervisor. She's like, you fucking bitch. Fuck you. I need more money. I'm in school. I'm trying to make money. And so the woman fired her, you know, which I don't have a problem with. Somebody speaks to you like that, you fired him. So then she went and leave the store. So the guy you see in the video grabbed by the arm and escorts her out of the store. So she came back into the store, and she slapped him in the face first. But you don't see that on the news. You only see the part that they want you to see, which is the guy slapping. Yes. But I saw the whole video. Cause I had access to the cameras in the store. So I saw the whole thing. I saw her. Oh, and I forgot to add that this girl started throwing bread and cookies all over the place in a rage over not getting these hours.

12:22 Okay.

12:23 And so then the guy took her and threw her out the store. So she came back in the store, slapped him in the face, and he slapped her back. So then when I got there, all the managers are like, you need to arrest him. He shouldn't be hitting a girl like that. But she should not have done what she did, right? And so what she did amounted to criminal mischief because she destroyed merchandise in the store. When she threw the cookies and the bread, what she did when she came back in the store and slapped him amounted to criminal trespass because she was asked to leave. And then she came back, and then she slapped him in the face.

12:59 Right?

13:00 So even though the video looked bad with this big man slapping this girl in the face, he was not guilty of any crime. She was the one who could have been arrested. So I had them sign, because we used to carry these memo books, which are considered legal documents. I had them sign saying, you don't want to press charges against him. He doesn't want to press charges against you. And that's it. He said, I want her out of the store. She's fired. She's not to come back here, we'll mail her her check. So for all of what happened on the news, it was this big salation. Oh, this man slapped this girl in the face, blah, blah, blah. When you go there and you investigate it, you know? So when I spoke, so then the deputy commissioner told me, okay, I love the way you handled that job. You did a good job. Thank you. Because. And they were thinking, oh, this sergeant effed up. Her head is gonna roll. Like, what happened? But when they found out what happened, what really happened, that's when. And I get a lot of that, too. I used to have jobs all the time with people. You know, the press would show up, it would end up in a paper, and I'd be reading the article, and I'd be like, that's not what happened. That didn't happen. But then a lot of propagandists out there about the police. A lot of people look at the police, like, which is out here slapping up people, shooting them for no reason.

14:23 Yeah.

14:24 And it's really not like that, you know? Yes. And police brutality is not as race based as people think. It's very nuanced. Because I think, too, a lot of things for me, and I could admit that you do develop a superiority complex because you have so much power.

14:41 Right.

14:42 You know, like, as a sergeant, if I didn't. Like, if I wanted to make a store a crime scene, which I have, I throw people out of the store in the middle of shopping. Sorry, you gotta leave. This is a crime scene. Like, why did. I got it. All right, well, go somewhere else. Like, you just have that much power.

14:58 Exactly.

14:58 And so you do, you know, think that you can. And when people don't bend to your will or just take your orders, then it becomes a problem. And that's another thing people don't understand. Like, even with the Eric Garner situation, they're like, well, why couldn't they arrest him another day? I'm like, cause that's not how it works. If somebody's under arrest, they're under arrest. They don't get to decide if they're under arrest. If I know, if I. Probable cause. They believe that you committed a crime, then it's my job to arrest you.

15:25 Cause what if I come back and you not here and.

15:27 Yeah, exactly. I gotta get you. If you don't want me to arrest you and you wanna fight me, then that's gonna be another charge of resisting arrest. You know what I mean? It's because it's a crime to resist arrest, and that turns into a fight. So the optics are bad. And when people take out their phone and, oh, this is police brutality. Like, okay, but this is also a person resisting arrest. This is a person who failed to obey a lawful order. Turn around and put your hands behind your back. You're under arrest. No, I'm not. Okay, well, okay, now you're getting charged with resisting, and now I'm gonna. But I'm still gonna arrest you. It doesn't stop me from arresting you. Like, all it does is just add on another charge. And it's a hard job, I know, but people hate the uniform. What they don't realize is that there's a human being in that uniform. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm no less human than anybody else, and I still have a job to do, just like everybody has a job. This is my job. Exactly. So, yeah, that, like, that was the toughest part. Getting people to realize, like, or just take accountability for the stuff that they do. Yeah. You know, when it looks like you're. You're the bad guy, you know, it's like, okay, well, this person did this. This is what transpired into this. Like, if they had not done this, it would not have gone that way.

16:50 You just see what people record and what people post, but you don't understand the full, like, depths of the whole situation.

16:58 Yes. And they always say, when you watch the news, or if you don't watch the news, you're uninformed. If you do watch the news, you're misinformed because they put a lot of stuff up there that they want to put. They know how to paint a certain narrative, and then that narrative becomes dangerous for police, because now people think certain things about the police that aren't true because of the stories that they put on tv, and they leave out a lot of facts.

17:25 Right.

17:26 So. Yeah, but I was happy to leave. I mean, I kind of, like, part of me misses it, but I wouldn't go back.

17:33 Right?

17:34 I would never. And I wouldn't recommend it, really? No, not even to my son. And he's a big, tall, six foot four guy. He would probably be very intimidating in that uniform.

17:45 Right.

17:46 But I'm sure it takes a toll on you. It does in many ways. I'm sure. So, yeah, it does.

17:54 So it seems like you've always been in a role of having a lot of responsibility. Do you enjoy it? Do you feel resentful that you've had to take these roles or.

18:03 I mean, I'm kind of used to it, so it really doesn't. You know, bother me. But being, well, that type of. Having, that type of assertion has allowed me to set boundaries with people also. So when people rely on me to do certain things, if I don't want to do it, then I could set that boundary. Like, no, that's not my responsibility. That's on you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, even though I'm responsible, and I'll take the home when I need to and when I know I can, if I can't handle it, then I'm gonna tell people no. So, you know, it works both ways.

18:37 Right. All right, so any last remarks you wanna add? Anything you want people to know about you, anything you feel is important for us to know about you.

18:47 I mean.

18:52 I don't know anything.

18:55 I mean, I think that being in all of these experiences, especially these jobs, taught me that or made me believe in God more.

19:04 Really?

19:05 Yes. And put me more in touch with my spirituality. And, I don't know, it just made me feel like this is the direction that I'm supposed to go in. This is other things I'm supposed to do, which is serve people, serve the public. You know, I spent six years taking people to the hospital. I spent 620 years protecting people. And now I'm Baptist. Men, however long, you know, taking care of sick people again. So it's just like. It's just the direction that God pushed me in.

19:35 Right.

19:35 You know, even though I hate studying, I hate microbiology, and, you know, I still feel compelled to do it, like something is driving me to do it. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that, yeah, I mean, God put you here to be, you know, who he needs you to be or who he knows you could be. I think that he gave me, put me in this role because he knows that I can handle it.

19:59 Right.

20:00 So I'll embrace it.

20:05 All right, Colby thank you so much.