“This appears to be an absolutely tragic case of friendly fire,” an emotional O’Neill said at a late-night news conference. Brian Simonsen, 42, was struck in the chest as multiple officers fired on the suspect at a T-Mobile store in Queens, O’Neill said. Simonsen, a 19-year NYPD veteran, was put in a squad car and taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Simonsen and Gorman were working on another case nearby when the call came over and arrived around the same time as patrol officers, O’Neill said. In December, a police officer on Staten Island survived being hit by friendly fire as officers responding to a domestic dispute call shot and killed a man carrying a knife.

Source: Huffington Post February 13, 2019 06:22 UTC