The Fitzsimmons Case — When the System That's Supposed to Help Becomes the Threat

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1:00This is Hidden Tillers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Dree. Let's go to another case that's starting to get some traction. The trial actually starts up on Monday, and it's a bench trial. No jury involved here. This is the judge. Here's what you need to know about the Kelsey Fitz Simmons case. Before we get to your questions, Kelsey Fitz Simmons is a police officer in North and over Massachusetts. She gave birth in February of 2025, and within weeks she was involuntarily committed for postpartum depression and surrendered her weapons. By June, her fiance had filed a restraining order against her, claiming she was a danger to herself, to him, and to their baby. An officer from her own department showed up at her door to serve that order and take her son. What happened next is where the case splits into two completely different stories. The officers who responded say Fitz Simmons pulled her service weapon and pointed it at

2:01them and pulled the trigger. Fitz Simmons says she just pointed it at herself and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Thank God. The accusation, however, is that when it clicked, when the allegation as she pointed it, then she went back and racked the weapon, and at that moment in time, that small couple seconds of decision-making, the officer says, well, that's when I fired mine because he was afraid it's going to be racked. There's going to be a bullet in that chamber and it's going to go one in two places at me or at her, that she was in a mental health crisis that when she was trying to take her own life. That is what she is claiming. One of those officers shot her in the chest. She spent 53 days in the hospital with a collapsed lung, spent 100 days in total behind bars because one of the conditions of her release was being able to blow into a breathalyzer, and she couldn't do because she had a collapsed lung, and that was the reason she was kept behind bars. Again, crazy. There's a lot of crazy all over this case that just doesn't make a lot of sense.

3:03She's now charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. Her trial starts March 23rd, and as of today, she has waved her right to the jury trial. A judge will decide this alone. There's a lot in this case. Robin, she pointed a gun at a cop or at herself. That's the whole case, and there's no video of the actual moment. They didn't have body camps. Then you have two completely opposite accounts of that same split second event and no footage to settle it. How does anyone investigate or judge anyone actually figure out what happened? So I'm giving a lot of grace to the cop that shot her on this one, and so let's just do our thought experiment on this. So here is a woman that is suffering from postpartum depression. She has a record of having some struggles with alcohol, and they sent three people to serve the warrants for, which we call it, protective order against her. Typically, you send two, but they sent two plus a supervisor, meaning it's a heightened

4:05alert. They were aware that she has been armed because she's law enforcement officer, and she's been accused of striking her fiancee in those situations. They were going in prime for potential issue with her because of her mental state, and the person that served the order upstairs had 20 plus years experience. I'm going to listen to the words of the 20 year experience officer that was, that was briefed well on this case compared to the person suffering from postpartum depression, and alcohol abuse issues potentially. I'm going on him. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's one of those things where you look at this case, and there's a lot of wrong here in it. They gave her her weapon back after a certain amount of time, and then they had to go back and get it again, because I mean, it's, it's another situation, it seems, where very

5:08critical decisions about mental health and the stability of a person's mental health are being made by people who don't fully understand mental health. Yeah. And also, having law enforcement is a very, very tight group, and I, I think there is probably a lot of compassion for her about what was going on in her life from what I'm, from again, I just, you get, you get a flavor of the tempo, you get a flavor of the vibe you're getting from what I'm reading on the case, and who they sent there, and how they wanted to handle it, how they're trying to handle it, and who knows why the camp, the body camps and everything was off, that's probably my guess is that, they didn't have body camps. They just didn't have them. That's, yeah, see what I mean, it's, it's, it's, I'm thinking they, they're trying to do her a solid, it was my impression of this thing, and she made the choice to take out a weapon.

6:08When you're in that heightened situation, you get a weapon taken out, I don't, you know, I don't care whether you think that weapon's being pointed to you, themselves or anything, when you see a weapon being drawn, and someone is losing their shit, or potentially, because you've seen, you've seen the case file on this, your reaction is going to be immediate, one of years experience, I'm going to eliminate the threat to me and everyone else, and it's a very tough situation because I guarantee this, he didn't want to do that, I guarantee we didn't want to do that. No, I mean, they're co-workers, like they knew each other. Yes. I mean, see, add that to it as well, this wasn't just, you know, gang, bang, you know, situation where you know, you know, but, and they knew going into it that she, we had these extreme mental health struggles going on, and, and look, if I don't blame the officer, because, like I said in the piece yesterday, it's a wrist, it's the flick of a wrist, she could be here or she could be there, and you have that, this amount of time to decide

