Widow of NYPD friendly-fire cop Brian Simonsen: ‘I just can’t believe it happened again’

The widow of an NYPD cop killed by friendly fire in February told The Post in a tearful interview after another similar tragedy this week that the department must address “trigger-happy” officers.

“I just can’t believe it happened again,” said Leanne Simonsen, whose detective husband Brian Simonsen was accidentally killed by fellow cops during a chaotic Queens robbery Feb. 12 — nearly eight months before Bronx Officer Brian Mulkeen also was slain by friendly fire.

“I know things happen in seconds,” she said in a heart-wrenching exclusive interview.

“But there’s gotta be some way that you clear your guys before you just start firing.”

The 45-year-old widow — breaking down at times recalling her hero husband and how he died — said of friendly-fire tragedies, “Let me just start with, it’s the perp’s fault no matter what. I’m not blaming the NYPD.

“But do I feel like [police brass] need to do something. Training? Absolutely,” she said.

Simonsen’s 42-year-old husband died in a flurry of 42 police bullets during the robbery of a T-Mobile store by a masked man who pulled a fake gun on responding officers.

Brian Simonsen, a 19-year veteran working his day off to help crack a robbery pattern ahead of a CompStat meeting, was fatally struck in the chest by a police bullet as he and six other cops began firing. The suspect was shot eight times but survived.

“I mean, 42 shots to me is insane,” Leanne Simonsen said. “And it just baffles me. Why? Why so many?

“I don’t know the answer, but it’s almost like a trigger-happy thing. It’s almost like, once you hear one officer fire, you all start firing. It’s almost like a reaction. You just start shooting.

“So was it that? Did they want to be the hero?”

Leanne, who was married to her husband for six years, said that hearing Mulkeen also died from friendly fire Sunday “just kind of brought me right back to Day One.

“My heart breaks for his family because I know exactly what they’re going through,” she said.

Mulkeen, 33, was struggling with an armed suspect in a public-housing project when his gun went off, prompting his police comrades to open fire.

The former college track-and-field star got off five shots but ending up fatally felled by two police bullets as his partners fired 10 times. The suspect also died in the fusillade.

Simonsen’s widow said of her husband’s own death at the hands of his comrades: “I almost I feel like it’s worse for me — not that anything would make it better — but I almost feel like it was worse for me that it was friendly fire.

“I mean, to just fire when you don’t even know?”

At the time of Simonsen’s death, Mayor de Blasio told reporters, “We told the Simonsen family that the New York City Police Department will be with them. New York City will be with them. As long as they live, we will support them.”

But Leanne said the NYPD’s handling of the aftermath of her husband’s friendly-fire killing has only added to her pain.

“I feel like I’ve never really gotten an apology and no explanation and no ‘This is what we’re going to try to different.’ I think something needs to be done, especially after Brian Mulkeen,” she said.

NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said after Mulkeen’s death that lessons “can be learned,” although he offered no immediate changes the department is considering.

Police sources have told The Post that while a new training video was distributed to cops after Brian Simonsen’s death, it simply rehashed existing policy: “Knowing where your partner is, knowing where other officers are,” a source said — adding, “But you can’t always know.”

Leanne Simonsen said that in the case of the officers who accidentally shot her husband, “I just feel like there should have been some suspension.

“Not a suspension for punishment, but a suspension for retraining. … Something rather than just, ‘Oh, here’s your guns back. Get back out there.’

“They didn’t screen them in any way,” she claimed. “They were given their guns back, and they’re back on the street like nothing happened, and that really kind of bothers me.

“And nobody even told me,” the widow lamented. “I’ve learned from … Brian’s squad that that’s what happened. Nobody even told me that there were going to be no repercussions.

“They just go on like nothing happened.”

She said she is still dealing with her husband’s death.

“It wasn’t just one murder that night. It took my life away, too,” Leanne Simonsen said.

“ He was actually my world. Without him, I just feel like I exist.

“It’s just hard to find joy in anything. I try to carry on traditions. He was a big Sunday football guy and always had people here. I try to invite people to sit with me and watch the games even if they’re just on in the background.”

She said a week before her husband’s death, a neighbor told her she saw him leaving the house and asked him how he was.

“And he was like, “I’m living the dream.’ Then, he looked at her, and he said, ‘You know what, I am living the dream.’

“She was like, ‘The way he said it, I was so jealous, because he was serious about it.’ Now, my life, like I say, I’m just trying to get through each day.”

The widow recalled one touching story about her husband, whose nickname was “Smiles,” and the snowmobile he bought two weeks before his death.

She said she came home one day and found an envelope from Amazon.

“It was stickers for his snowmobile. … He was like, ‘I’m going to decorate my snowmobile,” Leanne Simonsen said.

“He was just such a kid.

“He was just so happy to be alive.”

She noted that her husband was his 102nd Squad’s delegate to their union, the Detectives Endowment Association, speaking up for them when they had problems.

“Brian was always my voice,” Leanne Simonsen said.

Now, after his and Mulkeen’s death, “I feel like I have to be his voice.

“I do feel like I need to be his voice to make some sort of change. I just have to educate myself a little more.

“I mean, to just fire when you don’t even know?”

The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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