A man faces a felony charge after prosecutors said he shot his father at their Town of Delafield home on Father’s Day, according to a criminal complaint filed June 24.
Connor Zastrow, 25, is charged with attempted homicide with a domestic abuse modifier. If convicted, Zastrow faces up to 60 years in prison.
Zastrow reportedly was angered after his father attempted to take guns away from him.
According to the criminal complaint and Waukesha County Sheriff officials:
When the deputy arrived at the residence on McDowell Road around 3 p.m. June 21, they saw an officer in front of the home rendering aid to Zastrow’s father, who was lying in the graveled rock area between the house and the walkway to the front of the house.
The man had sustained two wounds to the abdomen after three shots were fired. Zastrow was also assisting with first aid for his father.
The deputy escorted Zastrow to a squad vehicle and when asked if he had any injuries, Zastrow showed his left arm, which had a minor cut, and said his left shoulder and his head were hurting. Zastrow appeared to have a bruise on the side of his face, the deputy noted.
The deputy said Zastrow was calm and displayed no emotion during his interaction with him.
The girlfriend of Zastrow’s father told another deputy that they were looking into getting Zastrow help for his mental health due to recent concerns.
She said Zastrow’s father and herself had gone out to lunch, and when they returned, Zastrow was sitting on the front porch with a firearm on his chest. She said she went into the house, while Zastrow’s father stayed to talk with Zastrow.
She said a verbal argument occurred between the two, with Zastrow getting louder as he discussed gun laws. She said both were shouting as Zastrow’s father tried to take the firearm away from his son when the shots were fired.
A search warrant obtained for the home revealed Zastrow had an AR-15-style rifle with a round in the chamber and multiple different items of suspected drug paraphernalia in his room. In his dresser, deputies found a box of ammunition, and in a safe in the closet was a plastic container that had 20 red-tipped rounds and a Ziplock-style bag that had numerous full metal jacket rounds.
Deputies found another .22-caliber AR rifle in the trunk of his car that had a loaded magazine inserted into the rifle and a round in the chamber. A 30-round magazine was also found in the front driver’s-side door pocket. Two additional clips with rounds in them were found in the center console compartment of the vehicle.
‘The kid is not right’
During a conversation with Zastrow’s dad, he told deputies that “the kid is not right.” He said his son had some form of autism but was never clinically diagnosed.
Zastrow’s dad said he had been acting strangely over the last few months, but did not elaborate further.
He also advised that his son had multiple firearms and that he planned to confront him regarding the AR-15 rifle that was in his vehicle.
When he approached his son, Zastrow was sitting with a handgun in his lap, he said. After telling his son that he could no longer have guns, he said he tried to take the gun from Zastrow and ended up punching him in the left side of his face.
He said his son then discharged the handgun toward him.
‘I was just disturbed or homicidal, I guess.’
Detectives later interviewed Zastrow regarding his father’s shooting. He told detectives he had been sitting in a chair on the front porch with a pistol attached to a two-point rifle sling by pulling a cord chain through the lanyard hole at the bottom of the grip of the pistol.
Zastrow said he had just recently started wearing the pistol in this way because he did not have a concealed carry permit. He said this technique would prevent people, including his father, from approaching him.
He said when his dad and girlfriend got back home, his dad talked to him about concealed carry laws and the AR-15 rifle he possessed. He said he became upset about the questioning since he had already removed the rifle from the vehicle and put it inside the home they shared.
He said he and his father spoke for three minutes before the shooting.
He said his father became upset about the manner in which his son was carrying his firearms and that it was going to potentially cause problems, which stemmed from Zastrow’s indication to his father that he would use the firearm against a Hartland police officer.
“If I had to use for anybody that officer that gave me the OWI, if he tries to do that or anything again, I would use it on him,” Zastrow reportedly said.
He said his dad tried to aggressively take the firearm from him, which prompted a physical fight between the two.
Zastrow said his dad grabbed the firearm by the barrel area, which broke the small pull-cord chain of his firearm. When his dad had the firearm by the barrel area, Zastrow said he grabbed the pistol with his left hand and transitioned the pistol to his right hand before shooting three times, striking his father twice.
Zastrow said he was surprised his dad was only struck twice, given the short distance between them. He admitted he knew he could have killed his father, but said he knew where he was shot would likely only hurt him.
When a detective asked why he shot his father, Zastrow said, “I was just disturbed or homicidal, I guess.” He also said his dad was a big guy and wanted to fight.
After shooting his dad, he stated he calmly walked away and thought that what his dad tried to do was stupid and that he didn’t understand why he would try to take the firearm from him.
Zastrow made his first court appearance on June 24 and was ordered held on a $500,000 cash bond. His next court appearance is scheduled to take place July 1.
Adrienne Davis is a south suburban reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Got any tips or stories to share? Contact Adrienne at amdavis@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @AdriReportss.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Delafield man charged with shooting dad on Father’s Day
Reporting by Adrienne Davis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Adrienne Davis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