7:10what you're going to do, because that bullet's going to go one way or another, and you have to assume the gun is loaded, no matter what. They did, the purpose of part of this was to serve the papers and to get the weapon back. So they, it wasn't like they got there, and she just drew a weapon on them. They, they, an officer followed her, I believe it was to the bedroom. Yep, Sarah. To, to retrieve the weapon. The fact, I guess, and look, if you're in the situation, and, and she's flicking this thing around, and it might be loaded, you got to do what you got to do. I guess my question is, is this an example, though, where it, in hindsight's 2020, but it could have been handled differently? Why are we, why are we giving her, why did they give her the opportunity to put her hand on a weapon? Why didn't they just take her, or lead us to where it is, don't, and I want you to touch the weapon, I want you to pick up the weapon, lead me to where it is, and I will retrieve it for you. Why, why are they putting themselves in the situation, and I guess, maybe it's hindsight

8:122020, they may be saying, yeah, maybe we should have done that differently. But we're dealing with human beings here, and again, not everybody is trained in, in mental health crises, most are not. Was this, it's an oversight, in some way, shape, or form that should be, maybe looked at now as a learning moment, for any time one has to find themselves in this situation, how to handle it. So this window doesn't get opened, and, and the possibility for this to even take place doesn't exist when you're dealing with an unstable person. Yeah, there's no doubt they're going to be rewriting policy on this. Human policy is probably already in place anyway, but from what I understand, reading it, and actually watching what you covered yesterday, the, it looks like she'd lulled them into a sense of security because she was very compliant at the door. She didn't fight. She didn't, wasn't arguing. She knew these people. And so when asked, I mean, so again, I just walk myself through being, being right there, being the 20 year veteran that's talking to Kelsey's, and you walk in, say, hey, Kelsey,

9:12and we're here to serve the order. I apologize. I know this is pretty traumatic and tough on you, and she's probably, and from what we understand, she's like, oh, no, no, probably understand. Here we can go get my weapon. And so as she's leading them upstairs, she probably was, and he's witnessing her being compliant, very congruent, no alerting body language, no alerting statements, and all of a sudden she goes from zero to a hundred loses her shit, and all of a sudden the gun comes out and not in a hand that over to you sort of way, where you're going to clear the weapon in a corner, you know, point there, I mean, there's a way that when even when you're in a home and you clear a weapon around another professional that has seen you clear weapons, you take it out, you verify, you know, magazine drop, and you cock the slide to rear, and you're pointing at a bottom edge of the floor there. So if it does happen to go off accidentally, it's actually at the bottom edge of the floor, where so no rounds could go anywhere except right there. So there's a way to professionally clear in a situation like that, to verify that person. And she must have been compliant to that certain point, and all of a sudden something snapped and something broke.

10:14I think she just lulled them into that complacency. Yeah. I mean, and is that that's really just kind of part of not understanding the capacity for which a person that is suffering from, from postpartum depression or mental illness or whatever it may be, their capacity for what they can do, that they can act really normal for a little while, and then they can change it up just like that. They can lure someone into this or that, and I guess you just have to follow protocol. And that's the problem. You have a standard operating procedure for things like this, because things have gone sideways before, you know, as much grace as I want to give the officers for responding like that, I take the grace back because you should have followed the procedure regardless of the relationship, regardless of being lulled into complacency. Again, this is not judging because we weren't there on the shoes of, but you have protocols in place that you should exercise no matter what for the safety and security of everyone involved.

11:15But yeah, why she had the weapons began with that's the other issue too, but they tried defending that action in the statements I read, but at the same time, any kind of mental health issue, especially postpartum, postpartum is such a serious issue with people to chemical imbalance that strike the brain randomly. And then I looked it up to stats too when you talk about, again, we're seeing hints of, we're not, you know, me and my sensitivities to seeing hints of alcohol involvement, alcohol is like throwing caracene on a fire of postpartum because a lot of times what I've read from the studies is that women that are suffering postpartum, the feelings of depression, they will use alcohol as an escape from those feelings, which is actually sends alcohol to the present, exasperates a situation greatly. And now we don't know whether she's drinking their inner pregnancy, that actually increases the likelihood of postpartum issues. I mean, so there's a lot of, every time I started seeing alcohol being thrown throughout this, because the first question I asked was, was she was a blood alcohol content taken

12:15and no, it wasn't because it collapsed long. I mean, this is a lot of issues going on here of chemical soups of nutters. Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, it's, I've lived it with a partner, I knew someone as well. And it's, it's, it's, it's horrible. It is horrible. I, I, I 1,000% feel for her because she's not in control of how her brain is functioning. And I feel sorry for anybody that loves her and is, is trying to take care of her and trying to help her because you're just there to get run over. And, and, and you, and it, most people don't know how to handle that or deal with it and for the most, everyone, it's their first round at it when it's going down. So nobody knows what the fuck's going on. My wife and I lost a high school classmate to it. Yeah. Very horrible. It, I do not wish that I'm my worst fucking enemy ever. I mean, it is such a, a, a, a maddening, difficult, just, it, it's horrible. And I think that explains a lot of her behavior.

