A man wanted for the fatal shooting of his neighbor, who was shot through a wall in a Connecticut townhouse last week, has been charged with manslaughter following his surrender, police said Friday.
Victor Quispe, 37, was shot inside his home in Danbury the night of Jan. 7, according to police. He was struck by a single round that traveled through a wall in the townhouse, police said. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The suspected gunman was not at the scene when police arrived, police said. Two days after the shooting, the City of Danbury Police Department said they had issued an arrest warrant for Quispe's neighbor, 42-year-old David Grullon Jr., in connection with the homicide.
Grullon surrendered to police Thursday evening and has been charged with multiple offenses, including second-degree manslaughter, police said. Additional charges include reckless endangerment, risk of injury to a minor and firearm offenses, police said.
Prosecutors said Grullon never should not have been in possession of a firearm due to his prior felony convictions.
"That firearm discharged and killed an innocent man," Deputy State Attorney Mary-Caitlin Harding said during Grullon's arraignment on Friday.
Outside the Danbury courthouse on Friday, Grullon's attorney referred to the shooting as an "accident, and said that Grullon was "handling the firearm and was shocked that it went off."
"This wasn't playing around," the defense attorney, Gene Zingaro, told reporters.
Zingaro said the two neighbors were both expecting baby girls and "it's something that they talked about."
"They were friends," Zingaro said.
Grullon's bond was set at $1 million during his arraignment, during which the judge called it a "tragic situation." He has not posted bond and is next scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 2 for a plea hearing, according to a court official.
Police said the shooting remains under investigation.
"No additional information will be released at this time to protect the integrity of the case," the City of Danbury Police Department said in a statement on Friday announcing the arrest and charges in the deadly shooting.
Investigators believe that Quispe was sitting on his couch eating dinner when he was shot, then collapsed on his kitchen floor, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Officers who responded to the shooting found Quispe bleeding from the head, unresponsive on the kitchen floor. There was a small hole in the back of a couch cushion and a "blood-like stain" in the middle of the couch, according to the affidavit. Food and a cup were also on a table in front of the couch, it said.
In Grullon's unit, authorities located a small hole in a living room wall "consistent with a bullet hole" and a Winchester 9mm Luger casing on the living room floor, according to the affidavit.
Grullon's 15-year-old stepdaughter and 4-year-old son were in an upstairs bedroom in the unit at the time of the shooting, according to the affidavit.
Grullon called Quispe twice, which went unanswered, according to the affidavit. While getting into his car, he encountered the victim's fiancée arriving home and allegedly told her there was an "accident" and to call 911, before leaving, according to the affidavit. The children were left alone in the unit, the affidavit noted.
Grullon's lawyer said his client panicked following the shooting because he was out on bond for a pending assault case, ABC New York station WABC reported.
Zingaro told ABC News that he had picked Grullon up out of state and brought him in for a "safe surrender."
"This was his request," Zingaro said.
The shooting victim, Quispe, was a local barber known as "BlessedByVic" on social media. His fiancée is pregnant with their first child, according to a GoFundMe for the family.
"His generosity was boundless -- he always remembered family back home, often providing meals or support to those in need," his obituary stated. "His giving spirit extended to all of us; he was known for offering gifts so extravagant that we would lovingly argue with him about it."
Quispe had moved to the U.S. from his native Peru at the age of five, his family said. He was remembered for his "contagious" laugh, sense of style, love of Peruvian food, "endless affection" and strong work ethic to provide for his family and first child, according to his obituary.
Quispe worked at Legends Barber Co. in Danbury, where he "wasn't just a barber, but a trusted friend to countless people," Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves said in a statement on social media last week.
One of his customers, Randy Hamilton, told WABC that Quispe was an "excellent barber," but also a "good friend, good person."
"I can always get a haircut, that's nothing, I can get that from anywhere but the person that he was is like, you don't find too many people like that," Hamilton told the station.