After final arguments, fate of shooter in jury’s hands

There is no dispute that Shaquille Collins shot two men, badly wounding one and killing another, outside a Hamilton home six years ago.

But the jury must decide if Collins — charged with firstdegree murder and attempted murder — acted deliberately in planning the shooting, or fired shots in self-defence.

The retrial, now in its fourth week, heard closing arguments from the prosecution and defence Monday in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Defence lawyer Alison Craig called the crossfire death of 22year-old bystander James Bajkor an “absolute tragedy.”

But the jury can’t let that “cloud” its view of the evidence, which Craig argued shows her 25-year-old client acted in selfdefence in a confrontation with another man, Justin Beals.

There was bad blood between Collins and Beals from time spent at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre in October 2011. Beals and other inmates allegedly assaulted Collins there.

Several months later, on May 21, 2012, they got into a scrap when they ran into each other outside an apartment building on Sanford Avenue North.

Collins, then 19, received a bloody lip, and the two drug dealers argued as they went north on Sanford to Barton Street East.

The standoff eventually wound up near Bajkor’s home at 16 Milton Ave., where the cousin of Beals’ girlfriend rented a room.

“He was angry after the jail fight. He was angry after the fight on Sanford,” Craig said of Collins, but he didn’t plan to shoot Beals, let alone kill someone.

But when Collins returned to 16 Milton Ave. in a taxi with two friends, one of them passed him a gun. That’s when he fired five shots from a Colt .45, badly wounding Beals. He also struck Bajkor, who had been working in the backyard. He died in hospital.

The first two of the five shots were fired into the air as warnings to show Beals the gun was real when he balked at its authenticity, Craig recounted.

But Beals, who Collins thought may have been armed, lunged at the accused and went for his gun arm, causing him to fall backwards and fire three more times. Collins had been “stupid” in pursuing Beals and not backing down, the defence lawyer said, “but that does not mean he is guilty of murder.”

Assistant Crown attorney Janet Booy countered that the opposite is true. “This was not a spur-of-the-moment shooting. It was thought out, planned and deliberate.”

Booy argued that the “seeds of revenge” were sown for Collins after the jail attack. But the opportunity for payback didn’t “crystallize” until his chance encounter with Beals on Sanford.

Collins called his accomplices to retrieve his gun, conceal it in a hoodie and ferry it in a cab to 16 Milton Ave., Booy told the court.

Christopher Newton and another man, who was a minor at the time and can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, have pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the case.

Collins’ plan for Beals — “to execute, to finish him off” — was hatched in 10 minutes, Booy said. In 27 seconds — the time it took to hop out of the cab, fire five times and run off — there was no time for discussion with Beals, nor warning shots, she said.

Collins started firing as soon as he spotted Beals, who, along with his girlfriend’s cousin, tried to take cover through a side door, the prosecutor said. “But one shot missed and (Collins) killed an innocent man, James Bajkor.”

It doesn’t matter that Beals, not Bajkor, was the target.

Collins went to 16 Milton intending to kill, Booy said. “He just killed the wrong person.”

Justice Andrew Goodman planned to finish his instructions to jurors on Tuesday, after which they will deliberate on a verdict.