Police: Auto lot owner warned he'd kill any burglars

A business owner cleared by a grand jury in the fatal shooting of a burglar at his Colorado Springs auto shop last April had warned police after an earlier burglary that he was prepared to kill to protect his property.

Jovan Milanovic, 30, called police on Easter to report a burglary at Southwest Auto Sales on Platte Place and told an officer that he was “pissed off” enough about a spate of break-ins that he would shoot any thieves who returned, according to a police report released Thursday.

A week later, after lying in wait inside the business, the mechanic fatally shot 20-year-old Robert Johnson Fox after Fox and an accomplice scaled a fence and climbed into the auto lot. Fox’s friend, who escaped uninjured, told police that the shooter and another man ran toward the pair, one of them shouting, “I’m going to (expletive) kill you!”

Milanovic told police that his father and brother-in-law, who were with him during the early morning stakeout, shouted, “Get him! Get him!”

Fox, of Colorado Springs, had a knife strapped to his ankle and others in his pockets, but Milanovic did not report seeing the weapons and said Fox did not approach him or the two other men.

Police did not release the report to the public until after a grand jury convened by 4th Judicial District Attorney Dan May ruled last week there was insufficient evidence to indict Milanovic, who was never arrested.

The 145-page report paints a tense and occasionally combative account of police interviews after the April 19 slaying, as detectives sought to resolve inconsistencies in the men’s stories. Milanovic clung to the position that he did nothing wrong even as he acknowledged lying about key details and admitted that he played a role in hiding the military-style carbine rifle he used to fire the fatal shot.

His father, Ljuban Milanovic, told officers that at least one of the burglars was armed and fired first during the encounter. No one corroborated that claim, and detectives found no evidence to support it.

Fox’s mother, Sue Fox, said the report bolstered the family’s view that Milanovic was a “vigilante” who mounted a deadly ambush. She charged that the district attorney was more concerned that he had a “winnable case” than in seeking justice for her son.

“He was running, and they shot him,” she said. “Explain to me how that wasn’t murder. If someone did that to a dog, the Humane Society would charge them with animal cruelty.”

May declined to address questions about his handling of the case, referring questions to a deputy prosecutor.

Colorado’s “Make My Day” law allows residents to use deadly force against intruders in their homes, but does not apply to businesses. Deadly force can be used only in self-defense at a business.

Jeff Lindsey, senior deputy district attorney, said the District Attorney’s Office made a “collective decision” to send the case to a grand jury, with the intention of learning what residents thought of the circumstances. The office is prohibited from commenting about a grand jury’s findings beyond saying they opted against charges.

Lindsey declined to say whether prosecutors thought Milanovic acted in self-defense.

“That’s a decision the grand jury would have had a chance to look at and make a decision on,” he said.

John Newsome, Milanovic’s attorney, maintained that his client acted in self-defense. He said Milanovich was aware that someone stole a gun from a neighboring business earlier in the week, and that Milanovic was afraid the burglars could be armed. Newsome said the “entire episode” unfolded in a matter of seconds and that Milanovic never intended to kill Fox.

Milanovic provided a different timeline. He told a detective that he and his two family members had kept watch for a half hour when they heard a burglar alarm go off at a neighboring business. They did not call police, whom they blamed for not doing enough to stop the crime spree.

During a police interview that morning, Milanovic repeatedly changed his story about what happened next. Colorado Springs police detective Mareshah Hale chided him for his “lies.”

Milanovic initially insisted that he fired a single warning shot from a 9 mm pistol after hearing someone climb a fence onto his property, and that he was surprised to find Fox lying in a pool of blood on the ground. Later, he admitted that he also fired a German-made Heckler & Koch USC .45-caliber semiautomatic rifle, which police found stashed in the trunk of an Audi at the business.

Testing determined the rifle fired the fatal shot. The bullet hit Fox in the upper left chest, exiting near his collar bone.

A neighbor who heard the shots estimated that Milanovic waited 10 minutes after the shooting before using his cellular phone to contact police, the report said, although Milanovic said it was no more than two or three minutes.

Milanovic, a Bosnian refugee, runs the automotive business with his father. He told police a week before the shooting that a thief or thieves had stolen keys from a number of the vehicles in his lot on Good Friday and feared they would be back later to steal the cars.

For the next week, he said, Milanovic, his father and brother-in-law slept inside the office to keep watch for their return.

On the night before the shooting, he said, they stayed up and drank beer before the burglars arrived. Under questioning, Milanovic frequently voiced regret, saying that he hated guns and never wanted to hurt anybody.

But a part-time employee at Milanovic’s business told police he expressed no such qualms in private. Two days before the shooting, Stanley Naillis said, Milanovic told him that he was “tired of the system” and that if the burglars ever returned to the shop, he would take matters into his own hands.

“That’s not the way it works,” Naillis said he was told. “If somebody comes in, you just shoot them. You kill them.”

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