13:17As far as what was going on and it just feels like a lot of people were not quite recognizing this. And then we, we got to chaos land because it was handled in all these different ways. But, but there's still accountability on her part for all this. I do not deny that whatsoever. The problem that we have here is, okay, you have a lot of things where it, it looks like in these text messages between her and the husband were just, or the boyfriend, the fiance, were just released. And if you read that text string, it's very clear what's going on. He was actually, he was being very professional in it or very clear cut, very calm, very stating the fact, not getting emotional. I need to get my stuff. I need to do this. She's denying it. She starts using the child as leverage. Starts trying to guilt him with a child, starts saying, you know, he's a bad father. Oh my, I mean, it's just, it's complete emotional manipulation. I don't know if it's, that's just how she is or if it's part of being what's, but brought on with the, with the postpartum. We don't know the answer to that. But either way, it is what it is. And had the flips been, the scripts been flipped, we'd be having a very different conversation.

14:19Yeah. And also to that too, I mean, her, her record, when you look it up, I mean, here's, here's a young woman who was an amazing, driven, in a very positive way person in law enforcement. She went to college for this. She got, I mean, this is all she ever wanted to do for a very long time and she had a very good reputation for, again, just from the outside. We don't know internally, but I mean, here's someone who is on a good track, very professional, her fiance too. And so again, when you show them up the front door and you know the person, they have a great track record. And they're having an issue because again, I, they probably know, you know, everyone's touched by these things. I, I think that was just, I think it was just a moment that she was had. Yeah, it was just horrendous. Humans being humans and, and, and there's going to be error when, when things go way outside of the world. Or they should die. Yeah. No, that's, that is certainly true. I mean, you guys have any thoughts on, on, on not going for a jury and just going for a bench

15:22trial? Look that up. It's a good question. Why no jury and going to bench trial. So in cases where defense thinks it's a really, really strong technical case on the side of the defendant and not really, they don't want to play into the emotions of it because they think they, first of all, that if the judge has a good reputation for being very fair and equitable when it comes to facts, data, and details, they're going to potentially weigh on going for a judge. So I think that's probably what it was is that technically, you know, with her prognosis diagnoses with all these things, they think it stands a greater chance, I think. It's, it's going to be fascinating to watch. It's only expected to last just a few days as bench trial, but we'll be watching it here and, and bringing it to you. I, there, is there going to be audio on this one? I don't, I don't know, no, okay, there's none. But we will, we'll, of course, update you every day on, on how this plays out. It's a fascinating one to watch, and it's one where there's, there's, there's so many

16:24moving parts to it, where, where there's, there's wrong here, there's wrong there, there's right here, there's right here, but there's, there's, there's, there's humans in all of it. It's a heartbreaking one to me because she was suffering and made some bad choices. And, and, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of oopsies on this one. Thank God no one died. I just, I just hope she's coming back from the challenges and problems that she's faced at, medically on this, you know, mentally, down, hopefully, yeah, without a doubt. Your thoughts on the comments section on substack in YouTube. We'd love to hear them and we'll continue our conversation over there. Be sure to press subscribe wherever you get podcasts. You don't miss any of our coverage of this or the many cases that we follow for you right here. Robyn's new book. It is out this week. It's not all about me. It's available wherever books are sold in Corey Richens. If you're really bored in prison and watching like we've been saying, this is a good one for you. It's a good one for you. Yeah. Oh, my God. That would be so funny, wouldn't it? Her, she got some free time. So went to her. Maybe send one to her. That would be great.

17:25So in between, in between writing your novels about, you know, getting drugs in Mexico and all that. Maybe it's just a little, you know, a little, a little, a couple of cleanser. She might tell people she wrote it though. That's the only problem. Sure. She's just going to take it in AI and like, by Corey Richens, it'll be great. So it's not all about me. She'll just change it. It is all about me. By Corey Richens, are you, are you with me, yes, yeah, yeah, it's, anyway, check that out. All right. Until next time for Robert and Todd, I'm Tony Bursky. We will talk again real soon.