True Crime Defense

Katrina Brownlee/ Gun Safety

February 12, 2024 True Crime Defense

This is one of our ALL-TIME FAVORITE true crime documentaries! Seriously don't miss the beautiful story of Katrina Brownlee! Katrina had a baby at 14, survived years of violence at the hands of her law enforcement boyfriend, was shot ten times, and became a cop in order to change the system from the inside out.

Show notes;
Young Ladies of Our Future – Inspiring, Educating, and Mentoring
Domestic Violence Support | National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org)
Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233
Number One Resource for Women Gun Owners - The Well Armed Woman
hand-gun defenses video below 
https://youtu.be/-k9rnd7Wau0?si=a5cKIhHfsXTXS1lS



Hey everybody, welcome to True Crime Defense, the podcast that nerds out on true crime cases, gives you tips on how to stay safe and never blames the target of any crime. Enjoy the show. Radhika, I'm so happy to be here and we always do an intro that tells about our show and I just wanted to introduce ourselves to people who are new. Yeah. Nurses, I'm a self defense instructor, Radhika is a sparkling ray of sunshine. What else do you want to say to people? I'm just here for the ride whenever Shelly teaches me things I absorb and take it all in. Amazing. I don't know. You're a crafter. I am. I'm always eternally bored and so I'm always finding something to do. I did go buy some plants yesterday. Great. Okay, so we are covering Katrina Brownlee, The Good Cop. It's a 48 hours episode and it is harrowing and it is a beautiful journey. Rodica, you know, I am not a crier, but she got me going a couple of times. We were talking about this before. Yes. And you know, I'm not an emotional person, but I got goosebumps the whole time. Like I was like, am I cold? No, no. Those are emotions in goosebump form. I actually wrote a script about this episode probably when I first thought about doing the podcast because it was an episode that just really stuck with me because Katrina's story just really is, it's really something special. We do have to start with, yeah, this is an inspiring story. It has a happy ending, but in order to get there, we have to give many warnings, domestic violence. I guess we're calling it intimate partner violence. Now, gun violence, fetal demise in the course of the attack and ability to have further pregnancies. What else? I think you got it. That's enough, right? That's more than enough. And Radhika, you know I love to criticize a hairstyle or an outfit and this interviewer. I just don't have anything really to say about her. I never even got her name. I don't really like her style of interviewing. Me neither. I feel like she did way more talking than she should have. Yeah. And did you get her name even? No, I didn't even see it pop up or see her introduce herself. Yeah, she's just like a standard lady. I don't know. I hate the disorganization in this episode too. You know how much I love chronology and it really jumps around. So I'm going to do my best. And you're going to put it back in order. So yes, I'm going to try. Okay. We always start with the terrifying psycho violins of the 48 hours theme song. It like puts you on edge immediately. Katrina Cooke Brownlee. We start with sort of in the middle where she's an undercover cop busting presumably the S workers because she talks about relating to them and their stories. And I don't know, I don't feel like we really needed to start with S work to draw people in. I also don't know that it was like super relevant to anything later on either. No, not at all. She then tells us that she was 22 and lived in a house of horrors. She always had injuries and wore signature shades to cover the problem. Because her boyfriend was a correctional officer, when she called the police, they would walk away as soon as he flashed his badge. Now we meet Carrie Herzog, who is a bad A in her own right. And people are complex. I'm not a fan of some of her choices, but she's a Katrina advocate and I love her for it. She's the ADA at the time. I guess we could tell people that's the assistant district attorney, just to be clear. This attack happens on January 9th, 1993. And I had to pause for a minute because it's been about 30 years. Yeah. And based on just Katrina's still kind of sobbing about a lot of it, I'm like worried that she hasn't been able to get sufficient therapy for this. She's really feeling it. How long ago was the 48 hour episode though? when I looked back, I believe it was from 2022. I think. Oh yeah, totally recent. Yeah. I believe. Yeah. Just, I hope she's okay. Yeah. That's all. She's kind of still in it. Yeah. Okay. So, January 9th, 1993, Katrina is shoved in a wheelchair into the ER and the car rushes away. Raymond Velasco is the detective that first interviews Katrina, and she tells him her ex boyfriend, Alex Irvin, shot her 10 times. Velasco meets Irvin at the address that Katrina gives, and he's pretty calm in spite of all the blood all over their home. Editors, we do not need this much. And they keep Showing it just, yeah, blood stains everywhere. All the carpets like everything. It's just like the superfluous S work references and then blood everywhere. I could live without it. Unnecessary. Yeah. I mean, you need to have some Drama to make us look up when we're folding laundry as we watch, but