Kelsey Fitzsimmons Trial: Evidence, Contradictions, and What's Left Unresolved

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Rooskey and Robin Dring.

At the end of the day, there is the law and there's procedure and then there's people.

Humanity. Humanity doesn't always work cleanly with all of this over here.

Kelsey Fitzsimmons is on trial right now. By the time you watch this, there may be a verdict.

It is a bench trial. The question is, and it really just kind of comes down to one thing,

with a lot of minutia around it that influences it, is did she aim the weapon and pull the trigger

at a fellow officer while she was really experiencing some of the worst absolute moments of

her life? Her baby was being taken out of her home at that moment in time. Her job was on the line.

Everything was up in the air. I mean, mentally she was not in a good place whatsoever. That's not

an excuse to pull a gun and pull a trigger at somebody, but it's also part of the recipe for what

we're actually dealing with here. Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent Chief of the

Counter Intelligence Behavioral Analysis Program is with us as always. Let's start with one of the

questions from the audience. As Kelsey said, in the ambulance that she kept repeating, she was an

idiot. This is kind of what I've been saying. It was a mantra almost that she kept telling herself.

This is what she was saying on the stand that she was an idiot for trying to end herself

with an unloaded gun. She tried to pull the oxygen mask off because she still wanted to die.

Doesn't sound like someone who just tried to shoot at a cop. After hearing that testimony,

does that change how you see the whole case? Robin, what are your thoughts?

She's compelling. I mean, she really is. This whole thing is so heart-wrenching. I mean,

I've got my goosebumps right now of sadness. It is really just a sad situation.

All I can say is she's compelling. She makes very powerful statements. She's very consistent

with what she's saying, the messaging she's putting out. When you have someone so consistent,

that means their memory is very clear on what was going through their head. It's not wavering,

it's not deviating. There's no saying this in one moment. In other words, there's a lot of

congruency throughout from every second of this entire thing, which makes someone extremely

believable, extremely plausible. Again, we've already known the perception of the officer. He's

not under investigation for a bad shoot. He's just coming down to what was in her head. Granted,

we have what he said happened, but understanding what's heard in her head for the intent,

because I think that's what she's on trial for, really, is what was her intent. I think her intent,

as she's been stated, is pretty clear. I do too. I don't think she intended that. I mean,

it's not to say that her intent and her recollection are accurate or inaccurate,

but the possibility for either of those, I think, exists. I think the possibility of either of

those also exists for the officer who pulled the trigger in what he believed was self-defense.

I think anytime you have a weapon that's pulled out in front of you,

and the trigger is, I mean, it's almost irrelevant. I mean, it's more relevant to me if she did aim it

and she pulled it and it clicked. But almost, I mean, either way, you got somebody with a weapon

and they pulled the trigger and they're trying to re-rock it because it didn't go off. There's 0.05

of a second where that gun can go that way or at her and you don't know where it's going to go next.

And she just knows that the bullet didn't work and she's trying to do it again. She's not

putting it down or dropping it. She's actively engaging with the weapon. You know, I don't know

what the training is. I'm not a cop. I've never been a cop, but you're also a human too in that

moment and you're wanting to prevent this from going. Lippin' at the threat. That's the train.

Lippin' at the threat. So it's not a crazy thought to me that the cop's going to shoot her.

You know, could things have been done differently? Sure, maybe. But again, you're dealing with

two human beings in a life or death situation and that's the call that was made. Is it the best

of the options that were available? Maybe not. But is it one where it's really, it was the wrong one?

I can't say it was the wrong one. But if you got A, B and C and they're all viable options,

you're asking a human being to make a split second choice and hope to God it's the right one.

You know, it'd be interesting. You know, hindsight is always interesting to examine and look at,

but I don't have any research just that people typically don't do this when they're in these

kind of moments where we're on YouTube so I won't say it, but when they want to do self-harm,

if she had stated that as she's taking that action, that probably would have come out

differently as well. Like, stand back. This is what I'm about to do. It's what I'm going to need to do.

Because again, when you are in that position and you see someone try to take a shot and then

you see them reattempting to reload, the vast majority of the time, the reason they're trying

to reload is not because they're trying to do self-harm. They're trying to take you out.

Well, and there also was not the expectation of a weapon. They did not walk into that bedroom

expecting. It wasn't, hey, Kelsey, go give us your gun, which is kind of what I had thought was

the situation to begin with. It's not. She was going to go get baby clothes. The guns they

believed were locked up in the basement. They weren't expecting her to pull a weapon out.

So it does add that little, and if you think you're, if you think you're going there and you're

accompanying your coworker, your friend, to go get the baby stuff that she needed to pack a

bag for it, and suddenly she pulls a weapon and pulls the trigger. I don't care what direction

it's pointed. You're in a very different situation at that moment. You're with an unhinged

individual with a weapon. But again, at the end of the day, what was going on here? That's

the human side of it by definition of law. I think that's when we get to the legal end of it,

but we're not talking the legal end of it. But the legal end of it, I think she's in the wrong.

