Shooter Sentenced to 23 Years For Slaying of Innocent Fort Greene Man

In 2014, Leonaldo Parrado was robbed by two men. Despite the fact they were wearing clown masks, Parrado thought he knew who one of them was. And he went looking for retribution.

On February 19, 2015, Parrado entered the courtyard of the Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, armed with a gun and on the lookout for the man he thought had robbed him. Mistakenly, he thought that was 20-year old Kevin Colon, who was just leaving his mother’s apartment in the Whitman Houses that day, just before 2 pm, when Parrado fired four to five shots at the innocent man.

Colon was shot in the stomach, and rushed to nearby Brooklyn Hospital, where he died from his wounds.

Though Parrado fled the scene, he was caught on surveillance video, and after a lengthy police investigation, he was arrested at his Brownsville home—seven months to the day after he shot and killed Colon.

Yesterday, Brooklyn Attorney General Eric Gonzalez announced that Parrado, now 24, has been sentenced by a Supreme Court Justice to 23 years in jail, on charges of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

“The defendant thought himself above the law by taking matters into his own hands, and in the process senselessly ended the life of an innocent man,” said Gonzalez. “I’m committed to prosecuting violent criminals and making Brooklyn safe for all its residents.”