What you should know
- A man charged in the 2019 friendly fire death of a veteran New York City Police detective was sentenced Wednesday to 33 years in prison, plus five years of post-release supervision, after pleading guilty to manslaughter. aggravated and robbery.
- Christopher Ransom, who had initially been charged with murdering Detective Brian Simonsen, 42, waived his right to appeal during last month’s guilty plea hearing and answered affirmatively to questions asked by Judge Kenneth Holder in court. .
- Simonsen was shot in the chest in February 2019 when he and six other officers opened fire on Ransom during a robbery at a T-Mobile store in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens. Another sergeant was injured.
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NEW YORK – A man charged in the 2019 friendly fire death of a veteran New York City Police detective was sentenced Wednesday to 33 years in prison, plus five years of post-release supervision, after plead guilty to aggravated murder and robbery.
Christopher Ransom, who had initially been charged with murdering Detective Brian Simonsen, 42, waived his right to appeal during last month’s guilty plea hearing and answered affirmatively to questions asked by Judge Kenneth Holder in court. .
Simonsen was shot in the chest in February 2019 when he and six other officers opened fire on Ransom during a robbery at a T-Mobile store in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens. Another sergeant was injured.
Ransom, who police say was pointing a fake pistol, had said the shooting was due to a “prank that went terribly wrong.” He said he returned the money to the workers, a claim investigators deny, but police were already responding.
NYPD officers fired a total of 42 rounds at the scene in 11 seconds, investigators said.
A criminal complaint posted after the shooting said that Ransom and another man obtained $ 1,000 and 25 iPhones from the theft. They planned to split the profits.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said the 30-year-old Ransom “set off a terrible chain of events that began with a robbery and ended with a barrage of bullets.”
In an interview after his arrest, Ransom said he was “not a monster” and did not anticipate what happened. Police described him as a criminal with a record of more than two dozen arrests prior to this case; his friends called him an eccentric prankster.
The Legal Aid Society, which represented Ransom in the case, issued a statement Wednesday saying its client “assumes full responsibility for his actions.”
“The resolution of the case, however, should not detract from the immense physical and emotional pain he continues to suffer as a result of the injuries sustained in the New York police friendly shooting,” the statement said.
Ransom, who has 25 prior arrests, including one for posing as a police officer, was shot eight that winter day in 2019.
The Legal Aid Society says he is still scarred, physically and emotionally.
“He will carry the physical scars and emotional trauma of this event for the rest of his life. Despite this, Mr. Ransom is committed to seeking rehabilitation and redemption,” the group said in a statement. “We hope that the New York City Police Department will also take this opportunity to reexamine its own procedures and training so that a tragedy like this never happens again.”
Simonsen, a 19-year veteran of the NYPD, was known from childhood as “Smiles” for his cheerful and welcoming nature, colleagues and friends said.
He grew up on the eastern tip of Long Island. He and his wife continued to live nearby in Calverton, more than an hour’s drive from District 102 where he spent his entire career in the NYPD. Simonsen was survived by his wife and mother.
“This is a difficult day for your wife, a difficult day for your family,” said Detective Staffing Association president Paul DiGiacomo of the expected sentencing after last month’s statement. “Christopher Ransom, I hope you spend every day of those 33 years behind bars and think about how many lives it has affected.”
At the time of his death, top NYPD officials said that the entire department respected and appreciated Ransom as a police officer, colleague and friend.
“There wasn’t a person in 102 who didn’t know him, from the cleaner to the command officer,” then-New York Police Department Chief Terence Monahan said at the time of Simonsen’s death. “He was who you called if you had a problem. Not only did the police know him well, the community, everyone knew him, he was the policeman you contacted if it was necessary to solve a problem.”
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