It’s like USSR: cop-kill defense
One of the men charged with murder in the friendlyfire death of an NYPD detective was hit with top charges in a “Soviet Union” style bid to distract from the cops’ failures that night, his lawyer claimed Tuesday.
“Obviously, procedures were violated, obviously people screwed up,” Christopher Ransom’s lawyer, Ken Finkelman, told reporters shortly after his client was formally indicted in the Feb. 12 death of Detective Brian Simonsen. “One way of distracting from all that is to say it’s all Mr. Ransom’s fault.”
“It just has a Kafkaesque, Soviet Union-type feel to it,” Finkelman railed, adding that his client was being “overcharged and scapegoated” as part of the purported misdirection maneuver.
Ransom, a 27-year-old career criminal, was packing a fake gun when he robbed a Richmond Hill cellphone store just over a week ago, police say.
When he allegedly charged toward cops with the realistic-looking firearm, seven officers fired 42 bullets.
Ransom was struck eight times, but also hit were Simonsen, fatally, and Sgt. Matthew Gorman, who survived a shot to the leg.
Finkelman added that it was “ridiculous” that Ransom was charged with murder for “waving around a toy gun” — and speculated that the man he’s charged with killing would agree.
“The deceased detective seems like a great guy, a wonderful person,” Finkelman said. “I really have doubts that he would have wanted to see our client go away for the rest of his life pursuant to a homicide charge in these circumstances.”
Meanwhile, NYPD brass and city officials, including Police Commissioner James O’Neill and Mayor de Blasio, went to a Long Island church for the second day of wakes for Simonsen.
The mourners at the Church of St. Rosalie in Hamptons Bay also included Gorman, in a wheelchair and clad in his ceremonial dress blues.
Simonsen’s funeral will be held Wednesday.