Kelsey Fitzsimmons: The Evidence, the Ex, and the Charge That Doesn't Add Up

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Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

I'm the host of Big Technology podcast,

a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC.

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is changing the business world and our lives.

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Asking where this is all going,

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This is Hidden Killers Live

with Tony Ruski and Robin Dree.

All right, so we got three cases to get through today.

And we got some great folks to do it with.

We're going to start out by talking about Kelsey Fitzsimmons,

a new mother, a medically for postpartum depression.

A fiance who went to court and said he feared for his child's life.

And on June 30th, 2025, her own colleague showed up at her door

to handle every training order and to take her baby.

What happened next put a bullet in her chest

and a criminal charge on her record.

Kelsey Fitzsimmons is now days away from a bench trial

on assault with a dangerous weapon,

a charge that would send her to prison for up to five years.

Her ex faces nothing.

That's where this conversation starts.

And I know this is one of those cases

where there's a lot of opinions on both sides.

I just kind of want to discuss it for the facts of the case

and see where it lands.

I'd love for you guys to weigh in in the comments section.

Give us your feedback.

Give us your thoughts.

Your opinion certainly matters.

So we'll watch for that as we go through it.

Joining me to discuss.

Robin Dreeck, Retired FBI Special Agent,

former chief of the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program

as always.

And Jennifer Kaufendaffer, Retired FBI Special Agent,

it's always fun having you two on to discuss this sort of a case.

So she was a medical leave for a post-partum depression

when her own department showed up to take the kid

and get her weapon back that they had already given back

to her just a few days earlier.

This is obviously something where there's a big mental health

component of play.

Post-partum depression, very real thing, very scary thing,

very dangerous thing, and dangerous to deal with

if you don't know what you're doing.

At what point here does a welfare check become

kind of a threat to her?

And does the system have any real protocol

for how to handle a mentally vulnerable mother

in that sort of moment other than just sheer numbers

of officers showing up?

Was this case?

Was this situation handled as best as it could have been,

I guess is the question?

Jennifer, I'm going to start with you.

Well, this is the thing.

Whenever I can't write on my EC,

my electronic communication that arrested without incident,

what I want to write at the bottom of every EC after I

have done an arrest.

And unfortunately, that is not the case here.

So if you're asking me, could it have been done better?

I think yes, because we have an arrest

with some serious incident.

And there's so many factors that go into that.

You always want to do an arrest scenario

that minimizes as much as possible the possibility

of the person you're arresting getting hurt

and them hurting anyone.

So probably could have been done better.

Robin?

Yeah, so Jen, we covered this yesterday too.

You can really feel the struggle I think they went through

because normally I looked up the protocol as normal.

It's two people who serve a warrant like this

and I'm restraining order.

And they sent three.

They sent a supervisor, the officer

that did the confrontation with her

to retrieve the weapon and had 20 years on the forest.

They everyone knew each other.

So you can really feel what was probably going on.

And the decision-making that went into him

actually pulling his weapon and shooting her,

you know, and like you said, the hindsight is 2020,

I think that there's definitely protocols that were broken.

What would you like, so here you are, you're the supervisor,

prepping your three-person team to go do this.

What would you have advised them to do differently

without hindsight?

It's like, what would you say?

Because here's the facts.

You know, she has been reportedly suffering from postpartum.

You've had reports that there's some alcohol involved

and she's restraining or because she's known assaulted her fiance

who's in the fire department.

What could you have told them to do differently?

I think for me, the number one thing is I would call

this person out.

Yeah.

I would literally just give a call, have them come down.

I would not have done it in this way

under these circumstances.

I don't know how many of you know somebody who has been

in the throws of postpartum.

I have a dear college friend that went through it

and then a niece.

And I can tell you, it is, they are not in their right mind.

They are at the brink of their emotional envelope.

Any mother, and this is what happens,

they literally don't want their child to live.

That's literally where they're at.

The hostility, the anger, everything they're going through,

like they are boiling alcohol.

And so that is not the time I don't think knowing that.

Maybe the officers didn't understand that.

What I do is I just call her out.

Either call her somewhere, or if I'm there,

I literally call her out.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too, was, you know,

especially because some are that kind of feelings towards the child.

Some are that feelings towards themselves.

Tony and I were talking about this off air yesterday.

I mean, we both, that's what I mean.

This is one of those things like cancer.

We all know someone has been affected by this.

And it can range to, you know,

threats to others and threats to self.

And I wonder what prevented this, you know,

this department from calling her down to the department to do this.

She's seen mobile, she's seen functioning.

