Wichita man charged in fatal shooting where driver crashed into parked car, apartment
Prosecutors on Wednesday charged a Wichita man accused of shooting into an SUV, killing its driver, with second-degree intentional murder and criminal possession of a weapon, Sedgwick County District Court records show.
Damion Christopher Hazelton Jr., 24, was arrested on June 24, a day after 49-year-old Chris Baker of Wichita was found with a fatal gunshot wound. Wichita police last week said Baker was in a red GMC Yukon that hit a parked car and crashed into an apartment bedroom shortly after 2:15 p.m. June 23 near Lincoln and San Pablo Lane. He died at the scene, despite efforts to save his life, police have said.
Authorities have not given a motive for the shooting.
Hazelton made a first appearance in Sedgwick County District Court on Wednesday afternoon, court records show. A judge set his bond at $600,000 and ordered Hazelton to return to court for another hearing on July 12. He’s also being held on $1 million bond for probation violations in each of two cases, Sedgwick County Jail records show.
On May 17, Hazelton was ordered to serve a year of probation, with an underlying prison term of 13 months, for an aggravated child endangerment conviction stemming from injuries that landed a 3-month-old girl in the hospital in April 2022. Medical staff determined the girl had skull and collarbone fractures and bleeding between her brain and skull likely caused by “forcibly grabbing” and “violent shaking of the child” and the child “being thrown” or “swing or hit into a hard surface,” according to a probable cause affidavit released in that case.
Hazelton was initially charged with child abuse but pleaded guilty to an amended charge, court records show.
In 2020, he was placed on probation for two years, with an underlying prison term of 22 months, after pleading guilty to making an unlawful request for emergency service assistance and interfering with law enforcement. The allegations in that case include him lying to Wichita police about being shot the prior year and wasting resources of authorities who responded to the fake emergency and investigated, according to court records. He violated the terms of his probation in that case at least twice before last week’s deadly shooting, court records show.
Hazelton wrote on an application for a court-appointed lawyer in the murder case that he lives in the 800 block of South San Pablo, which is near the crime scene.
This story was originally published June 28, 2023 at 7:14 PM.