I just, yeah, it was, it was a lot. Carrie said she thought for sure Katrina was gonna die. Now Katrina is wearing a lovely leather fringe jacket and shows us where she lived in the projects. And she says when she met, and I'm just going to call him the attacker from now on. Yeah. When she met her attacker, he was a correctional officer at Rikers Island, which is a really good job. She saw it as a way out of poverty and she thought she had escaped. In spite of his violence, her grandma reminded her that he's willing to take on her daughter and he got a good job and that Katrina should really reconsider breaking up with him. And by the way, Katrina had a daughter when she was 14, which did they talk about it in the episode? They did. Okay. Not how old she was, but that she already had. The daughter, by the time she met him, and she met him at like 18 or 19. Yeah, so she already had an elementary school, maybe preschool age child. She soon got pregnant with a daughter by her attacker. And I don't like how the interviewer asks, What would spark his anger? It kind of implies that Katrina did something to provoke him. And I mean, if a person can't control themselves, it doesn't matter what anyone in the world does. They're just going to find an excuse to explode. Well, I also felt like she was just probing way too hard. let Katrina tell you whatever information she wants to volunteer versus almost like we were listening in on a private therapy session. None of that was necessary. The questions are the way she kept asking. She also would feed her the beginning of answers. And I was like, stop it. This is not your interview. We don't need to get paid for this, but we're going to tell her how to do her job. Yeah. What, like a turd? when she calls 911, the police would walk away once they saw his badge. She stopped calling and lost all respect for cops. After 5 years, she was pregnant again, and she decided she didn't want to bring another child into the toxic relationship. She moved to a motel, but ran out of money after a month, so she called her attacker and he promised to help her. She left her older daughter with a neighbor and brought her younger daughter to their home. And now I'm going to talk about the attack, so just a warning everyone, obviously we're not going to get too gory, but it's Uh, once she put the little girl in her bed, he started shooting her. Katrina, not the daughter. She was crawling away and he continued shooting. He had cut the phone lines so she couldn't call for help and she says he tortured her. He put her in bed and covered her gunshot wounds with band aids, which was just the creepiest. And to see what the band aids look like too. It was like soaked red and we're like, again, totally unnecessary that we had to see that. Don't need it. He just really lost his grip on reality. He shot her 10 times over 90 minutes. He locked on the doors and windows. And then a family friend dropped by randomly, or we were talking about this yesterday, divinely inspired to drop by, in my opinion, and the attacker told the friend that he had shot Katrina. He picked her up and they put her in the back seat and they got her in the car and then dropped her off at the ER. Katrina says the unexpected visit is the only reason why she's still alive. Yeah. And here's another warning for pregnancy loss. Sadly, she finds out when she wakes up from surgery that she lost the baby she was carrying. Carrie Herzog, the ADA, says she wants to cry when she hears that that's the first thing Katrina wants to know after being attacked. No concern for herself, just the baby. And she lost her uterus, so she wouldn't be able to have any more pregnancies. It's just absolutely tragic. and then when the doctor tells her she wouldn't be able to walk and she would always have to have someone to take care of her, she says, I don't have anyone to take care of me, ugh, that hit me hard. Yeah, like I was saying, I am not a crier, but the waterworks in this episode, and it only gets worse. Yeah, I know. They kept being like, they're like, and she got past it, but she was tested again. And I was like, how? Why? That's bad enough to have a baby at 14. Like that should be the end of your troubles. Yeah. It does end with tears of joy. So just stick with us. Yeah. she was able to move into her attackers mom's house, which was unoccupied at the time. She got round the clock care, which I'm assuming such some wonderful social workers and case workers work their butts off procuring. For her because that is tough. She's super depressed and didn't work out her physical and speech therapy. And then one special physical therapist told her that she was going to do it. And like, she heard it from that person. And I just, I loved that part of this story too. All the healthcare workers that get no credit. Let's give them credit here, right? Yeah. Sometimes it's just like. You need to have those people who believe in you so that you can, believe in yourself. Because that's what she said. She was like, I, did not want to do anything. And he was like, you know what? I see you. I see that you're going to walk. And she's like, yes, I am. Oh katrina decides to work really hard and gets from her wheelchair to a walker and then a cane and then she's walking on her own. She eventually gets thrown out of the house because her attacker's mom insists that she write a