A Banner Day On The Beat

Detective Bridget Brosnahan had been up until to 2 a.m. piecing together a case.When she thought she’d had it just about assembled, she got in her Jeep and headed for Valhalla, N.Y., to deliver the results.

Brosnahan hadn’t been piecing facts together. She’d been piecing together patches, lots of patches.

Whether she is processing a crime scene or training for a triathlon, Brosnahan is not one to do things by half. A New Haven cop with 15 years on the beat, she makes it a practice to give her all to whatever task she takes on, she said, because that’s the way her mother raised her.

In a most recent case that meant collecting patches from fellow police officers, gluing them on a pennant banner, then driving it to Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in New York to present it all to an 11-year boy battling leukemia for a second time.

In the process, she drew on a multitude of talents you don’t find often in one person. Brosnahan is a combination cop, artist, and entrepreneur. Not to mention massage therapist.

She created the banner for Sean Cadden. Sean is the son a fellow police officer, Sgt. Patrick Cadden, who works for the Town of Newburgh, N.Y. Brosnahan learned about Sean from a mutual friend of Sgt. Cadden.

Monday was a day off. So she took the drive to New York in time for Christmas.

“It was a no-brainer,” she said of her decision to help. In early November, she used her background as a graphic artist — she has an undergraduate degree in graphic design and fine arts — to design a flyer she posted at work and on Facebook. Within just a few days of posting it, she started finding patches on her desk and in her mailbox. The patches came from everywhere, including one from Australia.

Brosnahan said she couldn’t just put the patches in an envelope and mail them. Not when she was close enough to drive them up and meet Sean in person. She also knew that Sean decorates his hospital room with the patches, and she thought designing a banner would make the patches that much cooler, thus the 2 a.m. bed time for her.

She used a day off to drive more than an hour to Maria Fareri in Valhalla to meet Sean, who underwent a bone marrow transplant in early November, and his family. Sean spent his 11th birthday, Thanksgiving and now Christmas in the hospital.

“It wasn’t even a question of whether I was going to do this,” she said of the drive up. ​“I couldn’t just mail them. I had to meet him.”

It’s probably hard to impress a child who has received thousands of patches from law enforcement agencies and fire departments all across the country. Throw in the patches that he’s also received from various military units, and his dad estimated that Sean has a collection between 4,000 and 5,000 patches.

But when Brosnahan and Sgt. Cadden unfurled the pennant banner, Sean, who wasn’t feeling particularly good on the day of Brosnahan’s visit, appeared to brighten. He thanked her by giving her his personal challenge coin and a lapel pin with a four leaf clover and his initials on it. Sean’s mom Michelle said people often stop by to admire the collection. Even the nurses and the woman who cleans his room have contributed. The family plans to donate part of Sean’s collection to the hospital.

Spreading The Love

When Brosnahan gets an idea in her head, she doesn’t let anything stop her.

She decided that she wanted to be a detective after five years of doing design and graphic work for Starter, an athletic apparel company founded in New Haven. She was at a life crossroads. She liked her job, but she was moving away from the design end and progressively moving into management.

Brosnahan spent late nights soul-searching, while watching episodes of Forensic Files. She was torn about giving up her artistic work, but she felt drawn to the work she was watching on television.

“It really was a turning point for me,” she said. ​“I asked myself, ​‘If I woke up and had to do it all over again, what would I do?’ I realized I could have another career and still be an artist. I wanted to be a detective.”

So she went back to school and got a graduate degree in criminal justice and joined the police department.

Detective, Massage Therapist, Entrepreneur

Brosnahan said she loves the science and logic of being a crime scene investigator as much as she loves creating art. But her love for education took her in one more direction that was unexpected.

She said she wanted to pursue a job that would allow her to interact with people in a way that being in law enforcement doesn’t. She considered pursuing a degree in counseling, but at the suggestion of a friend she became a certified massage therapist, and started her own practice, Center of Gravity Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork in 2009.

“I love doing massage,” she said. ​“In law enforcement, I am in tune with people in a very different way. Massage is very therapeutic for me.”

As if she didn’t already have enough on her plate as a detective, a freelance graphic artist and a massage therapist, in 2011 she returned to her roots in the apparel industry and started her own clothing company, {GP} Apparel Co. She said the idea for the company developed out of her work as a detective.

She said she was initially paired with another woman when she first became a detective. When their partnership was split up without explanation, they joked that the reason was that ​“it was too much girl power.” She said her partner always said that they should put that on a shirt. So one day, Brosnahan decided to do just that, and her company was born.

She said the company is all about empowering women to believe exactly what her mother taught her, ​“that I can do anything.” Brosnahan said she hopes the clothes she designs will help other women and girls feel the same sense of empowerment.

Throw in a training for half marathons and triathlons, and Brosnahan is one busy woman.

“I have fun doing all of my jobs,” she said. ​“I have fun giving to people.”

Being a detective, she’s ​“seen the worst of the worse,” but Brosnahan said she feels a sense of responsibility to be a peace seeker, to be compassionate and to spread love.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid to fight, or to pull out my gun,” she said. ​“But life is so fragile, and I believe we have a responsibility to make the world a little better.”

Read other installments in the Independent’s ​“Cop of the Week” series: 

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