“No, I’m going to go back to New Orleans. They need help.”
Grit, warmth define life of officer
N.O. bids farewell to shooting victim
The Times-Picayune
Friday, February 01, 2008
By Laura Maggi
Not long after Hurricane Katrina, in Memphis with her mother and sisters, Nicola Cotton decided she would return to New Orleans to fulfill her plan of becoming a police officer.
Her aunt, Vernell Wilkerson, urged her to stay in Memphis.
“They need police officers as well,” she recalled telling her niece.
“No, I’m going to go back to New Orleans. They need help. They are losing a lot of officers,” Cotton responded.
That kind of selfless motivation defined Cotton’s spirit, people who knew her said. She wanted to give back, eventually settling on police work as the best way to help people.
The 24-year-old, whose funeral will be held today at noon at New Hope Baptist Church in Central City, had been a police officer for only about a year when she encountered Bernel Johnson, a man described by his relatives as an occasionally violent paranoid schizophrenic.
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FINAL SALUTE
“She loved this city and was willing to pay the price to give back.”
The Times-Picayune
Saturday, February 02, 2008
By Brendan McCarthy
hen New Orleans police officer Nicola Cotton graduated from the police academy two years ago, she told her superiors she wanted to patrol “the 6th,” the district that oversees a tough triangular swath of Central City.
It’s where Cotton grew up, what she knew. It’s the neighborhood where Cotton would later peel off small bills from her pocket to give to the homeless men and women she encountered while on patrol.
And it’s the neighborhood where colleagues, citizens, family members and friends memorialized the 24-year-old officer in a flag-draped casket.
Again and again during the 90-minute ceremony Friday, pastors, police officers and politicians talked of the tragedy of the young officer whose career was cut short while on duty days earlier. They talked about her public service. Her smile. Her sacrifices.
When Cotton chose to serve the city in the hurricane’s aftermath, “We knew then that she was going to be a great officer,” Police Superintendent Warren Riley said. “She is a hero.”
Riley looked toward Cotton’s family. “I salute you,” he said, drawing his hand upward in a crisp salute. “Please knew that Nicola will never be forgotten.”
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