Suspect, witnesses detail confrontation in Tempe firefighter's shooting death

Uriel J. Garcia | The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Caption Hide Caption Judge sets $300K bond for man accused in fatal shooting of Tempe fire captain Hezron Parks appears before a court commissioner for the first time since being arrested in the fatal shooting of Kyle Brayer, 34, in Scottsdale on February 4, 2018.

Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of the story incorrectly reported Hezron Parks' jail status. He has been in state custody since his initial arrest.

When Hezron Parks woke up on Feb. 4, he saw on local television news that the man he had fatally shot during a road-rage incident 10 hours earlier in downtown Scottsdale was a Tempe firefighter.

Parks thought, according to a transcript of a police interview, he should go to police and explain why he felt justified in shooting Kyle Brayer, a 34-year-old Tempe fire captain and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who had been with six other people in the bar district.

But Parks, 21, had reservations about talking to police. He thought investigators wouldn't believe his assertion that a firefighter was the aggressor, the police interview shows.

"They're not gonna paint that picture on him, they're just gonna paint him as what he's remembered, or what he's known. For being a fire (captain) and that's — that's it," Parks told two Scottsdale police detectives when he turned himself in, according to the report.

His instincts were right. Scottsdale police didn't believe him. But he already had agreed to speak with the two detectives without a lawyer.

According to a transcript, Detective John Heinzelman had said earlier in the interview with Parks, "Now you're saying, 'Okay well I can say self-defense.' Although none of the evidence shows that it was self-defense and we're — we're trying to be as impartial, that's our job, that's what I said, I wanna find out the truth."

A fatal early-morning confrontation

On the day of the shooting, which occurred about 2:30 a.m. Feb. 4, Scottsdale police provided details that indicated Parks was the instigator and aggressor in the deadly episode.

Police said that Parks drove closely and bumped a golf cart in which Brayer was a passenger. Brayer got off the golf cart and approached Parks, who then fired one round, striking Brayer's head, police said. Parks took off, hitting some vehicles as he fled, police said.

A report recently released by Scottsdale police and reviewed by The Arizona Republic offers a more complex and nuanced narrative of what happened, based on accounts from the shooter and other witnesses.

Some witnesses, including one man who was on the golf cart with Brayer, told police that Parks probably felt threatened by the off-duty firefighter. Others say that Brayer was simply defending himself and his friends from being hit by Parks' vehicle.

Those accounts were not publicly released earlier.

In the days after the shooting, Brayer was hailed by the mayors of Tempe and Phoenix and other public safety officials for his service in the military and his work as a firefighter. About 1,000 mourners gathered for his funeral.

RELATED: Family, friends remember slain Tempe fire captain

Parks was charged with second-degree murder.

His immigration status was questioned on national TV by cable TV's Ashleigh Banfield, host of HLN's "Crime and Justice with Ashleigh Banfield." She described Parks as a "snooty" man who was picking fights with bouncers before the fatal shooting.

According to the police report, Parks is a U.S. citizen who was born in Belize, a Central American country where English is the official language. He told police his parents still lived there but his mother was born in Montana, where Parks would visit before he permanently moved to Phoenix with his two brothers and sister.

He was charged with multiple crimes in addition to second-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and is being held in a Maricopa County jail in lieu of a $300,000 bond.

Stephen Crawford, Parks' lawyer, declined to comment for this story "out of respect for the proceedings and the parties involved," he said.

What Parks said happened

The recently released report indicates Parks did not deny shooting Brayer. Parks painted a picture of a threatening man who kicked the front bumper of his car and stuck his head in the driver's side window, the report said.

Parks told police he usually kept his .40-caliber handgun at home, but he took it out that night and left it in his car for protection, the report said.

He said the gun was a gift from a friend, and he would use it to go shooting in the desert with his brother. He said he didn't know there was a round in the chamber; he only intended to scare Brayer.

Parks had been with a group of friends earlier that night at his south Phoenix home, where he drank two Corona beers, he told investigators. They decided to go to Scottsdale, and Parks drove his own vehicle. Once he got there, most of his friends were already inside of a club and he waited in line, he told police.