letter to the court saying that she shot herself 10 times and her attacker was innocent. I know. Ugh. She goes to a shelter with her two daughters. She talks about the rats and the roaches there. The bathroom was so filthy that she would go to McDonald's to wash in the sink. And Katrina is still, she's just crying and suffering. So, the attacker was calling and threatening Katrina from jail in spite of a court order for him not to have contact. And this is where Carrie, the lawyer gets, is wanted to rain down on him with a white hot intensity of. Thousand sons, her descriptive language is so amazing and the way she delivers it to kind of deadpan, but at the same time you feel the fire within her. Just like an old white lady, just with just she's got it in her. It's great. Carrie gets a letter purportedly from Katrina saying that she had an accident the and if she is subpoenaed, she will testify for the defense. When Carrie calls her to clarify, she says she didn't write the letter, but she doesn't want to come in, and she's going into hiding. And now Carrie does something I am not a fan of, but here we go. She says, Katrina, I will hunt you down like a dog if I have to. Mmm. And Katrina's like, goodbye. Puts the phone down. Yeah, not a fan of threatening a target of domestic violence. No, thank you. In April 1994, in the middle of court proceedings, Katrina busts in. Carrie says she was back with a vengeance. Her attacker pleads guilty and there would be no trial, and Carrie is again angry because she didn't want him to take a plea. Right. Katrina says she was calming Carrie down. Carrie asks for a minimum of 20 years. Friends listening, you may want to pull over, walk away from any heavy machinery or anything. You don't want to involuntary throw out a window. Because the judge gives him the minimum, 5 to 15 years. Like, what even is that? That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard for shooting someone ten times. One year per shot, at least. I know that's not how it works, but whatever. I have in my notes, just, I wanted to remind everyone, just as if I hadn't told them five minutes ago, he tormented Katrina for 90 minutes, not to mention all the previous attacks he had made on her. Yeah. Killed his own baby, tried to kill her, but five years is acceptable? Just so that we're all on the same page. Yeah. Carrie then goes into a blind fury and kicks her garbage can from one end of the office to the other. I love that she says she kept that dented trash can throughout her whole career. I was like, you would do that. I like it. Just as a reminder. Yeah, you gotta keep fighting. Love it. Katrina was impacted by Carrie fighting for her when she couldn't fight for herself, and she becomes a New York City police officer. She says the best way to change the system is from the inside out. She wants to be a good cop that was never there for her when she was being beaten and attacked. She joins in July 2001 and immediately has to deal with the 9 11 September. Her attacker spends 10 years in jail and he gets out when she's at the beginning of her career. She does some scary undercover work and Carrie says it makes sense because what else can anyone do to scare her? Right. She never tells anyone on the force about her attack and history because she fears that they would think she's a loose cannon from her trauma and she might not be mentally stable. She becomes a detective first grade which is the highest investigative rank. Amazing! Love it. And as a woman, like that was a challenge. We see Carrie and Katrina in the car laughing and having a good time, which I just love that they're so cute. Yes. In 2014 she's assigned to protect Mayor Bill de Blasio. In 2021, after 20 years on the force she retires. In her last meeting with him she tells him about the attack and that she wrote a book about it. And then this really got me. She got tattoos of roses over the scars from the shooting. And yeah, I think there was just a cat in my house, like I'm deadly allergic and just, my eyes were watering for some reason, just continuously, where's that cat? Yeah. she says she forgave her attacker so she could get back control, power and have peace. I mean, that is just beyond beautiful. Yeah, I think this is why I'm so pulled in by true crime. The stories of the people behind solving the crimes I think is so fascinating and it can be really inspiring. She's one of those people, even though she experienced a true crime, you know, she's someone who also has a history and is somebody who worked in true crime herself. And yeah, I just love it. she started young ladies of our future. It's a mentoring program for girls. She's offering help that she didn't get at their age. And she says, this is so great. I'm a beautiful black queen that fought the fight. Yes! And I just hard agree, Katrina. Her book is called And Then Came the Blues. And then that was an abrupt end of the episode. it just stopped there. I know, I was like, wait, is there a part two? Or can we, I just wanted to listen to her talk some more. I don't know about what, but it, it did feel a little like, okay, and then we're done. Yeah, I need more Katrina. So I'm following her on Instagram at least. So I'll give you updates. Okay, don't worry. Yeah, no, she's a motivational speaker. She's just Yeah, she's amazing. Anything else you want to say about the episode? No, I think