Michael Joseph Brown, a 20-year-old Black/African American man from Meriden, Connecticut, was fatally shot during an eruption of gunfire in the early morning hours of October 3, 2020. At approximately 2:40 a.m., Meriden police were called to the area of the Citgo gas station at 54 South Broad Street after reports that shots had been fired. Shortly after officers responded, MidState Medical Center notified police that two people suffering from gunshot wounds had arrived for treatment.
Brown had sustained injuries that proved fatal and died at the hospital. The other wounded person, identified in later reporting as Khalil Kelly, had been struck once in the leg and survived.
As investigators began reconstructing what had happened in the gas station parking lot, police said the violence involved individuals associated with rival gangs who had been targeting one another. The case was therefore described from its early stages as a gang-related exchange of gunfire rather than a random attack. Police continued investigating the shooting as a homicide, reviewing evidence from the scene and surveillance footage as they worked to determine who had fired weapons and how the confrontation had unfolded. The shooting came during a period of heightened concern over gun violence in Meriden, with police officials later saying detectives were working extensively on several shootings and incidents connected with ongoing conflicts between groups in the city.
The investigation eventually produced arrests nearly a year after Brown's death. In August 2021, police charged Josaun Munoz in connection with the gas station shooting. Munoz was charged with criminal attempt to commit first-degree assault, possession of a pistol, and unlawful discharge of a firearm, and his bond was set at $500,000. Investigators recovered video footage that authorities said showed Munoz participating in an exchange of gunfire between two groups in the parking lot. According to prosecutors, the footage established that Munoz and another person fired a weapon at an individual. Authorities did not publicly characterize the resulting case against Munoz as a murder prosecution, and the charges reported in connection with the gas station incident centered on attempted assault and firearm offenses rather than homicide.
Police made another arrest in October 2021 when they took Khalil Kelly into custody. Kelly was not only the person who had suffered the leg wound during the shooting; investigators said they ultimately identified him as one of the people who had fired a gun during the confrontation. He was charged with criminal possession of a pistol, carrying a pistol without a permit, and unlawful discharge of a firearm and was held on a $500,000 bond. Police also noted that Kelly had previous felony convictions, making his alleged possession of a firearm unlawful. Although Kelly was described as one of the alleged shooters and was charged in connection with the fatal incident, the publicly reported charges did not include murder or manslaughter.
Munoz's prosecution later resulted in a guilty plea and prison sentence. On July 25, 2022, he pleaded guilty in New Haven Superior Court to attempted first-degree assault for his participation in the gas station shooting. At the same time, he pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery for a separate carjacking that had also occurred on October 3, 2020. Prosecutors said that in the unrelated carjacking, Munoz and several codefendants robbed a woman of her vehicle at gunpoint and the victim was struck in the head during the robbery. On September 19, 2022, a judge imposed a total sentence of 15 years, suspended after six years of incarceration, followed by four years of probation. Five of the six years he was ordered to serve were mandatory.
The available reporting therefore shows that investigators identified multiple armed participants and brought firearm and assault charges arising from the confrontation that ended in Brown's death. Munoz was ultimately convicted through a guilty plea of attempted first-degree assault related to the exchange of gunfire, while Kelly was arrested after police identified him as another person who fired a weapon. The publicly available reports reviewed do not establish that either man was convicted of murdering Brown, nor do they identify a defendant who was ultimately prosecuted and convicted specifically for causing the fatal gunshot injuries. The case instead developed as an investigation into a violent exchange between opposing groups in which Brown was killed, Kelly was wounded, and authorities later pursued individual participants for their alleged gunfire and weapons offenses.
