June Hawkins’ True Story Explained — Everything Griselda Leaves Out About The Miami Detective (& Where She Is Now)

Griselda, the 2024 miniseries based on the life of the infamous Colombian drug lord, features June Hawkins (Juliana Aidén Martinez) in a critical role, a real-life person from history. Griselda is a Netflix crime show in the same vein as Narcos and Queen of the South, and like those series, it takes an intimate look at a notorious figure in the history of the drug trade. Sofía Vergara stars as the titular Griselda Blanco, a Colombian drug lord who began operating in Miami, Florida in the 1980s, eventually coming to be known as the “Godmother of Cocaine”.

The show follows Blanco’s rise up through the ranks of the drug trade, and her conflict with the cartels who are anxious about her power grab. Griselda is shockingly violent at times and deeply real about the consequences of a life in the cocaine business, and it never shies away from revealing the depths Blanco sank to. The story being rooted in history makes it all the more intriguing, with characters like June Hawkins being pulled straight from the papers. Hawkins is a key piece of the Griselda Blanco story and the series keeps the character close to reality.

Juliana Aidén Martinez Plays June Hawkins In Griselda

Blanco And Hawkins Share Some Similarities

Juliana Aidén Martinez appears in Griselda as Miami police sergeant, June Hawkins, in every episode of the show. She is one of the investigators tasked with taking down Blanco and Martinez gets to play every part of the cop in the role. Martinez is a detective in the office, unraveling clues and trying to figure out how to nail Blanco. In court, she’s collected and calm, a helpful source of information for the audience to get situated around the case. On the streets, she’s a capable and brave officer, willing to put her life on the line to stop Blanco.

Hawkins is also a single mother, like Blanco, and both women operate in “workplaces” traditionally dominated by men. Despite being on opposite sides of the law, the women have a shared experience, one that makes their conflict a bit deeper than just “cops and robbers”. Blanco and Hawkins moved to Miami for better opportunities for their children. What opportunities they decided to pursue once there is what eventually defined them, and decided the fate of their children.

June Hawkins Was A Real Life Miami Police Sergeant

Hawkins Joined The Force In 1975

June Hawkins was actually a real-life police sergeant in the Miami police department. Hawkins started as an intelligence analyst at the Miami-Dade Police Department, which had very few women on the force at the time (via VanityFair). According to the show’s co-creator, Doug Miro, Hawkins wasn’t even supposed to be in the show at first. It wasn’t until he started doing more research that he uncovered just how important she was to the investigation,

“[Hawkins] wasn’t at all part of the story. I was reading everything there was to read, searching everything online, speaking to the DEA agents I knew. It was a little bit piecemeal, but I pieced together June’s involvement.”

It’s a symptom of the sexism Hawkins faced in the workplace that her name is buried in the real story of Griselda Blanco. Fortunately, Martinez and Miro were able to place her in the story, where she belongs, on screen.

Everything Griselda Gets Right About June Hawkins

Hawkins Was Discriminated Against While Working In The Miami Police Department

Griselda does get a lot right about June Hawkins. Hawkins is multilingual, fluent in Spanish and English, while most of her colleagues at the time were not. Her ability to converse with Cuban and Latin suspects and witnesses when her white, male colleagues could not was crucial to uncovering Blanco’s involvement in the drug trade. The lack of respect shown to Hawkins in the show was also a sad reality of her time on the Miami police force.

Hawkins has described instances of colleagues disregarding her reports of criminals, even throwing them on the floor, and some of the sexual harassment she experienced.

Hawkins has described instances of colleagues disregarding her reports of criminals, even throwing them on the floor, and some of the sexual harassment she experienced. A scene in Griselda shows Hawkins having a panic attack in the back of a police car, which allegedly really happened (via Collider). Griselda also depicts some other scenes that actually happened, including an interaction with a pregnant witness, Hawkins’ trip to Washington D.C. to testify, and the retrieval of Amilcar’s (José Zúñiga) fingerprints off a car (via BusinessInsider).

Everything Griselda Gets Wrong About June Hawkins

Hawkins Was Not As Closely Involved In The Case As Depicted In The Show

Griselda does not get everything right, however, and there is plenty in the show that’s exaggerated, or is just plain made up, about June Hawkins for dramatic effect. While Hawkins was a key figure in catching Blanco, her involvement in the case and Blanco’s arrest is exaggerated (via HarpersBazaar). DEA agents Robert Palumbo and Al Singleton (Carter MacIntyre) were the two people most actively involved in the case, and who were most critical in putting Blanco away (via Netflix).

It was Palumbo, who does not appear in Griselda, who actually arrested Blanco in the end, not Hawkins. The personal ties between Blanco and Hawkins were dramatically exaggerated and a critical scene between the two women meeting is completely fictional. One of Griselda‘s producers, Eric Newman, said the scene of the women discussing their deceased children was fabricated in order to draw more parallels between them (via RadioTimes).

Here these two women are having strikingly similar life experiences, and yet they find themselves opposed.

While that scene may not have been real, it still helps to paint the picture of the differences between both sides of the law in America. Here these two women are having strikingly similar life experiences, and yet they find themselves opposed. Griselda explores how similar people can be dragged along completely different paths and what external and internal forces are at play that drive the lives of criminals and those who go after them.

Where Is June Hawkins Now?

Hawkins Is Married To Al Singleton And Retired

June Hawkins served on the Miami police force for 30 years, retiring in 2004 (via RadioTimes). Hawkins went on to marry Al Singleton, her partner in the show, and the couple live together in Tennessee now. Singleton and Hawkins were extremely helpful consultants on Griselda, giving the producers and actors insight into the events during that period and the mindsets of the characters. It’s been years since June Hawkins dealt with Blanco, and Griselda gave her the chance to reveal just how much she did for the investigation.