Queens man convicted of murdering NYPD detective shot by fellow officers
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Jagger Freeman (right) and attorney Ronald Nir (left) in 2019. Freeman was convicted of murder this week in the NYPD friendly-fire death of Detective Brian Simonsen. Pool file photo by Charlie Eckert
By Jacob Kaye
Following one of the longest trials in Queens Criminal Court this year, a jury convicted Jagger Freeman of murder in the death of an NYPD detective who was shot by his fellow officers during a robbery gone wrong in 2019.
Freeman, a 28-year-old from Jamaica, became the second man convicted for the murder of NYPD Detective Brian Simonsen following Monday’s verdict. The jury, which deliberated for nearly six full days, found him guilty of nearly all the charges against him, including felony murder, robbery, assault and grand larceny. The jury did not find Freeman guilty of a weapons charge prosecutors brought against him.
Christopher Ransom, Freeman’s co-defendant, pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter and robbery charges in October 2021 and is currently serving a 33-year prison sentence. Freeman, who will return to court for sentencing on June 30, is expected to be handed a 25-year to life in prison sentence by Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder.
Prosecutors had a steep hill to climb in their effort to convict Freeman on murder charges – Freeman neither had a gun nor was he inside the T-Mobile store he and Ransom had planned to rob when Simonsen and a second NYPD official, NYPD Sergeant Matthew Gorman, were shot. Gorman and Simonsen were struck by bullets fired by their fellow officers, who fired when Ransom pulled out a fake gun that police said they believed to be real, and ran at Simonsen. Ransom was also struck during the 42-bullet barrage.
Freeman was charged and convicted under the controversial felony murder rule, which is used in over 40 states including New York. The rule states that if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, the death can be charged as murder for all participants in the alleged felony, even if they had no intention to kill or any role in the killing itself.
The rule allows for an affirmative defense, which was used by Freeman’s attorney, Ronald Nir. The defense, which applies to situations where the felony was committed by more than one person, argues that the defendant didn’t actually commit or solicit the killing, that they were not in possession of a deadly weapon, that they had no reason to believe the other person was carrying a deadly weapon and that they had no reason to believe that the other person intended to cause serious injury or death.
Nir, who argued during trial that Freeman had no knowledge that Ransom would charge at the police with a fake gun, said he was “disappointed” in the jury’s verdict.
“What really bothers me is that if you take the evidence that came out at trial, you literally had testimony that Ransom ran at the police with a fake gun – and they found my client guilty,” Nir told the Eagle. “Who in their right mind, even if you believe that he knew about the [fake] gun, even if you believe that he knew about the robbery, how could he have the same intent and the same knowledge as a person who runs at the police and gets shot?”
Nir also said that he believes the use of the felony murder rule in Freeman’s case was stretching an already flexible rule. The attorney previously represented a client who was charged under the rule after he punched someone in the head and who later died of the injuries sustained in the attack.
“You get more [felony murder cases] like that than [Freeman’s case],” Nir said. “This is an odder set of circumstances because his participation, even though he was in the area, was mostly through text messages and web search history.”
The prosecution, led by Queens Assistant District Attorney Shawn Clark, presented numerous electronic communications made by Freeman to lay out his involvement in the crime in a successful attempt to argue that Freeman set in motion the chain of events that led to Simonsen’s death.
Among those pieces of evidence was an online search made by Freeman in the days following the robbery in which he asked if a civilian could be charged with murder if one police officer shoots another – the answer is yes, under the felony murder rule.
Critics of the rule say that it disproportionately affects people of color, who account for a majority of felony cases in New York City, and that it unfairly is the only charge in the state that doesn't require intent.
“What is built into our law is this belief that individuals should be convicted of crimes that they committed and that they intended to commit — that’s mens rea,” Jamal Johnson, the director of Legal Aid’s Homicide Defense Task Force, told the Eagle in 2019. “For a charge that requires life [in prison] if convicted, to take away the mens rea element is profoundly unjust.”
Prosecutors said that Freeman was the orchestrator of two T-Mobile store robberies, the second of which led to Simonsen’s death in Richmond Hill.
Around the start of February 2019, Freeman reached out to Ransom via text message and told him that should Ransom act as the muscle, stealing cash and property from the phone stores, Freeman would be able to resell the goods and split the profits afterward, according to the charges.
On Feb. 8, 2019, the two men went to rob a T-Mobile store on Linden and Farmers Boulevards, with Freeman serving as the look-out, according to the indictment. Ransom went inside the store with a black ski mask pulled over his face, took out a fake gun and ordered several employees to give him cash from the register and inventory from the back room.
Prosecutors said that following the successful robbery, Freeman reached out to Ransom about committing a second one.
On Feb. 12, 2019, Freeman checked into a Jamaica hotel and waited for Ransom to arrive. When he did, the pair took a taxi to the Richmond Hill T-Mobile store on Atlantic Avenue and 120th Street.
Arriving around 6 p.m., Freeman allegedly made his way across the street to watch as Ransom went in with the fake gun and ski mask and told two employees to open up the safes in the back of the store.
A man outside saw Ransom enter the store with a ski mask on and called the police.
Simonsen and Gorman were the first to arrive at the scene. They entered the store but left to wait for more officers to arrive. When they did, several uniformed officers made their way inside.
Ransom came out of the back room, pulled out the fake gun and ran toward the front door, prosecutors said.
The police officers began to fire at Ransom, hitting him once in the testicles. Running out of the store, he approached Simonsen as the officers continued to fire toward the suspect and the detective.
One of the shots fatally hit Simonsen in the chest. Gorman was wounded by a shot to the leg.
Freeman left the scene as the shots rang out. He was arrested at a friend’s house several days later.
Paul DiGiacomo, the president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, applauded the conviction.
“Jagger Freeman set out to commit a violent robbery,” DiGiacomo said in a statement. “If not for his and Christopher Ransom’s actions, Detective Brian Simonsen would be alive today. They planned together, went to the scene of the crime together – and now, together, they will be behind bars where they belong.”
The trial, which began in mid-April with jury selection, was often attended by a number of detectives and NYPD officials. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz also made an appearance on the first day of testimony.
“The jury has spoken. The defendant’s actions set in motion a terrible chain of events that began with an armed robbery in progress and resulted in the tragic loss of Detective Brian Simonsen as well as Sergeant Matthew Gorman being shot in the leg,” Katz said in a statement. “We express our condolences to Detective Simonsen’s family and hope today’s verdict brings them a measure of closure.”
