Man who killed bystander in crossfire gets life
A Hamilton drug dealer who shot another pusher over a jailhouse grudge, but killed another man in the crossfire, has been sentenced to life in prison.
This is the second time Shaquille Collins has been put away for first-degree murder for killing James Bajkor and attempted murder for badly wounding Justin Beals six years ago.
The 25-year-old’s original conviction in 2014 was overturned last year due to errors in the previous judge’s instructions to the jury.
“He was an innocent bystander in every sense of the word,” Crown prosecutor Jill McKenzie said about 22-year-old Bajkor during Wednesday’s sentencing hearing.
The young man who worked at Walmart bought 16 Milton Ave. from his grandmother with a goal of renovating it for rental income to help pay for school, McKenzie said.
Bajkor was working on a garage in his backyard when Collins, then 19, fired five shots from a Colt .45 down a narrow alley beside the brick home on May 21, 2012.
Beals, who was also dealing drugs, survived after emergency surgery. Bajkor, who was shot in the back, did not.
Amberly Frank described in a victim impact statement how her world was upended when her boyfriend of three years was killed.
“James had a big heart and big dreams that he was determined to accomplish and I was there to support him every step of the way.”
Joe Bajkor wrote he “could not conceive a world” without his only child in it. He had to retire early from teaching at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School.
“Most days, I feel nothing: just numb. It is amazing how often I see something or have a stray memory and my pain returns like a knife in my heart.”
He and his wife, Sharon, didn’t attend the four-week retrial because they were too grief-stricken, McKenzie told Justice Andrew Goodman.
The 12-person jury heard Beals ended up at 16 Milton Ave. after scrapping with Collins a few minutes earlier on Sanford Avenue North.
Beals and his girlfriend retreated to the Milton Avenue home, just off Barton Street East, for help from her cousin, who rented a room there.
On the witness stand, Collins admitted to being angry after the fight, but insisted he hadn’t planned to kill anyone.
The jury didn’t buy it, choosing to believe the Crown’s assertion that Collins had planned to kill Beals over a lingering “jail beef.”
In October 2011, Beals and other inmates allegedly assaulted him at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre.
Collins declined to say anything before he was sentenced.
Goodman called Bajkor an “innocent young man presumably with a full life ahead of him” who was “minding his own business” in his own backyard. “Senseless,” he said. Beals, despite being a “lifelong criminal,” didn’t deserve to be shot and wounded, Goodman added.
“Fortunately, he did not expire.”
The judge said Collins’ potential for rehabilitation “appears to be remote” despite his youth. He has a long and varied rap sheet, including assaults on inmates and correctional staff while awaiting his retrial.
Goodman sentenced him to concurrent life sentences for first-degree murder and attempted murder. Collins, who has been in custody since 2012, will not be eligible for parole until 2037.
Christopher Newton, a 34-yearold Hamilton resident who accompanied Collins in a taxi to the shooting, has about a year left in his eight-and-a-half-year sentence for manslaughter.
A Toronto man, who was a young offender at the time, has already served his six-year sentence, also for manslaughter. The 22-year-old, who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, said he passed Collins the gun.