A Fort Carson soldier who recently returned from Iraq died early Friday morning in a fight with a fellow soldier whose brigade was preparing to deploy there.
Colorado Springs police identified the victim Saturday as 21-year-old Spec. Piotr Szczypka. His death was caused by multiple factors, including a blow from an unidentified blunt object, an autopsy concluded.
Spec. Timothy Parker, 22, was arrested on charges of second-degree murder and assault and jailed in El Paso County.
A police spokesman, Sgt. Bob Benjamin, said Szczypka and Parker apparently did not know each other. Szczypka “was just out partying with his buddies,” he said, when a fight erupted outside a Colorado Springs apartment complex around 4 a.m. Friday.
“The victim and the suspect got into a fight,” and a friend of Szczypka who intervened “was also struck,” he said. “From what I understand, it was a pretty good fight.”
Szczypka and his friends had come home from a year in Iraq, and Parker served in a different brigade expected to ship out soon. Police have not said how the argument started or what inflicted the fatal blow.
