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Teen’s murder trial begins
YOUNGSTOWN
Prosecutors and defense attorneys, during opening statements in the trial of a 16-year-old accused of murder, gave jurors two different scenarios on how a 17-year-old boy was shot dead on the South Side last year.
Shonqualin Hendrix, 16, of Midland Avenue, is on trial before Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. He is charged with murder in the July 29 shooting death of 17-year-old Braylen Collins of West Glenaven Avenue.
If convicted as charged, Hendrix faces 18 years to life in prison.
Robert Andrews and Kevin Trapp, assistant county prosecutors, just before the start of the trial Tuesday, offered Hendrix a plea deal where his charges would be reduced to manslaughter with a gun specification.
Under the terms of the offer, his potential prison time would have been limited to 13 years.
Hendrix, through his attorney Mark Lavelle, rejected the offer, choosing to move forward with the trial.
Trapp told jurors the events leading to Collins’ murder began the day before the shooting with an altercation between 19-year-old Delord Green and Hendrix. Green and Collins were good friends.
Trapp said Green and Hendrix were involved in an altercation where Hendrix pulled out a firearm, but Green wrestled the gun away from him and kept the weapon.
The next day Hendrix, out walking with friends, ran into Green again while Green was walking with Collins.
Trapp said multiple shots were fired with at least one hitting Collins in the chest. He died after being taken into Green’s Summer Street home.
“How many shooters, we don’t know, but you will hear on the stand from multiple witnesses that Shonqualin Hendrix was shooting at Delord and Braylen Collins,” he said. “No kid should have to endure this no matter their background.”
Police arrested Green the day of the shooting and charged him with tampering with evidence after hiding guns he had stashed in and around his house.
Lavelle told jurors a different version of what took place during the 48 hours leading up to the shooting. He said the Collins’ death is tragic, but it would also be tragic to convict his client of the murder.
Lavelle said Hendrix found a gun somewhere on the South Side and hid the weapon for an undetermined amount of time, before carrying it and running into Green the day before Collins was killed.
“I think he [Hendrix] thought he was cool, but what he was, was way out of his league,” Lavelle said.
The gun, Lavelle said, fell out of Hendrix’s pocket in front of Green, who then took the weapon from Hendrix and threatened him. Lavelle said Green and Green’s brother “own” the part of the South Side where the shooting took place and enforce that ownership with threats and sometimes violence.
Lavelle said Hendrix, the day after the confrontation with Green and the day of the shooting, was walking in the area of the shooting headed to his girlfriend’s house when he noticed the police activity and flashing lights, and went in the opposite direction.
The defense lawyer said his client was simply walking in the area and never fired a shot, but Delord Green did fire shots.
“Delord enforced his territory. He didn’t have a gun the day of the shooting, he had two,” Lavelle said. “Delord had guns hidden outside his house.”
Lavelle added his client was only arrested because Delord and his brother identified him as the shooter.