Does that mean she should go away for five years? Does that help anything? No.

This is someone who, this was a mental health crisis at the end of the day. I think she

can admit herself. It was a stupid thing to do. She will stand by for the rest of her life

that she didn't aim the gun at them, and I believe she believes she did not. Unfortunately,

we're never going to know the true answer to that. Regardless of whether she aimed it or not,

the consequence was you might get shot. She knew that. I mean, you pull a weapon out in front of

an officer. She's a cop. She knows how deadly that can be. She can't in one sentence be like,

I don't know why I'm so surprised I was shot. And then the other being like, I get how it works.

I'm a cop. You can't have it both ways. So here's the other thing too. Granted, regardless of what

her intent was, as she's maneuvering that weapon and handling that weapon, that barrel at some

point was not pointing at her. Yes. And so, because so part of training is this, you only point

your weapon at something you tend to shoot. And as soon as that barrel goes through something else,

you don't think it's going to intend to shoot themselves. So I mean, that's, there's a lot of

reps. There's a lot of training. I'm like, I know all local jurisdictions have different

requirements for their annual training in the Bureau. We trained quarterly. Yeah, like I

went to firearms training. I had to get certified four times a year to be able to legally carry

my firearm. It's a lot of training. You know, think about that. Local law enforcement generally

at least twice a year to maintain their firearms provisions. A lot of them do four times a year.

This guide, the guy that was in there was on the force for 20 years. That's a lot of reps of

that same verbalogy, that same training of, you know, eliminate the threat, eliminate the threat,

eliminate the threat. You know, a lot of talk is made on this. And rightfully so, of, you know,

could they have done this better? Could they have done this differently? Could they have bought a

crisis counselor or a social worker or something to help with the human aspect of this? And I know

every department has slightly different policies. Everyone has slightly different resources.

Some have someone in that position. Some do not at all because they don't have it.

Ultimately, as all of the cases seem to come down to funding, it's like, well, what do they

have the resources to do? I'm just going to throw this out there. And I don't know the,

this is kind of more of a broad statement, a police departments and such, especially ones that

are very well armed like militarily armed to the point of like, you know, a war when they're

a relatively small department and maybe don't need tank-like vehicles and other shit that they

end up getting. How about we use some of the money to, I don't know, higher mental health

counselors and things that deal more in the world of mental health rather than arming ourselves

up to such a degree that will never truly be needed against the citizenry that we're supposedly

serving and protecting. Maybe spend some of the money there. Maybe, well, we got it because, well,

sell it. I don't know. Use some of the money for that rather than larger, bigger guns and weaponry

that you're rarely ever going to use, if at all. Maybe spend some money on the mental health

and of things and maybe you don't need such big guns and war-like equipment.

Yeah, and just more fail-safe protocols. You may just make it standard instead of making it optional

or making it subjective about who we're going to send and how we're going to send. You just make

it standard that, hey, we're going to send a mental health professional. We're going to send

the counselor when executing these things. I mean, just update the policies. Make sure they

actually are coherence with what the reality on the ground is in these situations where mental

health is going to be an issue or even anytime, because again, we looked up the numbers on this

the other day when we were doing this live also was, I think it was with Bob, a lot of that. We're

talking about the potential of violence escalates dramatically when you start serving orders to remove

children. That is, and so when something like that is triggered and there's been claims of mental

health issues, you would think that we need to update our policies rather than just sending three

badged individuals in there to serve the restraining order. That would shift. And if you're in a mental

state and you think that that's a wrong, that's being executed upon you at that moment in time,

you're not. I mean, most people aren't going to go, oh yeah, I'm batshit crazy. Come take my kid.

You know, I mean, and I'm not saying she was batshit crazy, but but people are those are the

least times that people are in touch with the reality of their emotions. If the authorities

are literally coming in to take your child from you, you might not be in the best state to evaluate

where you're at or the others around you. Yeah, I mean, just just the whole everything, all of it

could have been handled differently. But again, we're dealing with what they knew, what they

were equipped with what they were trained to do. And it is easy on the outside to say, well,

if they would have done this or done that or known this or known that, I mean, again, she was a 20

some year old cop. I mean, there's other cops in this force that are young too that may not have

the experience or the training. People are only as good as what they know. Again, it goes back to

the fundamentals, I think of can we can we just do better as a whole rather than we have to just

keep litigating all of the mistakes that are made in every department here. How about we just

as a whole go, let's just fix this shit. So we're going to end up in these situations to begin with.

