What you should know
- A man charged in the death of a New York Police officer in 2019 has reached a plea deal and faces 33 years in prison.
- Detective Brian Simonsen was shot in the chest in February 2019 when he and six other officers opened fire on Christopher Ransom during a robbery at a T-Mobile store in Queens.
- Ransom, who police say was pointing a fake pistol, had said the shooting was due to a “prank that went terribly wrong.”
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NEW YORK – A man charged in the 2019 death of a New York City Police Department detective pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and robbery. He now faces 33 years in prison, police said.
Christopher Ransom, who had initially been charged with murdering 42-year-old Detective Brian Simonsen, waived his right to appeal during the hearing and responded affirmatively to questions asked by Judge Kenneth Holdre in court.
He will be sentenced in mid-November.
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.
New York City Police 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.
In an interview after his arrest, Ransom said he was “not a monster” and did not anticipate what happened. Police described him as a career criminal with more than two dozen arrests prior to this case; his friends called him an eccentric prankster.
Simonsen, a 19-year veteran of the New York City Police, was known from childhood as “Smiles“Because of her bright and welcoming nature, her 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 law enforcement. Simonsen was survived by his wife and mother.
And he was also loved by the entire department.
“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. “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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