RELATED: Man accused in fatal shooting of fire captain says he 'felt threatened'

As two bouncers let other people ahead of him, Parks waited, then asked when he was going to be allowed in, he told police. This led to a verbal confrontation and two more men, who Parks originally thought were police officers but were presumably security, got into a scuffle with Parks and handcuffed him, he told police.

He lost his iPhone in the scuffle; one of his friends later found it but forgot to give it back to Parks, he said. After going to another club and having a sip of a mixed alcoholic drink, he told his friends he was going home, he said.

As he began driving, he realized he forgot his iPhone and drove back to find his friends, he told police.

That's when he found himself behind the golf cart, he told police.

By Parks' account, two men, later identified as Brayer and his friend Zachary Kwiatkowski, sat in the back seat of the cart, facing Parks' vehicle, and started yelling at him.

The two men began kicking his vehicle, he said. Kwiatkowski and Linsey Kornblau, who was sitting in between the two men, later told police Kwiatkowski and Brayer were pushing Parks' vehicle with their feet because they thought Parks was too close to the golf cart and he was going to hit them.

Tempe fire captain mourned Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell and Greg Ruiz, Tempe Fire Medical Rescue chief, talk about Tempe fire Capt. Kyle Brayer, who was shot dead Feb. 4, 2018, in Scottsdale. Tom Tingle/azcentral.com

Kwiatkowski and Kornblau said Brayer stepped on the hood of Parks' vehicle and walked over it toward the car's driver-side window. Parks said he felt threatened when Brayer stuck his head into the window, Parks told police during the interview.

The detectives asked Parks if Brayer at that point touched or grabbed him.

"I didn't give him a chance," Parks told police.

Resul Shkodra, the golf cart driver, told police he was stopped at a stop sign and getting directions to the group's limo, according to the transcript of his interview in the report. He told police he never felt his cart being hit by a vehicle, but after the shooting he took off because he was scared, the report said.

Kornblau and Kwiatkowski said Parks was revving his car's engine and the vehicle nearly hit them. Kornblau told police Kwiatkowski and Brayer got defensive and began leaning forward, yelling at Parks.

"They were like, 'We don't wanna fight. But like you cannot do that.' And they were like leaning forward, though. Like you know like when guys get all macho?" she told police, according to the transcript.

Steve Kovak, who was also sitting in the golf cart facing away, said he turned to see that Brayer had leaned forward and eventually got up from the cart to walk over to Parks.

"The guy (coulda) felt threatened," Kovak told police about Parks, the report transcript says. The word "coulda'' is typed in parenthesis in the transcript.

Brett Farrell, a bystander who witnessed the shooting, described a man on a golf cart as an instigator in a verbal exchange with the driver of a red car.

"I'd say two minutes later, that's when I seen a gentleman in a red shirt talking to a red car, exactly where the blood spot is and then basically leaned in the car, he was — had his hands on his knees, was speaking to him and then he was shot right there in the face," he told police.

Russell B. Richelsoph, a criminal defense attorney who is not involved in the case but represents clients in self-defense cases, said if the case goes to trial Parks could have a hard time convincing a jury he shot in self-defense.

The details of the case, he said, don't show that Parks acted reasonably when he fired at Brayer. State law holds that deadly self-defense is an appropriate action if a reasonable person would behave similarly in similar circumstances.

"The captain may have acted like a drunk jerk and still deadly force isn’t justified," he said.

The two detectives didn't believe Parks felt threatened. The way they saw it, according to the transcript, Parks had been frustrated because of the way the bouncers had treated him earlier that night, he lost his iPhone and took out his frustration on Brayer.

Detective Heinzelman guessed what Parks might have felt when he shot Brayer and told him: "So this guy he's talking trash 'cause they're all drunk, all three of 'em and now I'm, I got my shirt torn, I'm pissed off and now all of a sudden now this guy jumps off his cart and he starts kicking my car? All I'm trying to do is go home, right? I've had enough, I don’t belong in Scottsdale, I don’t wanna do anything I just wanna go back home, maybe I'll have a drink at home maybe I'll just go to bed."

Toward the end of the interview, a detective explained to Parks he was going to be arrested and charged in Brayer's killing.

"Should've stayed home," Parks responded.

Reach the reporter at uriel.garcia@azcentral.com or on Twitter: @ujohnnyg.

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