Slain cop remembered as ‘one of the best’ by former partner

NYPD Detective Brian Simonsen was remembered Wednesday by his former partner as the “most generous, pure person” he had ever known.

“Brian brought joy and happiness and light to the world, period,” Shelter Island cop and ex-NYPD officer Terrence LeGrady said outside Simonsen’s Long Island home, where friends and fellow police officers gathered a day after Simonsen was killed by friendly fire during a Queens robbery.

“New York lost an honest to God one of the best,” said LeGrady, who added, “I think we would need a football stadium to hold the number of friends he actually had.”

LeGrady said the 42-year-old Simonsen, who was married, did not have children despite earlier reports, but did have “a lot of nieces and nephews and he had a lot of friends’ children who called him ‘Uncle Brian.’ ”

“He was the person who showed up at your house when your kid was missing a baseball mitt,” LeGrady said. “He would go and buy a brand new mitt for the kid.”

Simonsen, whose 19th anniversary with the NYPD was coming up in March, was fatally shot Tuesday night while responding to a robbery at a T-Mobile store in Richmond Hill with Sgt. Matthew Gorman.

Gorman was shot and wounded in friendly fire as well.

LeGrady said Simonsen grew up in the Suffolk County town of Riverhead and commuted every day “because he genuinely loved what he did for a living.”

“I had the pleasure of working with him for a long time,” said LeGrady. “He could walk into any situation in as crazy as it could possibly be and he had the ability to calm everything down and without ever raising his voice, without ever raising his hands.”

Simonsen “was a complete professional and I think that because he was such a great person, people that needed help recognized that right away,” LeGrady said.

LeGrady went on to say that Simonsen’s devastated wife “is as you can probably imagine.”

Simonsen, who joined the NYPD in March 2002 and spent his career working out of the 102nd Precinct, was a detective third-grade whose more than 500 arrests consisted mostly of robbery busts, a police source said.

“Brian truly was a great, great guy and he was truly a great detective who took pleasure in his work,” the source said. “He was great to be around because it made your day easier.”

Simonsen’s neighbors were heartbroken by the news of his death.

“He is a great man,” said neighbor Rosa Sangra, 50, who burst into tears when she learned that Simonsen had died.

How our readers can help

Answer the Call will give the family of Detective Brian Simonsen $25,000 to assist them with immediate expenses, and will provide his widow, Leanne, annual financial assistance for the rest of her life.

Answer the Call was founded in 1985 by the late New York Met Rusty Staub, and has distributed more than $150 million directly to the families of those who lost a loved one in the line of duty.