Teen shot while asking permission to take homecoming photos on property, sheriff says

A Colorado teenager was writing a note asking permission to use a property for a homecoming photo shoot when the landowner’s boyfriend confronted him for trespassing and shot him in the face, authorities said.

Brent Metz, 38, was charged with four felonies – first-degree assault, illegal discharge of a firearm and two counts of menacing – as well as two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment in the latest in a string of incidents in which well-meaning or accidental visitors find themselves on the wrong end of a gun.

Although prosecutors argued for a cash bond, a judge allowed Metz, who is an elected member of the Mountain View, Colorado, town council, to leave jail by promising to return for future court appearances. He faces decades in prison if convicted.

Colorado law allows people to use “reasonable and appropriate physical force” to defend property but only allows deadly force when they have to defend themselves or another person.

Metz and his lawyer did not respond Friday to requests for comment from the Washington Post.

The teen, who suffered “serious” injuries, survived, was released from the hospital Thursday and is recovering at home, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said.

Around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in Littleton, Colorado, the teenager who would later be shot picked up another boy from Dakota Ridge High School in his white Audi S4, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Caleb Harman wrote in a sworn affidavit for Metz’s arrest. The two have known each other since they were young because their parents are good friends.

The teens drove to the idyllic Ken-Caryl Ranch before heading southwest up Deer Creek Canyon to the “high valley,” Harman said in the affidavit. There they saw a house with a lake and a dock that caught their eye and decided to ask the homeowner for permission to take pictures near the lake.

The boys, whose names were redacted in court documents, hopped a split-rail fence, walked up the driveway to the house to knock on the door and, when there was no answer, returned back down the driveway to the car, according to the sheriff’s office. They got inside so that one of them could get a piece of paper from a notebook and write a note to the homeowner to ask permission, he added.

What the boys didn’t know was that even though nobody was home, Metz and his girlfriend – who are both part owners of the property – had seen the boys through their surveillance system, Kelley said. The girlfriend called Jefferson County emergency communications to report the boys as trespassers, and sheriff’s deputies headed to the property, according to the sheriff’s office. Metz also started driving there. “No one was in danger,” Kelley said.

Metz got there first, Harman said in his affidavit, and according to the sheriff’s office, unnecessarily escalated the situation.

As one of them was writing the note, the boys saw a black GMC Sierra pickup pull up behind them, blocking them in, Harman said. The driver allegedly got out, walked toward the front of the Audi, pulled a gun from his holster and pointed it at them. Then they heard the sound of a gunshot and saw the windshield shatter, Harman said.

The boy who was not injured heard his friend scream “I was going to die!” and Metz say, “… my gun went off,” according to the deputy.

After the shooting, the boy got out of the passenger seat, took off his shirt and ran around to the diver’s side to his friend to apply pressure to his gunshot wound, Harman said. Metz tried to help, but the teen pushed him away, asking why he had shot his friend, the deputy added.

Harman arrived at the property at 4:28 p.m. to find one of the boys was “bleeding heavily from his face and had blood running down his arm.” One of the boys told him that Metz had fired the gun, and when Harman checked with Metz, he didn’t answer, saying he wanted to speak with his lawyer. Harman asked where the gun was “for officer safety purposes,” and Metz directed him to the inside of the GMC pickup.

Harman handcuffed Metz and took him to the Jefferson County Detention facility.

Last year in April, a White man in Kansas City allegedly shot a Black teenager who mistakenly rang his doorbell instead of another house where he was supposed to pick up his younger siblings. The man, Andrew Lester, who was 84 at the time, said he shot Ralph Yarl, then 16, because he was “scared to death” when the teen came to his front door.

Lester has been charged with two felonies in connection with the shooting, according to the criminal complaint filed in a Missouri circuit court. His case is still pending trial.

Later that month, a 20-year-old woman was shot to death when she and her friends accidentally pulled into the wrong driveway in Upstate New York as they were searching for their friend’s house. The homeowner, Kevin Monahan, then 65, was convicted in January of second-degree murder and later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Metz was elected to the Mountain View town council in 2023. While campaigning, he filled out a Ballotpedia candidate survey telling people about his past and his vision for Mountain View, an enclave of about 550 people nestled in 60 acres and surrounded by the city of Denver.

“Public safety is absolutely important to me,” he wrote in the survey, “and I have a no nonsense outlook to behavior that will harm our residents as well as my family.”