Brooklyn Nine-Nine: 5 Reasons Rosa Is Scariest Person In The 99 (& 5 Reasons She’s The Sweetest)

If you’re searching for the biggest badass on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, look no further than Detective Rosa Diaz. She’s tough as nails in every aspect of her life, both on and off the job. Rosa isn’t the type of person you want to cause problems for, if you can avoid it at all.

That being said, she also might be the biggest softie, though she hides that fact extremely well. Rosa keeps how nice she actually is on the down-low but there are examples throughout the series of how delightful a person she actually is. Just don’t tell her that.

10 SCARY: The Stare

If Rosa has one move that is more effective than anything else, it’s her menacing stare. It cuts right through people like a hot knife through butter, saying everything she needs to say without her having to utter a word. When Rosa lets that mighty gaze loose, anyone in its path knows they are in trouble.

Nothing shows how big a badass she is more than her ability to take someone down just by staring daggers through them. Keeping that in mind, Rosa is more than capable of taking someone down with real daggers, too.

9 SWEET: Protected a Turkey

Rosa has a well documented soft spot for animals, probably because they’re far less annoying than people. She’s not wrong about that. At one of Amy’s Thanksgiving events, Charles brought a live turkey to kill and eat. This was begrudgingly accepted by most of Amy’s guests, except for Gina and Rosa.

They decided to protect their new bird friend, who in turn betrayed them and trapped all of the guests in the bathroom. It was one of many times Rosa regretted showing any level of compassion.

8 SCARY: So Many Knives

While the department issued sidearm is a handgun, Rosa likes to supplement that with what it quite honestly an absurd number of knives. They come in all shapes and sizes, but she frequently brandishes her most massive knives in the respective faces of her co-workers. Rosa keeps them at home, in desk and on her person.

The fact that she has so many knives, and is presumable quite good with them, is quite unsettling. It’s not like Rosa is going to stab someone for no reason but she also has rage issues. You know Hitchcock and/or Scully are gonna get shanked one day.

7 SWEET: Getting Sick

Like the time Jack Donaghy vomited in front of the writing staff on 30 Rock, getting sick humanized Rosa almost immediately. It didn’t make her appear weak at all, just showed that she had a softer side. This was particularly evident in the smile that escaped her control when Gina and Terry made her rest and brought her a care package.

Rosa would never, ever admit this but she needed help in that moment and appreciated her friends being there for her. But if anyone ever suggests that was the case, Rosa will go looking for one of her desk knives.

6 SCARY: Getting Sick

Rosa getting sick also demonstrated her toughness. Given how ill she was, a normal person would have been knocked unconscious. Rosa, on the other hand, just kept working, though the quality of said work would have been questionable at best.

Once Gina and Terry finally got her to rest, she threatened her grandmother in her dreams. And when she woke up, Rosa punched out the glass in the storeroom door as a means of escape. If you’re going to step up and help Rosa when she’s sick, it’s best to do so from a safe distance.

5 SWEET: Coming Out

Later on in the series, Rosa came out as bisexual. It was a brave moment for the character as it put her at her most vulnerable, something fans weren’t used to seeing from her. When Rosa decided to tell her parents, Jake agreed to go with her to provide support. Well, he didn’t so much agree to it as he was tricked into it and was ambushed by Rosa and her parents.

Still, being that open and that vulnerable was a new experience for Rosa, one that led to her friends finding out where she lived. Rosa’s home address has traditionally been the most closely guarded secret in the 99.

4 SCARY: Destroying Office Equipment

No one deals with technological issues worse than Rosa. She has been known to physically destroy computers, printers and other office equipment if it doesn’t work right. This included demolishing a printer with a battering ram, which might have been overkill. But if it wasn’t printing, it’s hard to see what other choice she had.

The scariest part about that moment was that she maintained her level of rage long enough to retrieve the battering ram, then return to the printer and put it to use. Even scarier might be the idea that she already had the ram at her desk.

3 SWEET: Jocelyn

Rosa was at her sweetest when she was dating Jocelyn Pryce, a woman training to be a stylist. She let Jocelyn practice her craft on her hair, leading to a series of well styled hairdos that were 100% inappropriate for Rosa.

When Jocelyn showed up at the 99 to break things off with Rosa, her feelings became even more apparent. Rosa did everything she could to keep Jocelyn from leaving her, efforts that were ultimately successful in that moment. Unfortunately, their relationship ultimately fell apart but not for lack of effort on Rosa’s part.

2 SCARY: Pimento

If there was any one thing that proves that Rosa is the scariest, toughest badass in the entire department, it’s the fact that she dated Adrian Pimento. That dude was completely off his rocker in every possible way. It’s hard to say if he was like that before he spent 12 years undercover or not.

The only people who were around in those days were Hitcock and Scully, and they don’t even live on the same planet as reliable. The fact that she was able to have a remotely functional relationship with Pimento proves that she is scary tough.

1 SWEET: Arlo

Charles Boyle is, was and always will be incredibly attached to his dogs. When Jason, the oldest of his dogs, passed away, his life was turned upside down. As Charles put it, Jason’s constant leg humping was the only thing that got him through his divorce.

Rosa didn’t understand why Jason’s death upset Charles so much, and randomly got him a puppy to replace him. Charles didn’t want the dog, so Rosa ended up keeping him and naming him Arlo. Within a day of becoming a dog mom, Rosa was willing to kill everyone in the precinct to protect him. That moment was equally sweet and scary.