Man accused in deadly crossfire spinning false story, says Crown

The “truth” — as scrawled on a note passed from one accused killer to another in a Hamilton courtroom — was, in fact, “a lie,” a Crown prosecutor says.

In the message to a co-accused, Shaquille Collins wrote he was going to “tell them the truth” about a deadly shooting at 16 Milton Ave. on May 21, 2012.

But the note was just one way Collins schemed to keep his coaccused on the same false page throughout the court process, assistant Crown attorney Jill McKenzie said before a jury Tuesday.

“The entire note is a fabrication,” McKenzie said, to which Collins replied, “No.”

The 25-year-old is charged in the death of James Bajkor, who was caught in the crossfire when Collins fired shots outside his Milton Avenue home while pursuing another man, Justin Beals, the Crown says.

Bajkor, who was working on the roof of a shed in his backyard, was struck by one of five bullets as Collins fired at his intended target, the Crown says. Beals was badly wounded but survived emergency surgery. Bajkor did not. He was 22.

Collins is charged with firstdegree murder and attempted murder.

The jury in this retrial has heard there was bad blood between Beals and Collins from their time at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre in October 2011. Beals allegedly assaulted Collins. The hard feelings resurfaced on May 21, 2012, when the two got into a scrap on Sanford Avenue North. Collins, then 19, says he ended up with “busted lip” before Beals, then 34, and his girlfriend, Amber Thorogood, headed up Sanford.

Thorogood ran to her cousin’s place, 16 Milton Ave., which owner Bajkor rented out.

The two scrappers engaged in a “cat-and-mouse” pursuit, drifting toward Milton Avenue, off Barton Street East.

Collins eventually left. But the prosecution maintains he summoned two friends to fetch his gun and return in a cab to shoot Beals.

Collins insists he didn’t ask for a gun and only wanted his friends to help him beat up Beals. He also wanted to retrieve a pouch with drugs, money, ID and a cellphone he’d lost in the scrap.

Both he and Beals dealt drugs at the time, the jury has heard.

Collins says he returned with Newton, then 28, and another friend, who was a minor.

That’s when the youngest of the three, who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, told him he had a gun.

He took it, jogged up to the house and exchanged heated words with Beals, who didn’t believe the gun was real, Collins says.

So he fired two shots above his head, which prompted Beals to “lunge” at him and grab his arm, causing him to fall backward while squeezing the trigger.

Not so, the Crown says: In the roughly 27 seconds it took him to exit the cab, fire five shots from the Colt .45 and flee, there wasn’t enough time for all of that.

There was no discussion, no warning shots, the prosecution argues — just shots fired as Beals ran for cover inside.

In fact, that “truth” Collins instructed Newton to tell in the note resembled the false narrative he’d spun only a day earlier, McKenzie said.

The one difference is Collins didn’t tell court Beals pulled a gun, she added.

The note was projected on a screen in the courtroom.

“Yo broski ima free you up, Ima go on the stand and just be like you didnt know that was going to happen, noone did.

“Ima tell them the truth, that I went back there, and me and (Beals) started arguing and he pulled out a gun ... I fell on the ground with the machine, and he ran inside.”

Those instructions were vital to Collins, McKenzie said. “Because if you don’t tell him, he might actually tell the truth.”

The note, Collins countered, was not about that; rather “the truth” was that he wouldn’t say their younger accomplice gave him the gun.

From the time the Colt .45 plot was hatched, to pushing his two “soldiers” to stick with a false story, Collins has been in control, the prosecutor argued.

Allison Craig, his lawyer, however, suggested her client had no such plan.

“Did you have any idea that you were going to see Justin Beals that day?”

“No.”

“Did you have any idea where Justin Beals lived?”

“No.”

The trial continues Wednesday.