HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. — They descended in droves on the sleepy harbor town, rousing it from its winter hibernation for a solemn ritual. Thousands of police officers in dress uniforms gathered Wednesday at a Long Island church to say goodbye to one of their own, a veteran New York detective killed in the line of duty.
The officers stretched from the Church of St. Rosalie in Hampton Bays as far east as the eye could see, stacked 10-deep in some places along Montauk Highway. With nothing but the lonely cadence of a bass drum, they stood at attention in stoic silence and raised white-gloved hands as a black hearse quietly passed through town. Clouds of breath rose above their salutes into a steel-gray sky.
Inside the hearse lay the coffin of Detective Brian Simonsen, shield number 3877, who was shot in the chest while responding to a robbery on a frigid night in Queens.
The officers came from as nearby as Suffolk County and as far away as Milwaukee. The crowd of about 6,000 was a fitting tribute for a 19-year veteran of the New York Police Department, known for his smile, his good humor and his ability to bring people together.
“It was never just a job for him, it was something much more powerful,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a eulogy. “Brian had a human instinct. He had the ability to bring our officers and our community closer and closer together.”
Earlier, as dawn crept over Hampton Bays, the Starbucks opposite the church had served as a grim reunion space. Officers, detectives and commanders from across the region greeted longtime friends with hugs and back slaps. They traded stories of promotions and precinct rotations. They shined brass buttons and tightened neckties.
It might have been mistaken for a more joyous occasion, had a black stripe not cut across each badge.
The circumstances surrounding Simonsen’s death were familiar to many officers. On the evening of Feb. 12, he was in Queens investigating an armed robbery. A physician had been severely beaten — his nose broken — and threatened at gunpoint before he gave up his wallet and phone.
It was the kind of case Simonsen had specialized in during his long career at the 102nd Precinct. When the police got a tip that a man sought in the case had been spotted, Simonsen and his supervisor, Sgt. Matthew Gorman, went in a car to search for him.
As they drove, a call came over the radio about an armed robbery at a nearby cellphone store. Simonsen and Gorman arrived alongside patrol officers. Neither was wearing body armor.
As Gorman and two officers entered the store, Christopher Ransom, 27, emerged from a back room, waving what was later discovered to be a fake pistol. Gorman and the officers backed out of the entrance. Ransom came toward the door and jerked the imitation gun at officers as if he was firing, according to police and court records.
Seven police officers fired 42 rounds in the next 11 seconds. Eight hit Ransom, who survived. Another struck Gorman in the thigh. He, too, lived. But one bullet hit Simonsen in the chest, mortally wounding him. That a police officer fired the fatal bullet only deepened the grief the detective’s death has cast over the police force.
“Let me tell you something. Those cops responded to a call for help. They didn’t hesitate. And they are not to blame,” said the police commissioner, James P. O’Neill, his voice cracking during a eulogy. “The two people responsible for Brian’s death — the only two — are the career criminals who decided to go to that store on Tuesday night and commit an armed robbery.”
Jagger Freeman, 25, who the police have said acted as Ransom’s lookout, has also been arrested.
O’Neill added that Ransom, who has been charged with murder, had a long arrest record. “He’s a criminal. He’s a thief. And now he’s responsible for Brian’s death,” the commissioner said.
In a twist, the victim in the robbery that Simonsen was investigating was one of the doctors on duty at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center the night the detective died, O’Neill said. Officers have since made two additional arrests in that case.
“One of the final tributes paid to Brian was the way his fellow detectives took over that brutal Feb. 4 robbery case of his, working hard on it, even as they grappled with his loss,” O’Neill said.
To booming applause, O’Neill then promoted Simonsen posthumously to detective, first-grade. The ovation lasted almost a full minute.
Simonsen had spent his life on Long Island, growing up in Riverhead and settling on a quiet street in Calverton with his wife, Leanne, a nurse he married in 2013.
During the memorial, Simonsen was remembered as a stalwart friend and a pillar of the neighborhood who was always quick to lend a hand or open his home. He once insisted that his partner, Detective Ricky Waters, who was going through a divorce, live with him in Calverton.
“Brian was a true friend. He never wanted anything in return other than to know that I was OK and back on my feet,” Waters said through sobs. “I will miss my partner. But mostly I will miss my friend.”
On Simonsen’s street, people in nearly every home had tied blue and black ribbons to poles, mailboxes and trees. Several neighbors flew black and white American flags with a single blue line, a symbol of support for the police.
The funeral procession wound its way to the northern edge of Flanders Bay, then to Jamesport Cemetery, a modest graveyard on a gentle hill, not far from where Simonsen grew up.
At 12:30 p.m., dozens of officers arrived in buses and arranged themselves next to the grave site. They raised white gloves to their foreheads as six uniformed men lowered the black coffin into the grave. The floral arrangements nearby included one made of white flowers that spelled the detective’s nickname, “Smiles.” As he was laid to rest, snow flurries started to fall.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.