Edmonton man guilty of second-degree murder in 2023 shooting near homeless shelter

A man has been found guilty of second-degree murder in a fatal shooting near a downtown Edmonton homeless agency.

Shane Bakewell, 32, was declared dead in hospital on the morning of Jan. 2, 2023, after staff at the Herb Jamieson Centre found him unresponsive outside the shelter, with a gunshot wound to his stomach.

Video presented as evidence in court shows he was outside the building for more than 24 hours before shelter staff checked on him and called an ambulance. 

In a decision released last week, Court of King's Bench Justice Michael Lema found Harrison Belanger guilty in the killing, finding that video from the former downtown location of Boyle Street Community Services shows the moment of the shooting around 3 a.m. on New Year's Day.

While a gun isn't visible in the video, Lema ruled that "overwhelming" circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion that Belanger is the one who shot and fatally injured Bakewell.

Belanger was arrested a few weeks after the shooting, but the Edmonton Police Service didn't release details about the charges for almost nine months.

Court scrutinizes video evidence

Lema's decision on May 15 details how the video shows Bakewell and Belanger encounter each other outside Boyle Street, then get into an argument that escalates to a physical fight. After some back and forth, Belanger walks away and retrieves a backpack, then lifts it toward Bakewell, appearing to hold an object that's concealed in the bag.

In what the judge calls "the key moment," the footage captures the backpack moving up, and Bakewell clutches his abdomen and starts walking away, kicking his legs and then hunching over.

"In immediate aftermath ... as Mr. Bakewell moved to the east, Mr. Belanger stalked him in what appeared to be an intimidating or menacing manner, seeking to chase Mr. Bakewell off and succeeding in doing so," Lema wrote in his decision.

"He did not show any sign of concern for Mr. Bakewell or other indication that the shooting may have been accidental."

Another camera captures Bakewell walking along 101st Street, and he eventually appears on surveillance footage outside the Herb Jamieson Centre, where he spends the next 27 hours.

He alternates between lying in a snowbank, standing by the door, lying on the ground and sitting in a wheelchair. Eventually, he lies on a lounge chair with his arms splayed out, where shelter staff then check on him and call for help.

Police didn't recover the backpack or the gun during their investigation, nor did they get any witness statements from people who were in the area at the time — some of whom are seen on video reacting to the moment Lema determined the victim was shot.

Defence lawyer Ashok Gill argued on the final day of the trial that the video doesn't definitively show what happened. He said it requires a "leap of faith" to conclude it's the moment of the shooting and raises reasonable doubt that Bakewell could have been injured earlier, by someone else.

Lema dismissed that as "fanciful and entirely speculative."

"The idea that Mr. Bakewell was shot before the events in question effectively translates to 'anything can happen,'" Lema said.

"That is insufficient to create a reasonable alternative inference or possibility, at least in the circumstances here."

Belanger will be sentenced at a later date.