“I Forgot I Had The Gun In My Hand”

An 18-year-old Hillhouse High School student said he ​“accidentally pulled the trigger” of a pistol while engaged in ​“horseplay” with a 23-year-old friend — firing a shot that left his friend dead.

The student, Shunravion Jackson, told that story to police, who arrested him on charges of second-degree manslaughter.

That story — the third of three Jackson told police — appears in police reports made public Monday.

It concerns the shooting death Saturday of 23-year-old Shamar Willett inside a second-floor home on Harding Place. The shooting took place Saturday afternoon. Police encountered Jackson near the scene, and subsequently questioned and arrested him after a brief struggle. Jackson appeared Monday in Courtroom B of the Elm Street courthouse before Superior Court Judge Maureen Keegan, who ordered him held on $100,000 bond.

Assistant State’s Attorney Kelly Davis requested that Keegan place a $250,000 bond on the suspect, at the urging of the victim’s family. Keegan instead followed the recommendation of the bail commissioner, who suggested the $100,000 bond. The judge also ordered the suspect, if he does make bond, not to have any contact with the victim’s family.

Jackson, who wore a white jumpsuit in court, did not enter a plea or speak. His next scheduled court date is Dec. 16. The bail commissioner reported that Jackson did not have prior arrests, and he ​“has aspirations of attending college,” according to his public defender, Maggie Castinado.

Here’s what happened Saturday, according to a report written by Detective Bertram Ettienne:

Two women called 911 at 1:28 p.m. Saturday to report a shooting. Two officers arrived in the apartment to find Willett lying on a couch, held by his mother and ​“bleeding from his chest and mouth.”

A third officer approached the house from the rear, and came across Jackson ​“running out the back door.” Jackson ​“tried to pull away”; the officer arrested him for interfering with an officer, then had him sent to police headquarters so detectives could interview him.

Willett was taken by ambulance to Yale-New Haven Hospital where efforts to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead at 1:56 p.m.

Detectives got conflicting stories from interviewees. Jackson’s siblings at first claimed he had been ​“buying groceries” at Moe’s Market at the time of the shooting; then one sister admitted lying to ​“keep her brother out of it.” Willett’s mother, meanwhile, ​“was adamant she didn’t know” how her son got shot or ​“who would’ve had a gun in the apartment.”

Jackson himself gave three versions of what happened when Detectives Ettienne and Michael Wuchek interviewed him at police headquarters, according to the report.

First he ​“lied and said at the time of the shooting he was walking back from McDonald’s located on Whalley Avenue, and when he arrived at 35 Harding Pl. he saw [the victim] laying on the couch suffering from a gunshot wound.”

Then Jackson said he was ​“alone in the rear bedroom” of the second-floor apartment ​“smoking marijuana when he heard one gunshot … ​‘I heard the shot go off, I didn’t think nothing about it, I just kept laying there,” then heard people ​“running around the apartment screaming, ​‘Call 911.’”

His third story had him standing near the kitchen table ​“playing around” with Willett. Someone had a ​“small black pistol”; it ​“went off by accident.” Someone then placed the gun on the table. Jackson picked it up ​“with his right hand” while he ​“continued to horseplay” with Willett ​“by jumping on him and trying to give him a bear hug.” They faced each other, close, when Jackson ​“accidentally squeezed the trigger,” he told detectives.

“I forgot I had the gun in my hand,” the report quotes Jackson as saying. ​“I didn’t know I hit nobody, and then I seen his face, and then he grabbed me, and said, ​‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’” Jackson denied knowing to who the pistol belonged.

At a Monday afternoon press conference at police headquarters on Union Avenue, Assistant Chief Archie Generoso said, ​“Our investigation shows that this was not an intentional shooting.”

Both Generoso and Chief Dean Esserman called the incident a ​“tragedy.”

Generoso said the gun involved was a small-caliber pistol. He said Jackson’s sister has a relationship with a member of the Willett family. ​“He was like a brother-in-law” to the family, Generoso said.

“There’s victims on both ends,” Generoso said. One family lost a son and brother, but the family of the shooter, ​“they still suffer loss,” Generoso said.

“It’s tragic. These people were not enemies. They were friends, family.”

Thomas MacMillan contributed reporting.