that was honestly, one of my most favorite things is like, yeah, it was a true crime. It was horrible what she went through. But just I Have not met a lot of people, not, not that I'm saying in real life, but even through television or whatever, where you like, learn about another person that is honestly as strong as she is that she's incredible to survive 10 gunshot wounds, but it's not just the surviving, but it's the living after and then to join the one thing that she. Did not appreciate, did not respect him, but then was like, I'm gonna go in, change it from the inside out, and what I think her and Carrie would say this a couple times, but they were like, Success is the best revenge. And I was like, yes, of course. She was just literally the coolest human being that I think I've learned about thus far. She's just really, really cool. Yeah. I think it's one of my top 10, top five, true crime documentaries. Like that. It was amazing. Also, one of the things that struck me now as we were talking, she cries a lot. Yeah. I think we so think that crying is a sign of weakness. But Katrina is the strongest person ever. And she constantly cries. And, just if we can separate those two things out. Let's do that as a society. Can we agree? Let's high five. Yeah. High five on the screen. Okay. so we're going to talk about domestic violence a little, which is now called intimate partner violence. I guess if you're woke, I don't know why that changed, but in the future, we'll really dive in on it. I wanted to use this more as an excuse to talk about handgun defense. I'm going to put a video in the show notes and we'll talk about how to stay safe if someone has a gun. Obviously, Katrina was surprised by her attacker and her she had her baby with her. So she did the best she could in her horrifying situation. So I would never want to imply that she should have done anything different. We just like to give other options. If people are interested, I thought Katrina Brownlee story was particularly relevant because it shows why she felt she had to stay with an abuser. I think a lot of people think the abused partner who stays is in some way deserving of the treatment if they don't speak up or don't leave. And I think a lot of people just don't know how to safely intervene as a bystander. I'm going to put a bunch of resources in the show notes for people who are targets and maybe some ways to help people who are targets. Before we move to gun safety, I wanted to give people some options for contacting us and shout out to our supporters. Thank you so much for joining us. We would love your feedback, case suggestions, or if you just want to say hi, our email is tcdefense at yahoo. com. Our Instagram has self defense videos and you can DM us there at tc underscore defense. YouTube also has our self defense videos and episodes at tc underscore D. And we had support from Flores and Christina this week. Christina was complaining a lot because we took January off. That was an accident. I was not expecting to take January off, but she's like, where are the episodes? She binged all of them already. Yeah. She was like, Christina, release more, release more. I was like, coming, coming, coming. I love it. I love it so much. Okay. so in my research, I found U. S. Department of Justice tells us the same advice we would use for any active shooter situation, run, hide, fight. It says for run, identify an escape route, which is a good idea just to have situational awareness. I have started doing this everywhere I go now, just finding out where another exit is besides the one that I just walked through to get into whatever business or, you know, school or wherever I'm going. They say drop belongings, if possible help others to escape, and call 9 1 1. They talk about silencing your phone, too. I was thinking about that, because that's not something people needed to do back in the day, but, yeah, even take it off vibrate, because I think that's just as loud in a quiet room. Yeah, for sure. Then that's what they say that you are following exactly what the US Department of Justice reminds us to do. Then hide hide away from the view of the threat lock doors and block entries. Yeah, remain on silent until the threat is over you and your phone. And then for fight fighting should be a last resort and only when your life is in imminent danger. Attempt to incapacitate the threat, act with as much physical aggression as possible, or watch my disarming video. It's for smaller people dealing with a larger attacker. Maybe you're not capable of, a lot of physical aggression. So I'm going to give you some options with our video. My brother, Kevin, and I talked about shotgun safety in our episode, the death of Ray McNeil. We talked about distance concealment and cover and you can see the video I made in the show notes or go directly to the video on our Instagram Just a note, if you can appease someone with a weapon by handing over something replaceable, like car keys or wallet, you know, whatever, car, do that. I've seen videos of Jujutsu Black Belt saying that they are experts in disarming people and it's still too high risk for the injury and death that they would never willingly try techniques unless their life or another's life was imminently in danger. So, don't just think you can watch a video or two and then, just do it. If it's something, yeah, if it's something