It's just, I just, is it lack of understanding for conditions?

Like, I mean, I mean, one would think, you know,

you're on the force for all these years.

I would think there'd be a call or two or 50 or 100

or over the course of the years,

where you've dealt with this sort of thing at time or two.

I don't know, maybe that's wrong.

But there just doesn't seem to be, I mean,

unless you've gone through this and you know what this is like

and how dangerous individuals like this can be,

I don't know if they were treating this almost like it was

just any other purpose or something.

And it was, you know, well, there's a restraining order.

We're going to go handle this.

And without really thinking of the possible consequences here,

of how bad this could go, maybe it was a level of comfort.

We know where she's on the force with us.

How bad could this possibly go?

Maybe they did think that because there's three people

that are showing up and we're all buddies.

We're all friends.

Yes, she's going through this horrible thing.

But we're here.

We're not threatening to come on.

Just give us the gun and we're going to go on our way

and we'll sort this out.

They didn't see this coming.

But I mean, I don't know.

I mean, this is just tragedy all around

because I don't think anybody in this scenario

wanted anything bad for anybody.

And unfortunately, now we're sitting here.

She's facing five years in jail for this assault.

She's the one who ended up getting shot.

But the question remains, you know,

hindsight 2020 could anything have been done differently.

I'm sure everybody.

I'm sure the officer pulled the trigger.

Thanks. Well, maybe it could have been done differently.

But in that split second from this to this,

it's a flick of a wrist.

She had the gun in her hand, aiming it at herself,

aiming it at him allegedly.

She says it was just at her.

Does it even matter?

Does it even matter?

That's not even in dispute.

She admits that she was trying to kill herself.

So I mean, and I don't really necessarily expect her

to remember the split second before a bullet

is lodged into her lung.

If she remembers pointing the gun back or forth,

does it even matter if she did

for that officer to have made the decision

that split second moment decision of,

she's got a loaded weapon in her hand.

And all it takes is 0.5 of a second

for that bullet to be at me.

Well, I want to be clear that even though, again,

hindsight is 2020 and the low

underground be corner,

does not judge an officer's actions by hindsight.

Yeah, and officers actions by

what is reasonable in that moment.

Yeah, certainly I am not trying to say anything

regarding the decision to use lethal force.

This is an obvious no-brainer decision

to use lethal force by that officer.

That she could have shot multiple times

that those officers,

sometimes before you can ever get a bullet off.

So, you know, it's just like in a fight,

who punches first, who shoots first.

I mean, that's, actually.

So having said that,

I just, your initial question was,

what could have been done maybe to prevent this?

And that's, I still will stick

that that could have prevented this.

Yeah.

But nevertheless,

believe me, the reasonableness was totally justified

in, in my view, it was just.

Yeah, especially since apparently the first shot jams,

and she actually tap racked them bang,

you know, to clear the, to clear the jam.

That is what really prompted the response.

So here's someone who actually has a misfire

with his pointed at themselves,

the point that at others, you know,

it's just really eliminating that threat

in some way in that split second decision.

You know, Jen, I'm curious about this.

You know, I don't,

we've been around people like this

our entire life's not broken people,

but people that are so close like this.

And, you know, I'm having a hard time

seeing the intent that,

I don't see a conscious attempt,

just because of her postpartum

and all the issues to deal with,

of really trying to take the life of a colleague,

even though it might have been pointed at,

one of those moments and things like that.

What do you think about the charges

and that she might spend, you know,

time behind bars for an assault?

Do you think that's gonna stick or not stick

or what do you think the judge is gonna do on that?

You know, it's interesting that she has asked

for a bench trial.

Yeah.

I mean, if, if I were in her shoes,

there's no way I would ask for a bench.

I would ask for a jury of my peers to judge me

and hope that one would have some leniency toward me.

So, you know, under the law,

and that's what the judge is gonna be looking at,

just the law.

They're not gonna be considering

or emotion or anything like that.

So, you know, what I mean,

the emotion of the moment.

They have to strictly with the letter of the law.

And if you go strictly with the letter of the law,

I think she'll be found guilty.

Does the letter of the law leave any room

for the fact of the mental crisis

that she's going through with both part of them?

No, because no matter what,

it comes down to one question.

Does she understand wrong, right?

Right.

Well, I guess that is the question.

Does she, does she understand wrong

from right in that moment in time?

I don't know that that's,

well, I don't know that any of us can answer that.

No, but unfortunately,

because of the laws and how it works with pleading insanity,

that's the difference.

