Warrant: Gun Turned Business Fight Fatal

A work dispute at a Forbes Avenue car repair shop escalated into a physical fight between two business partners — and ended with one colleague shooting and killing the other, then confessing to the police.

That tragic story of workplace gun violence is detailed in a series of police reports associated with the New Haven Police Department’s arrest of Charles Brown, a 47-year-old man from Clinton, for the murder last Thursday of Juan Carlos Colon, a 39-year-old man from East Hartford.

The Independent obtained a copy of those public arrest files from the state court on Monday. On Monday afternoon, top cops and the mayor joined more than a dozen of Colon’s family members on the third floor of police headquarters at 1 Union Ave for a brief press conference about the homicide arrest.

The reporting officer narrative from Officer Juan Colon describes how, at around 11:04 a.m. on April 27, four city police officers responded to 270 Forbes Ave. regarding a report of a person shot.

Police found a man, later identified as Brown, standing in front of the business. He was the one who had called 911 to let police know that ​“someone was shot.”

At the scene, Brown told the officers that he had been ​“involved in an argument with his friend and shot him.” 

The officers put Brown in handcuffs. They found a gun in one of the rooms inside the 270 Forbes Ave. building, which is home to both a car repair shop and a tattoo parlor.

Also at the scene, police, firefighters, and paramedics from AMR found a man, later identified as Colon, lying on the ground inside the first room on the left of the building. The man suffered from a gunshot wound to his back. The paramedics performed CPR on Colon, and an ambulance transported him to the hospital, where he would later die from his gunshot injuries.

In a separate supplemental report, Det. Martin Podsiad wrote that he and Det. J. Aurora interviewed Brown at police headquarters at 12:45 p.m. that same day to find out why Brown had shot Colon.

According to Podsiad’s report, Brown said that, for the past two years, he and Colon had run a business at 270 Forbes Ave. that involved ​“the purchase, fixing, and reselling of vehicles.”

Brown told the police that the business was failing because Colon incorrectly filed paperwork with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and because of ​“several deals where [Colon] took payment but failed to deliver the vehicles to the clients.” Brown said that Colon owed him roughly $40,000. Brown told the cops he and Colon had had ​“several verbal disputes but no physical fights.”

Earlier on April 27, Brown said, he arrived at 270 Forbes ​“after completing construction work.” When he arrived, he and Colon spoke, first outside of the building, and then inside the tattoo parlor portion of the building.

“As they talked, the conversation turned into an argument. C. Brown stated that they started to fight.”

Brown said he left the tattoo parlor room and went into an adjacent room, which was a recording studio, ​“and retrieved the pistol from the desk drawer.” He said he got his gun because he thought Colon was carrying a gun. He said he never saw Colon with a gun, but Colon had told him he had a gun.

When he exited the recording studio, Brown continued, Colon ​“charged him. Both parties began to fight/wrestle between the hallway and the front room. C. Brown had the pistol in his right hand during this portion of the confrontation. C. Brown stated that after he fired the first shot, J. Colon tried to choke him and fired a second shot. When describing the second shot, C. Brown stated, ​‘I don’t know if I intentionally wanted to shoot it again and just bear hugging and slamming up against stuff.’ They continued to ​‘tussle,’ and J. Colon ​‘gets weak’ and fell to the floor.”

Brown said that when Colon collapsed to the floor, ​“he immediately felt ​‘regret.’ He then placed the pistol back into the adjacent room on the shelf where it was recovered. He then called 911 and began CPR.”

Because of a past criminal conviction, Brown admitted to the police that ​“he could not legally possess a firearm and acquired it illegally from someone that sold it to him ​‘off the street’ approximately a year and a half ago.”

He told police that he had purchased the pistol ​“for protection because of where his business is located the numerous break-ins he had in the past.”

The gun that police seized at 270 Forbes Ave. was a Taurus TCP. ​“The pistol was loaded and had a round chambered. Also seized were three fired cartridge casings from the front room, identified as the tattoo parlor where the incident took place.”

Police later interviewed another person who worked at 270 Forbes with Brown and Colon. That person initially said that he had left before the altercation, and then said he left right after the shooting. He couldn’t recall how many shots were fired. ​“He stated that as he was walking out of the building, the shots were fired.” He also said he didn’t know there was a gun in the building.

Brown has been charged with murder, criminal possession of a firearm, and carrying a pistol without a permit. He’s currently being held on a $2 million bond.

More than a dozen of Colon’s family members stood solemnly by at police headquarters Monday as Asst. Chief Bertram Ettienne gave a brief report on the homicide and same-day arrest. While none of the family members chose to speak publicly at Monday’s presser, Mayor Justin Elicker thanked them for coming and commended their presence as speaking to both the human cost of gun violence and the need to end such violence across the city.

Police Chief Karl Jacobson spoke about how this murder — like several other recent shooting deaths stemming from interpersonal disputes that turned fatal because of the presence of a gun — are difficult for police to prevent.

“This is because there’s a lot of guns,” he stressed.

He said that police have already taken 114 firearms off the street and made 85 gun-related arrests so far this year, compared to 80 firearms seized and 66 gun-related arrests at this time last year.