Victim shot in the face takes the stand in second day of Colorado trial for Brent Metz

The now 19-year-old victim, who Brent Metz is accused of shooting in the face, took the stand in Metz’s trial Thursday. Metz, a former town of Mountain View councilman, was in the second day of his trial hearings.

The teenager, who has recovered well physically from the shooting back in September of 2024, told the story of what led up to the shooting, then said he blacked out for a period after he was shot.

The young man, Jack (CBS Colorado is not sharing the victim’s last name) said he and his younger friend went to ask for permission to take pictures at a scenic home near Conifer. At first, they parked outside the gated driveway and tried to figure out how to contact someone there. They then hopped a low fence and went up to the house. 

Jack said he had difficulty locating a front door on the home, but the large property also had a garage and barn. They heard music coming from the barn, which is a common practice for people with animals to leave music playing to calm animals while away.

“We decided to knock on the barn door and then after a couple a minutes we decided to go back down the driveway,” Jack said in court. 

The two friends went back over the fence and moved the car to a spot not blocking the driveway along the right-of-way at the road. Minutes later, Brent Metz drove up in his black GMC pickup truck, blocking their car in. Metz got out. Jack testified that he raised his hands at some point, a claim the defense questioned in cross examination. He related that he was getting out to try to greet the person getting out of the truck.

“I just (got) the door open I kind of turned to open my door and then turned to get out, and I saw someone get out, and then it was black,” Jack said. 

The victim soon awoke bleeding and injured. “I looked down and I thought I was going to die. So I said that a couple times,” Jack testified.

“My mouth was on fire and it felt like my upper lip was gone, and I could taste little fragments,” Jack told the court. Jack’s friend and Metz tried to help him out of the car.

“The one who shot me was trying to help me get out of the car.”

Soon after, Metz left his side.

“He helped me sit down, and then he walked away,” Jack said.

“I started to realize I needed to stay as calm as I could, and when I got out of the car, I sat down, but I was very anxious,” Jack recalled.

Later, the victim had to have surgery in order to have the bullet fragments removed from his face. One of the fragments was more than an inch in size. He had trouble breathing through his right nostril due to the injuries to his nose. His eye was blackened for a long time, and a tooth was shattered.

Jack did not remember Metz saying much.

The testimony followed hours of testimony from a gun testing expert who looked at the weapon at the request of the prosecution. Derek Watkins is an engineer who said he has seen many claims of weapons not working properly.

“My experience is that, if you manufacture a firearm, at some point in time, it’s going, you’re going to run across the claim that it behaves in a defective manner,” Watkins said.

Metz’s defense is centered on a claim that the Sig Sauer P320 he had fired on its own without Metz pulling the trigger.

“There was nothing about the gun through the testing or through the examination of the components indicating it would function any other way than it was designed and left the factory,” Watkins said.

The defense had little luck getting Watkins to agree the gun could fire on its own, but did try to point out to the jury in questions that Watkins has previously testified in civil litigation about the gun’s integrity on behalf of the manufacturer.

The case continues Friday when it could wrap up. Metz faces four charges, the most serious of which is second-degree assault, but also two menacing charges and one of illegal discharge of a firearm.