You know, you can only plead insanity

when you understand or can't,

you can't plead insanity if you understand

the difference between right and wrong.

It doesn't matter what influence you're under,

whether it's drugs, alcohol, mental psychosis.

I mean, it's really, it's a high bar

because we've covered on other cases.

It's a very high bar to make that you can use that

as a defense, so it won't be used as a defense.

That's why Jen's comment that she probably would have stood

a better chance by a jury of peers

where the emotion, which Bob Mata doesn't like,

because it's like, oh, you don't know her,

but that emotional jury can actually see and understand,

kind of like we are here,

because we are really acting like a jury of peers

from different backgrounds saying, hey,

you know, this was a traumatic event

rather than just the nuts and bolts

of what the judge has got to go by.

How do you think she argues this?

How do you think the attorneys argue this to the judge?

Where do you think this is gonna go?

It's only supposed to like last about three days,

but what do you think we're gonna see

in court this week, Jen?

Next week?

Well, certainly, I think she will speak, really do.

I think just the fact that she wants a bench trial

tells me that she thinks she can win,

and she thinks she can explain her actions,

and they're obviously going with the view that, listen,

I wanna do harm myself, I didn't wanna harm anyone else.

Nevertheless, you can't let somebody shoot themselves

in the head, either.

You know what's really interesting about that too?

I was just thinking as you're saying that, Jen,

she thinks she can win, and it'll be really interesting

because the officer that shot her,

there's no charges against him

because it was a justified shoot.

So I really wonder what his involvement in the bench trial

will be, and what he'll say, in other words,

he, oh, it'll be really interesting what his comments

on this are, and it might actually help her to have that.

I don't know, it'll be interesting.

What do you think he'd say?

Well, I think he's just gonna go through

the nuts and bolts of what he saw

and why he made that decision,

and he's going to, you know,

he's likely already been interviewed,

and he has his story, and he's just going to repeat that.

I mean, that he felt like at any moment,

he could have shot my fellow officers,

which would have caused great bodily injury

or death to them, she could have killed herself.

So for those reasons, he had to shoot,

he had to shoot, I think he'll just repeat that on this day.

Do you think he might be able to,

or do you think it'd be one of those

too much political damage from it?

You think he might give context about, hey,

in hindsight, maybe we should have called her down.

In other words, he might be able to give context

of how the way they did it was actually helped

inflame the situation rather than deescalated.

I wonder if you'd be able to do that or would do that.

Well, you know, again, I'm posing the hindsight point of view.

Right.

But the reality is for something like this,

for fellow officers, Tony touched upon,

and for somebody who was just being served

the particular paperwork that was involved here,

normally you wouldn't necessarily have to call them down.

So I don't want to give too much,

I want to give a lot of credence to my point

that that probably could have saved all of this from happening,

but on the flip side, I don't think they did anything wrong

per se with the procedures and protocols.

Yes, they had more people there because it's an officer.

But you know what I mean, Robin?

Yeah, I do.

Two things can be right at the same time.

Yeah.

Again, I totally understand and agree.

It's a hindsight, actions that were assessing

that could have been better.

But then it's really wonder,

you know, if that could be a point they bring out

at the bench trials, like listen, you know,

we don't really have a protocol that would be appropriate to this.

And so hindsight on this is,

we acted according to the protocol,

no one did anything wrong, she didn't do anything

except they should have had body cams on.

That would have saved a lot.

But you know, I wonder if they said,

you know, they could use that.

In other words, I'm thinking,

will they stand by her to try to keep her from going to jail?

No.

Yeah, if you don't think so.

I personally don't think so.

You know, this is the problem.

And I don't know if you feel this way too, Robin.

But there, when,

when there's an officer involved in a perceived crime,

right?

In other words, somebody that is capable of either

blowing the trigger at officers or themselves,

whatever it might be,

I'm judging that a little bit more harshly.

Somebody who needed every straining order,

somebody who was at least a judge signed the, you know,

paperwork saying she was a danger to her child.

So I just hold law enforcement to a pretty high bar.

I know under the law, though, the judge can't, by the way,

law enforcement, you know, maybe when it comes to sentencing,

that could be considered.

But I just think you have to have a higher bar.

So I don't think that there's going to be much empathy

with the situation she put those officers in.

Yeah, it'll be interesting,

because I agree the higher bar, you know,

the standards and at the same time, you know,

the thing that brought it to public light more

was the fact that you have the postpartum mental health

to crisis going on at the same time.

I just wonder if it'll be interesting how that plays into it.

And she had been hospitalized recently for it.

I mean, involuntarily.

