The DEA Honor Roll

Barbara A. Taylor-Burnette grew up in the Williamsburg Houses in Brooklyn and was appointed to the force on July 11, 1988. She began her career working in the 73rd Precinct when shootings were plentiful, and a decade later she moved to the Narcotics Division and worked as an undercover. And as a result, she earned her gold Detective shield on December 17, 1999. Det. Taylor-Burnette later moved on to the Intelligence Division, with her last command being the Operations and Analysis Section. After 18 years with the Department, illness related to her work on the WTC disaster forced her into retirement on December 31, 2006. After battling interstitial lung disease, inoperable lung cancer and other illnesses she contracted because of 9/11, Det. Taylor-Burnette passed away on December 30, 2021.

She was survived by three daughters and a son, and her husband, retired NYPD Lt. Lebro Burnette, who wrote, “The sense of loss and pain from the death of my beloved wife Barbara is … raw and crushing.” Lt. Burnette also expressed “immense gratitude and unending appreciation” for the presence of the union from the time Det. Burnette was placed on life support to her wake and funeral.

Said her daughter Yasmeen, “Mom was a helper. If somehow, somewhere, someone she knew needed help – and it made it through the grapevine to her ears – she would move heaven and Earth to make sure that she was able to help.” Childhood friends from Williamsburg Houses remembered her as a disciplined person in everything she did, a talented basketball player who used to beat the fellows on the court as a teen. “She was lovable,” one resident said, “She was raised to love. She was raised to care. She was raised to be who she was. There’s not a bad thing you could say about her.”

On October 22, 2022, the intersection of Scholes Street and Humboldt Street in Brooklyn was renamed “Det. Barbara Taylor-Burnette Way.”