Barbara Burnette

Detective Barbara Burnette died as the result of cancer that she developed following her assignment to the search and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.

Detective Burnette was instrumental in ensuring federal aid to the first responders stricken with various medical issues after 9/11.

Detective Burnette served with the New York City Police Department, assigned to Brooklyn’s 73rd Precinct gang unit. She is survived by her husband and three children. Her husband also served with the New York City Police Department.

Barbara A. Taylor-Burnette grew up in the Williamsburg Houses in Brooklyn, where childhood friends remembered her as disciplined and as a gifted basketball player who beat the boys on the court. She was appointed to the New York City Police Department on 11 July 1988 and began in the 73rd Precinct at a time of frequent shootings. About ten years later she moved to the Narcotics Division as an undercover officer, work that earned her the gold detective shield on 17 December 1999. She later joined the Intelligence Division, where her last command was the Operations and Analysis Section.

Illness from her work at the World Trade Center site forced her to retire on 31 December 2006, after 18 years with the department. She suffered from interstitial lung disease, inoperable lung cancer and other illnesses linked to 9/11, and she died on 30 December 2021. Her family remembered her as someone who would do anything to help a person in need.

Detective Taylor-Burnette was survived by three daughters, a son and her husband, retired NYPD Lieutenant Lebro Burnette. On 22 October 2022 the intersection of Scholes Street and Humboldt Street in Brooklyn was renamed "Det. Barbara Taylor-Burnette Way."