One of the viewers, I can't say your name so sorry, is a chowski put up there. They had social

workers available and were approved, thanks Todd, approved to spend money on body cans, but did

nothing. So this is kind of what I was talking about. So I don't know about that being a factual

statement. But regardless, let's say in theory. Right. So in theory, let's say that's exactly

right. But how can that get circumvented? Because the guy that got assigned to serve the warrants

is I know her is not a big deal. I'll go talk to her. We're good friends. Yeah. And they're the

subjective choice comes in when they shouldn't be having one. Because if something in other words,

you put protocols in place, an SOP standard operating procedure in place so that those subjective

calls that could be come disastrous, can't be made. And that's where regardless of what is

available, not available, this is the protocol we're going to follow when X, Y, and Z is triggered

so that we don't have a misstep. Even though I know your great friends with her, you got a great

report or whatever it is. But this is the procedure we will follow because of this X, Y, and Z.

And we got a question there because that's the other part of the story. I'm curious about her

fiance. What's up with him? Does he really have the best interest of the child at heart or does

he want to extract some sort of wrench? I don't know the answer to that. He's not a child. I brought

that up the other day. And I don't know the answer to it. But if we're going to honestly look at it

and examine it, you could look at the angle because people weaponize this shit all the time

for so they can have control over the kid. But every person who does this or has to get the

authorities involved or has to get a child taken away from someone who is not mentally stable

is not weaponizing the system. They're doing the best thing for the child and one side of that

equation is going to think the opposite. One side is always going to think, well they're weaponizing

it. They're trying to do this to me and they're going to they're going to have a very different

story than the other side. One has been institutionalized recently for very serious mental health

problems. The other has not. There is a small child involved in the number one priority for every

single person in the circle should be the well-being of that child. You could look at this scenario

and go he was really thinking of the best interest of that child. The child shouldn't be with that

mother. But a child was for a long period of time. There was plenty of times where he didn't seem

to have any problem with this. Why suddenly now? I mean there's there's there's a lot of and that

gets into the domestic angle of all of this. But just because because one person is saying

or trying to get a child removed from the others doesn't mean that they're there trying to

to steal the kid or do something nefarious or prevent the child from being there. Yes,

it can be weaponized. It's weaponized all the fricking time. But there are certain

modalities in certain situations where look somebody's going to be upset here because they're not

dealing with reality on realities terms and they are a danger to the kid. Whether they realize

it or not, do you think Kelsey thought that she was a danger to herself or others before those

officers walked into the house? And then suddenly she found herself being quite a danger

to herself and others. The second that some of the the constructs of her life changed around her.

I mean she wasn't in a good place and that's just the reality of it. She just wasn't in a good place

and this was handled very rough in a way where you stir a pot this way and you have very volatile

chemicals in there and you stir it too much. Guess what? It's going to explode kids. Don't shake

the bottle. Don't stir it that way and they went in ready to shake it and stir it and then they're

why? I wonder why this happened. It's so it's really curious to me about where they going in there

thinking that this was a simple giving of a restraining order which is a whole lot different

than you're getting involved with a child custody issue. Yeah. Because that is a whole different

ball of crazy that's going to potentially go on there because it's much more emotional. It's

much more inflammatory and there's a lot more agenda is going on between not just I thought Bob

Mona did a great job the other day of highlighting that it wasn't just about the biological father

and Kelsey but there's other parents involved the grandparent. I mean there's a lot of dynamics

going on in here and a lot of potential for inflammatory horrendous things going on. I mean

things that devolved and things like the Ailsen family. Yeah. That's why as soon as you start hitting

that domestic issue with child custody issues that should automatically trigger hey why don't we

leave some goods out of this and actually pull back a little bit more and think about how we're

going to engage. And there might have been a sense of false confidence for the officers going

in going she's one of us you know she's one of us we're going to handle this it's not one of the

it's not some crazy domestic situation where we don't know the parties involved we don't know

how volatile they are we know where we've been on calls are there we you know we're good like

this will be fine it's going to be tough and she'd love me to cop too yeah she understands

the dynamics but it's going to be tough on her but you know we're going to handle because we're

friends I mean you I mean in some ways you think of it well this couldn't have gone any you know

more securely she had friends doing this it wasn't just stranger showing up to her house

and it still went completely sideways um there's just there's no right answer to this damn case

at all in it's it's so wrapped up in emotions at the end of the day I don't even she I mean

technically she probably had to be charged for what happened yeah but I think we hit it well

where she needs to be accountable for doing dumb things but does she deserve to go jail for it

I don't think so yeah we'll see what the judge decides um and if that was a good call to ask for

a bench trial versus a jury trial and we're all this lands your thoughts in the comments section

on sub stack and YouTube we will continue the conversation there be sure to press subscribe

wherever you get podcasts you know miss any of our conversations about this in the many cases

we follow for you right here robin's book is out it is new it's available wherever you get books

it's not all about me uh go check it out uh and and get that book all right until next time

for robin for Todd and myself I'm Tony brusky we will talk again real soon want more on this case

and others then press subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony brusky

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