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Brenda Leigh Johnson

Occupation: Deputy Chief of the LAPD's Priority Homicide Squad, reporting to Assistant Police Chief Will Pope.

Marital Status: Engaged

Employment History: Deputy Chief Johnson is a CIA-trained interrogator who worked for the Atlanta Police Department before transferring to Los Angeles. Throughout her career, she's developed a strong reputation as a talented interrogator who draws confessions from her subjects that lead directly to convictions. In the law enforcement world, she's known as a "closer." She turned down a position with Homeland Security to accept the Deputy Chief position with the LAPD.

Strengths: With razor-sharp investigative skills, Johnson has the ability to evaluate every minute detail of a crime scene. She has a knack for looking past the obvious to reveal the hidden story behind a crime. Her interrogation style is soft and informal, almost as if she's casually chatting with her subjects, until she suddenly turns and gets tough with the suspect. Her method always produces results in the interview room, and she has a flawless track record of closing cases by getting confessions. Although Johnson claims she never bluffs in the interview room, she says she "expresses optimism forcefully" to urge her subjects to spill the beans. She refuses to bow down to law enforcement politics and never hesitates to put condescending colleagues, even superiors, in their place.

Weaknesses: With a take-charge attitude, Johnson has a habit of barking orders at the detectives on her team, followed by an assertive, "Thank you!" Her colleagues often misinterpret her no-nonsense, blunt approach as arrogance and condescension. She has a tendency to micro-manage her cases and demands to be involved in every part of the investigative process. Her need to receive constant updates about even the smallest details frequently rubs her colleagues the wrong way. She very rarely gives compliments to her detectives--not because she doesn't appreciate their work, but simply because she's too wrapped up in the case to remember to do so. Johnson is also a terrible driver--her poor sense of direction and inability to parallel park often result in her showing up late to crime scenes.

Personal File: When they worked together in Washington, D.C., she had an affair with Assistant Police Chief Will Pope, who was married at the time. Pope dumped Brenda and then divorced his wife to marry his soon-to-be ex-wife, Estelle. When Brenda worked for the Atlanta PD, she underwent an ethics inquiry after her husband falsely reported that she was having an affair with a younger officer. She believes her husband did this because he was jealous and resentful that she spent so much time at the office. Brenda and her husband divorced soon after, and once the ethics review was over, she began to seek out a new position in a different office.

Brenda is currently engaged to FBI Special Agent Fritz Howard, a former friend and colleague. She's very close to her mother and father, who live in Atlanta. Because she focuses almost completely on her career, she is scatterbrained and disorganized in her personal life. She's often late to her dates with Fritz (if she remembers them at all), and her house is typically an absolute mess. Food is probably her second love after her job. A recovering (for now) junk food addict, she has had a history of secretly stashing away sweets and chocolates in her desk drawer, purse and throughout her house. Brenda is off processed sugar at present, however, and has banned sweets from the murder room.