A Jefferson County jury was sent into deliberations Monday morning in the case of a man accused of shooting a 17-year-old boy in the face in 2024 — a shooting the defense argued was accidental and that prosecutors maintained was assault.
Brent Metz, a 40-year-old former councilman for the town of Mountain View who was recalled after the shooting, faces four felony charges: second-degree assault, illegal discharge of a firearm and two counts of felony menacing, according to court records.
“He knows these are kids. He knows there is no danger,” prosecutor Chris Johnson with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said during Monday morning’s closing arguments. “This is not a self-defense situation. … He’s acting out of anger, and he knows he’s escalating that situation.”
Metz’s defense attorneys, David Jones and Christopher Decker of the , argued during the trial that Metz’s gun had fired unintentionally when he shot Jack Howard in the face.
“He was being as careful as he could, and this horrible accident occurred anyway. It wouldn’t have occurred if his gun wasn’t defective,” Decker said Monday morning.
The defense called Edward Wilks to the stand during the trial, who said he has owned a gun store in Rifle for roughly 25 years and teaches concealed-carry handgun classes, according to . Wilks claimed the gun was unsafe and said misfirings happen “all the time” without the trigger being pulled, Denver7 reported.
But the prosecution’s firearm expert disputed that claim, and the handgun manufacturer, SIG Sauer, has .
Johnson called Metz’s defense a “self-serving version of what happened,” but said even if that story is true, Metz -- whom prosecutor Brian Hassing described as the “ultimate ‘Get off my lawn’ guy” -- should have been aware of the gun’s risks.
“The defense wants you to believe that a trained and experienced shooter such as Mr. Metz ... is able to disregard all that training, all that experience, all that knowledge and accidentally discharge a firearm,” Hassing said.
Howard, who was 17 at the time, and his friend, 15-year-old Luke Brookhouser, stumbled upon Metz’s property near Conifer while searching for a spot to take homecoming photos in September 2024. The two hopped the fence, walked up to the barn on the man’s property and knocked, but left when no one answered the door, Johnson said.
The boys were sitting in their car and were writing a note asking permission to return to take the photos when Metz blocked them in, exited his truck and fired, Johnson said. The bullet struck Howard in the face and lodged behind his eye, fragmenting upon impact.
Howard testified Thursday that he believed he would die from his injuries that day, .
“These boys are credible, and they didn’t embellish anything,” Johnson said.
But Decker claimed the boys’ story was “completely discredited by all the physical evidence” and that Metz’s gun fired “unintended, accidentally and uncommanded.” The prosecutors failed to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Metz was guilty, Decker said.
Metz was not drawing his weapon to fire, but was attempting to switch it from his vehicle holster to his hip holster as he got out of his truck, Decker said. He lost his balance exiting the truck and the gun discharged, Decker said.
Howard’s nose was fractured, and bullet pieces struck his eye, lip, tooth and arm, causing injuries that required more than $100,000 in medical treatment, according to a civil lawsuit filed against Metz. The lawsuitap proceedings were temporarily placed on hold pending the criminal case.
“Reasonable doubt isn’t calling a bunch of high-priced experts to try and confuse the issues,” Johnson said Monday, pointing to the more than $15,000 that Metz’s defense attorneys spent on witnesses to cast doubt on the boys’ memories.
Decker claimed that Brookhouser's story had changed over time because of his brain “filling in the gaps” from the traumatic experience. But the expert the defense called to prove that, Johnson said, concluded that “what was said originally is most likely to be true.”
Brookhouser described Metz pulling the gun, aiming it and shooting it several times on scene and later at the hospital before recounting it again two years later for the jury, Johnson said.
The jury began deliberating just after 10:30 a.m. Monday.