I wouldn't have, like, in protocol, yes,

like, okay, if it was followed, it was followed.

Maybe this is something where we look back and go,

okay, yes, protocol maybe needs to be changed.

We did follow it as is at that moment in time,

but maybe there's room for improvement there.

Maybe there was, I think the idea of why she got her weapon back

should also be looked at too.

How was she got it back?

What was, what was the box that needed to be checked

that said, okay, she's fit to have her weapon back

when she was just in an involuntary hold,

not that far prior, and still clearly not mentally well.

What sort of evaluation is done that cleared her?

I guess that's the other question.

I don't know what, I don't know the answer to that.

Tony, help me understand, too, because, again,

and people have been commenting, I don't know, this case at well.

And, yeah, I mean, this isn't one we've, like, you know,

all the ones we've been covering that we've been covering

weeks on end.

As I understood it, and correct me if I'm wrong both

if you saw something different or even in the audience,

as far as I understood when it came to the weapon,

the weapon, I don't, I think her service weapon

is the one that they, is the only authority they had

to confiscate from her and hold, not her personal weapon.

I believe it was her personal weapon that she used in this.

So, I'm not, and so I think there's some nuance in there

because people keep saying what she's doing is still able

to have a weapon.

I think it was only her personal service weapon

that technically they were allowed to grab

not her personal weapon.

Right, wrong, do you know it?

I agree with you Robin on this.

And, secondarily, I did not research red flag laws there.

Right.

And, and I should have looked at them, but to Tony's point,

if there is a red flag law, and she was just voluntary

hospitalized for her mental condition, her mental issues,

there is no way she should be given that gun,

but I don't know the red flag law.

Yeah.

There's some complications, I think,

around all of it, and especially with the weapons involved

between service weapon and personal, because, you know, Tony,

as Jen and I have in our career, we were authorized

to carry our service weapon that we were issued.

We could carry another weapon, but it had to be authorized

to be zero, and we had to personally purchase it,

and then it had to go through Quantico to be certified

to be carried.

I mean, there's a lot of different criteria, but still,

like when I retired, I had to hand in my service weapon,

but not the personal owned one.

So it's a really weird area with law enforcement,

and it's different from state to state as well.

It feels like a case where there's a lot of room

where things could have been done better,

but I don't think there's a lot of people in this case

that really were trying to do anything horrible, unfortunately.

When you mix, you know, the damage that Postpartum does

to someone while they're in that state,

and then others trying to play catch-up and trying to figure

out how to handle it, it can end up chaotically.

And I feel like this is where this case is.

It'll be fascinating to watch.

We'll watch it throughout the week.

Your thoughts on the comment section on a sub-stack

in YouTube, we'd love for you to weigh in.

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Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

I'm the host of Big Technology podcast,

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And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out

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Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

I'm the host of Big Technology podcast,

a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC.

And if you're like me,

you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence

is changing the business world and our lives.

So each week on Big Technology,

I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech

and outsiders trying to influence it.

Asking where this is all going,

they come from places like Nvidia,

Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet,

your career choices,

and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties,

listen to Big Technology podcast

wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

I'm the host of Big Technology podcast,

a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC.

And if you're like me,

you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence

is changing the business world and our lives.

So each week on Big Technology,

I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech

and outsiders trying to influence it.

Asking where this is all going,

they come from places like Nvidia,

Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet,

your career choices,

and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties,

listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

The sun shining,

birds are singing and all feels right in the world.

Until the season changes,

and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed.

In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression

no matter the season or time of year.

At the American Psychiatric Association Foundation,

our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all,

because we want you to live your best life

and be your best you all year round.

Please visit mentallyhealthination.org to learn more.

Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

I'm the host of Big Technology podcast,

a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC.

And if you're like me,

you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence

is changing the business world and our lives.

So each week on Big Technology,

I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech

and outsiders trying to influence it.

Asking where this is all going,

they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon,

and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet,

your career choices,

and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties,

listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

The sun shining, birds are singing

and all feels right in the world.

Until the season changes,

and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed.

In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression

no matter the season or time of year.

At the American Psychiatric Association Foundation,

our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all,

because we want you to live your best life

and be your best you all year round.

Please visit mentallyhealthination.org to learn more.

Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

I'm the host of Big Technology podcast,

a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CMBC.

And if you're like me,

you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence

is changing the business world and our lives.

So each week on Big Technology,

I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech

and outsiders trying to influence it.

Asking where this is all going,

they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon,

and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet,

your career choices, in meetings with your colleagues,

and at dinner parties,

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