In this Daily News exclusive, writer and editor Phyllis Fine describes what it was like to be at the center of Saturday’s Brooklyn hostage drama – an ordeal that began with a psycho’s knife to her head and ended with a single shot from a cop with deadeye aim. Here, in her own words, is her stunning story:
No, my life didn’t pass before my eyes.
But I found myself thinking, "It must be a dream, please let this be a dream. …"
Your thoughts sound like a cliche when your life is being threatened. That’s what I found when I was taken hostage Saturday morning by a man who kept shouting, "Kill me!" to the cops surrounding us.
Okay, I thought, maybe you want to die, but I don’t. Why do you have to take me with you?
It all started with a simple morning errand to the supermarket two blocks away.
I was almost at the entrance when I saw people running from the opposite direction. I paused, confused, and that’s when my attacker, Joseph Bernazard (whose name I only learned later) must have grabbed me.
It took a minute to feel the menace and realize what was going on. I felt a tug to my hair, something against the back of my head – the knife.
Bernazard never spoke directly to me.
From what he was saying to the cops – "After what they did to me … Carlos told me …" – I thought I had interrupted a drug bust and the perp had glommed onto me to keep from being arrested.
But that was the standard "Law and Order"-style narrative, one that I could have been watching on TV – helped along by the police saying, "She’s innocent, don’t hurt her."
The other, more compelling narrative was the threat of the guns facing me and the knife behind me. I have to prepare for death, I thought. In the months after 9/11, like many New Yorkers, I’d reminded myself that death could come at any time, and that was okay.
But I was out of practice with such thoughts. I’m not a religious Jew, but later, I wished I had memorized the Hebrew prayer, the Shema, that Jews are supposed to say before dying.
I think it would have been comforting to me, as if I were my own priest giving myself last rites.
Then I heard the shot that set me free. I don’t remember him letting go of me, but he must have. My first thought was, had the shot hit me? Then I ran quickly away from the circle of danger without looking back.
I’ve learned two things from my ordeal: Life can be interrupted at any minute, so you have to enjoy it while you can. And if you see a group of people running wildly – and it’s not the marathon – don’t stop to figure out what’s going on.
Just run like hell.
I am a close friend of the family, and i have known Joseph since he was 13 years old.
This was a loving and caring young man who would not hurt any of GOD’s living creatures.
He grew up to be a good person thanks to the love and care his family bestoyed upon him.
And to know him was to truly love and adore him.
He had a smile that made you forget all your woes in this somethimes cruel world because we knew he was fighting mental illness as best he could yet was always so positive and loving to all.
On that awful day that is what happened to our beloved Joseph, he was loving but he was also mentally ill, and very scared, the previous day an ambulance supposedly took him to the hospital to get him the help he needed for he was talking of women three women chasing him and wanting to do him harm.
His caring sister called the medical personnel needed to get him to the hospital to get him the help he needed, and he willingly left the apartment with these people that were there to help him. But what happened after that is a mystary for Joseph return home in the whee hours of the following morning still stating that three women were out to get him and do him harm. His sister sat up with him and got him calmed enough for him to lay down and go to sleep and told him that once morning light broke she would personally take him back to the hospital to find out what happened and if he was indeed treated by a doctor.
They both went to bed in their separate rooms and next thing you know the cops are telling her that her baby brother is dead.
I respect authority but sometimes you cops over step the boundaries of life. They took an innocent life who attempted to get the help he needed to function in our messed up society.
Someone should have done a better job in talking him down, for Joseph responded well to a loving and caring voice. He was scared, and the big NYPD used him as target practice. They took a life plain and simple for we all watch cop shows and we know that there is someone out there supposedly train to defuse the situation. They were dealing with a hispanic man holding a Jewish woman hostage so they decided to kill to save the great white one.
Congratulations to them and congratulations to you Phyllis, for if you were more of a christian you could have spoken to Joseph in a soft motherly voice and talked him back into reality.
But as you stated you taught it was a drug bust gone wrong, NOT ALL HISPANIC MALES OR BLACK MALES ARE INTO DRUGS BUT ITS PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND THE POLICE DEPARTMENT THAT KEEPS STEREOTYPING US ALL AND THAT IS WHY JOSEPH BARNAZARD A LOVING 26 YEAR OLD YOUNG MAN IS NOW DEAD.
HOPE YOU ARE FEELING GREAT ABOUT THAT LIFE FOR GOD SURE ISNT. JOSEPH IS AMONG ANGELS AND I HOPE HE UNDERSTANDS THE IGNORANCE OF YOUR WAYS.