that you can, like, let go of, just Give them whatever they want. I'm going to add if you have it in the shadows of your mind that you might try to disarm a threat and please get some gun training. So, you know what to do once the gun is ideally in your hands. I've been getting gun training and I started with the NRA, which has been very interesting radical. I enrolled in their basic training. Pistol training, and they've changed their website since I took their course. So maybe things are updated, but I just perused it this morning. When I took the class, there's no online option. I had to email multiple times and learned that the only way to enroll was to go to a laptop, like I couldn't enroll from my phone. they sent me a little book, a physical book to read about gun safety. And just based on that, I'm under the impression now that the NRA is. basically for senior citizens. It's a powerful political entity, but I do wonder what the next generation will look like if they like, have not figured out that you got to have cell phone. How to keep up. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is new. The website looks very new this morning, but Yeah, it's something to ponder anyway. I tried reading through the book, I talked to a cop I know, and she took me through the basics. I was going to put some links in the show notes for the well armed woman is a pretty helpful for learning more. I'll just put it out there. Please just don't buy a gun and leave it at that. Get training, be comfortable, know your local gun laws, get a gun safe, keep guns out of the wrong hands. Please, please, please be a responsible gun owner. We have a lot of statistics on domestic violence, Radhika. I'm just going to say domestic because I think the more words we use to describe a problem, the less connected we feel to it. That's how my personal opinion. There's a lot of information in our Dominique Dunn episode about domestic violence and, you know, trying to stay safe in that situation. So listen to that one for more. I do want to say when a partner is leaving is the most dangerous time. And I don't think Katrina really understood the threat that she was under when she came back after having the attacker. We see this all the time when a person has to return to pick something up. She's left behind. I'm going to say she just because that's the more common scenario. But, of course, men can be in danger from their partner as well. The attacker may want to talk to the person who left 1 more time. And then once they're alone together, that's when the violence happens. I talk in my classes about the triangle of victimization. So you have three corners, the attacker, the target and the opportunity. And that's what creates the triangle. And so basically, that's true of any crime. So being alone with a person that's created that those 3 things, I've seen so many true crime things where. This is what happens, you know, the person leaves and then they have to come back for something or the ex husband or the boyfriend lulls the target into thinking that they'll be rational and nice. They just want to make it up to them and then they walk right into a trap. I read a PDF from the U. S. Army about basic self defense and the techniques were an exact replica of the techniques that I've learned. the family I train with are the creators of the current close quarters combat defenses. So it's cool to see. That I know the basic program used by the U. S. Army. That is really cool, Shelly., they did mention if you are unarmed against an armed attacker to create a separation of at least 10 feet and try to place stationary objects between yourself and the attacker, they also say fighting is a last line of defense and to try to avoid being in contact with the person, they may say to make sure your body is offline of the attack. And that's something that we talk about all the time whatever you can do to get the barrel pointed away from you, that do that thing. I heard an interview with Matt Damon and because my brain is like automatically connected to self defense, he said he, when he trained for the Bourne movies, which if you haven't seen at least the first one, have you seen it? Yes, we should just stop right now and let people go watch it. Just let them join us after they're really good. Although it's been a while. I wonder how well they've held up. I know I watched it a long time ago. I haven't watched it recently. Which I've many times found problems with things that I used to love watching before and re watched, so maybe I'm not going to re watch it, but somebody else can. We don't recommend it if it's real bad now. I don't know. Right, right. Okay, and so he was saying that he was interviewing someone when he was training for the horn series. It was like a special ops person. And he said that he noticed whenever he had a conversation with anyone, he would turn his body. So, his left shoulder and his left foot would be bleeded towards the person. So it was never head on and he was just like, what's, what are you doing? Why are you doing that? And he's like, why I was wanting to make myself as small a target as I can. In case someone draws a gun, which I thought was kind of interesting. Obviously I'm not going to start doing that in general conversation, but if you're threatened with someone, potentially you could be gently and not obviously turn your body