Instagram Post About Hair Stuck in Gun Muzzle Links Detroit Man to Royal Oak Pistol-Whipping, FBI Says

A Detroit man already barred from owning a gun because of past felony convictions is now facing a federal weapons charge after agents say an Instagram post helped connect him to the pistol-whipping of a woman in Royal Oak.

Colin Harris was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm following an Aug. 31 search of his home on San Jose Street in Detroit, according to a federal complaint. FBI agents said they found a loaded Glock Model 30S .45-caliber handgun, reported stolen out of Detroit, with a round already in the chamber, inside a bedroom investigators concluded belonged to Harris.

The case traces back to Aug. 9, when Detroit police were called to Corewell William Beaumont University Hospital in Royal Oak after a report of felonious assault. Hospital staff told officers the patient had already been discharged, so police reached her by phone. She said she had spent the evening with a group of people, including Harris, after attending a funeral.

According to the complaint, Harris had been carrying a Draco pistol and someone in the group asked to hold it. When that person left with the gun, Harris became angry, went back inside the house and came out with a different weapon, described in court records as a black Smith & Wesson handgun. The woman told police Harris blamed her for letting his Draco get taken and yelled at her before striking the back of her head with the handgun, knocking her to the ground. Still bleeding from her head and ear, she drove herself to the hospital.

When federal agents interviewed the woman again on Aug. 20, she gave a more detailed account. She said a man had taken the Draco away from Harris because he had been waving it around, which set off an argument among several men in the group. Harris then retrieved the second gun and pointed it at her. Several men grabbed him and held him back, but he broke free and came at her again, pulling her hair and punching her before she fell. When she got back up, she said, Harris charged a second time with the gun still in his hand and struck her in the head. She recalled someone in the group shouting, "You just pistol whipped her! You're going to jail!" She was later treated for a head injury and received two staples in her scalp.

The next day, the woman told agents, one of Harris' friends posted a photo on Instagram showing a black pistol with black hair coming out of the muzzle. The caption read, "Pistol whipping btcs... I got weave stuck in my Gen," according to the complaint. Agents cited the post as a piece of evidence linking Harris to the attack.

Investigators traced Harris to the San Jose Street address through his probation officer, who had visited the home multiple times, including the week before the Aug. 31 search, and through cellphone location data that showed his phone consistently pinging at that address for about a week. During the search, agents recovered the stolen Glock from a bedroom they say belonged to Harris. A firearms expert with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reviewed a written description of the gun the same day and determined it had been manufactured outside Michigan, which supports federal jurisdiction over the case.

Court records show Harris was convicted in federal court in 2022 of being a felon in possession of a firearm and aggravated identity theft. He also has two felony convictions out of Detroit from 2019, one for carrying a concealed weapon and one for fleeing and eluding police. Those prior convictions form the basis for the current federal charge, which bars anyone with a felony record from possessing a firearm.

The case is being handled out of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, with agents from the FBI's Detroit field office and ATF assisting in the firearm analysis.

Harris was being held pending a detention hearing scheduled for Sept. 4 at 1 p.m. The federal complaint does not include a state assault charge related to the Royal Oak incident, though the pistol-whipping allegations form much of the factual basis agents laid out to support the weapons case. No additional charges had been filed as of the complaint's filing date.