Rare but still tragic mistake

Fatal police-involved friendlyfire shootings are not common, but Tuesday’s tragedy was not the first time it happened in the NYPD.

But the death of NYPD Detective Brian Simonsen is the first time it has happened in a decade.

In 2009, Police Officer Omar Edwards (photo) was shot to death by a brother in blue while trying to nab a man who broke into his car in East Harlem. Edwards, 25, was off duty at the time.

Simonsen’s death Tuesday opened old wounds for Edwards’ family. He and his wife, Danielle, were married a mere three months before he was killed. They had two children together.

“It’s definitely very tragic,” said Edwards’ father-in-law William Glenn on Wednesday. “My heartfelt condolences go out to the family of Detective Simonsen and the police officers involved.”

Edwards’ death was made more complicated by the fact he was black, and the officer who shot him, Andrew Dunton, is white. Glenn, a retired cop, criticized Dunton’s promotion to sergeant in 2012, saying at the time that while it was an accident, it showed Dunton was not “supervisory material.”

“The last thing you want to do is shoot another human being, especially someone you work with,” Glenn said Wednesday.

Before Edwards, the last time an NYPD officer killed another cop was in 1988, when cops Joseph Galapo and John McCormick were killed within months of each other.

Galapo and partner William Martin were trying to arrest two drug suspects in Brooklyn when a scuffle broke out and ended with Martin’s service revolver going off. Galapo was truck in the head and died several hours later. McCormick died after a bullet went through a bedroom door and struck him in the face during a drug raid in Washington Heights.