to the side. It just makes you a smaller target. I thought it was like less area that they can technically reach. if you're not familiar with guns and you grab one, because that's your absolute last line of defense, you should know that they are extremely loud and can impact your hearing momentarily and sometimes permanently Anything else you want to see to the people? That's all I got. I looked up things of how to survive a gunshot wound because I was just like, how? Did Katrina do it? When she actually didn't do any of the things I learned about, but she made it and I mean, very grateful for it, if you're in a situation and you do get shot and as long as you're with someone else, or even if you're by yourself, just what to do to survive the gunshot until you can get help. Okay, so there are three main things. And I learned these tips from, a EMT who's trained for many years. One, you want to stop the bleeding. So you either put strong pressure and they even recommend, like, if it's in the chest cavity or the abdominal cavity and you even need to put your knee on it just to get it to stop bleeding, you do whatever it takes and however much pressure it takes. Because sometimes just your hand is not going to do it, or you dress the wound or you put a tourniquet, but only if you know how, because you don't want to cause more injury. I didn't realize this, but you're not supposed to elevate the legs because that's going to cause a chest or an abdominal gunshot wound to bleed even faster. keep them as flat as possible. And then, if you can. And you have another person. If the person becomes unconscious after getting shot, you're supposed to put them in a recovery position. All that means is you turn them on their side and bend their top leg at a right angle. That's just to prevent them from choking because they're unconscious until you get help. But this is just something I learned extra that if you get shot in your lungs, we know we have like your attention pneumothorax. You can like bust a lung. If you can get a clean plastic wrap of sorts and just tape it on three sides so that you're not just blowing a bunch of air into your lungs every time you inhale the plastic wrap is to prevent air from going in, but allows you to expel air out through that. Untaped side, but if it ends up being a tension pneumothorax, take off that plastic wrap so that things can equal equalize again. But how would people know the difference? They would probably, they said to slap it on first if they just feel like they're starting to, have trouble breathing, first put it on so that more air doesn't escape in, but if it gets worse, then you take it off, but if it helps keep it on, or just hold pressure is what the guy said. If your limbs get injured, this is like the least intense one because they're mostly flesh wounds or at the worst they're going to be nerve damage. That happens but he said don't move your arm, don't move your leg because you don't want to Cause further tissue or nerve damage to happen. So don't be swinging it, just hold pressure and stay still. And the final one is neck injuries. This is, sometimes one of the worst outcomes because you could be, paralyzed if it hits the back or your spine, or if it hits the front, you hit your carotid artery, you could bleed to death. So the most important thing, if someone gets shot anywhere in the neck or the head, do not move them because you don't want to make the spine have further damage. So keep them in the same position, don't elevate, don't move, don't pick them up, nothing. Keep them where they are and just hold pressure. And that's about it. So bottom line. Hold pressure if they're unconscious and it's just a flesh wound, put them on their side and don't elevate the legs for abdominal or chest injuries. Nice. That was awesome. I learned so much, we were just watching Lost. Have you seen that show? Oh, the like 15 season show? Oh, yes, I have. We just started it for the third time at my house, but we were watching where Sawyer gets shot in the middle of the ocean, and he's just digging into his shoulder, trying to pull the bullet out, like yelling at the screen. Don't do it. There's no need. And even if people don't know, if you are stabbed, usually what the EMTs. will do is they'll wrap it and they'll leave the knife where it is because the knife is actually like holding in blood same thing with a bullet if you're trying to dig in there number one it's an infection risk but number two the bullet could be actually staunching the blood flow so don't touch you have a professional who can do things sterilely Let it be. I actually have seen many stories of people who, they can't take the bullet out. It's in the brain. It's wherever it is. People are afraid of, lead poisoning. Yeah. It's less of a threat than, you know, digging in there. So just let it be until you can find a professional. It actually may be helping you to have it in. Yes. Yeah. When someone stabs you, don't be taking out that knife. Words of wisdom, Radhika. This was so fun. Oh my god, I came back after such a long time with such a a strong start to 2024. Katrina Brownlee, oh my goodness. Fantastic lady. Tattoo of her face or something. It's just like, amazing. Awesome. I loved it. Thanks for the rec, Shelly. Carrie, you okay? I tried to, I tried to mute a sneeze, but it never came. You just have to watch that happen.