Colorado jury finds former councilman Brent Metz guilty of assault, illegal discharge of a firearm in shooting of teen

A jury in Colorado's Jefferson County on Monday found a former town councilman guilty of third-degree assault and illegal discharge of a firearm in the shooting of a teenager two years ago. Metz was acquitted on menacing charges he faced.

The judge ruled that Metz will remain in custody until his sentencing hearing.

The defense of Brent Metz, 40, claimed a faulty gun was to blame for the shooting, which caused serious injuries to the teen. But during Metz' trial, which started last week, an engineer who tests firearms and tested the gun testified that he couldn't find any problems with it.

The teenager was with a fellow teenage friend on the day of the shooting in 2024. They came to Metz' property near Conifer in hopes of using it as the backdrop for homecoming photos. After trying unsuccessfully to reach someone at the home's locked gate, they hopped over a fence went to the door of the house and knocked. They returned to their vehicle after not being able to find anyone to talk to. It turned out Metz' partner called 911 and reported that the young people were on her property and weren't supposed to be. She said she saw them on her security camera.

Soon afterwards, Metz drove up and approached the teens' vehicle, and that's where the shooting happened.

The teen testified that he thought he was going to die after getting hurt. He was shot in the face.

"My mouth was on fire and it felt like my upper lip was gone and I could taste little fragments," the victim told the court on Thursday.

Engineer Derek Watkins testified that there can be an accidental discharge of a semi-automatic Sig Sauer P320 -- the kind of gun Metz had. The defense argued that the gun was defective and fired on its own.

Metz was a councilman for the town of Mountain View. He testified on Friday that he wasn't angry or upset before the shooting and didn't intend to have a confrontation with the teens. He said he feels "horrible" about what happened.

During closing arguments on Monday morning, both the defense and prosecution focused on Metz as he was getting out of his vehicle to speak with the teens just outside his property.

The prosecution said Metz acted recklessly which led to the teen being shot in the face, saying that Metz approached the teens with a loaded firearm, it was not an accident and that guns just don't go off on their own.

"How? Explain the physics to me -- how? He gets out of his car, stumbles forward, the gun goes upwards and somehow catches oh his shirt to shoot these kids? And if it did? If you were that reckless getting out of a car, you're still guilty," said Chris Johnson, one of the prosecutors.

Metz's attorneys argue the gun malfunctioned and that it was unsafe and that as Metz stepped out of his truck, the gun went off without him pulling the trigger.

"Everybody outside of this courtroom knows that that P320 is a trainwreck," defense attorney Christopher Decker said. "It's a trainwreck waiting to happen, and it happened to this man and it happened to those two boys as well. A trainwreck, based on a defective weapon."