Man In Branford Police Standoff Was Depressed: Friend

BRANFORD, CT — Police continue investigating the man who opened fire from his Main Street apartment Tuesday, wounding one person, during a six-hour siege before dying of what authorities said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Meanwhile, a close friend of the shooter, Matthew Lee Walker, 38, told Patch he was a "good person" who had been depressed earlier this year. She also described Walker as a lover of English, a talented hockey player, and she defended against claims he was white supremacist by saying his favorite musical artist was a Black rapper.

“You can call Matt a white supremacist, but his favorite artist was Biggie Smalls,” his longtime friend Anastasia Volkova wrote on Facebook and in messages to Patch.

Walker, who also lived in East Haven, did not have a criminal record there, according to a search and police in that town; a traffic stop in 2013 and a weapons permit background check in 2016 was all police have records of.

Walker had a lot of firearms, police said, and "plenty of ammunition." When Patch asked Branford police if all the firearms in his apartment were legally owned by him, they said some were, but that's part of the ongoing investigation.

During Tuesday's siege, which paralyzed a large section of Branford, Walker fired so many rounds from his second-floor apartment window that investigators said Wednesday they had yet to count all of the shots fired.

The person who was shot by Walker was in stable condition Wednesday at Yale New Haven Hospital, authorities said. No other injuries were reported, though people in nearby homes and businesses told Patch they were traumatized as a barrage of rapid fire shots echoed through the neighborhood.

Walker co-owned a small East Haven business with his twin brother

Walker and his twin brother Brandon started an East Haven-based moving company called 2 Bros and a Truck in 2015.

According to federal Department of Transportation records, the company has 241 Main St. Branford as its mailing address with South End Road in East Haven as its physical address.
On the business website Tuesday, there was an announcement that the business would be closed for a week.

What a close friend said about Walker

Volkova, of Madison, has known Walker for more than a decade, she said. The two attended Southern Connecticut State University together from 2010 to 2011. Besides his love of English —she described him as a “very abstract kind of person” based on that — he loved ice hockey and played in a men’s hockey league based out of the Northford Ice Pavillion. She also said he "traveled a lot" and was “always in search of a new adventure."

But most importantly to her, as a friend, he was always there for her: “He listened and let me vent.”

“He was a good kid,” Volkova said. “I've known him for over 10 years. Please don't let him go down with a bad rep. It would mean so much to a lot of us that played hockey with him.”

Volkova said that the last time she spoke to Walker, earlier this year, they spoke at length. She said he was depressed.

“He helped me through some crazy family stuff back in college, but he didn't always understand it,” she said. “Matt was one to hide his pain. He was a big teddy bear if he opened up to you. But he was depressed.”

She shared more details but noted that she was not sure he’d want his “family issues out there.”

When asked if she had a photograph of the two of them together she recalled that when they last spoke a couple of months ago, he said he had one.

“Last time we talked, he told me he still had the one picture we took together in college. It was 10 years ago,” she said. “My arms are wrapped around him …”

Walker's downstairs neighbor, Leon James, owner of the salon on the first floor, told Patch Tuesday in a Facebook message that he was safe. When asked Thursday to share information about Walker, he declined.

He reopened his salon Thursday.