Dale King denies that he 'brought a gun to a fist fight' in Yosif Al-Hasnawi shooting

Dale King says he didn't know he'd shot Yosif Al-Hasnawi, but he still ran into an alley, wiped the fingerprints from his gun and hid the weaponwhere no one could find it.

That was part of his testimony Wednesday when the Crown cross-examined him for his role in the Dec. 2, 2017shooting death of the so-called Good Samaritan.

King, 21, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, saying he shot Al-Hasnawiin self defence as Al-Hasnawi chasedhim. He thought the 19-year-old Brock University student was about to stab his friend James Matheson, he said, and he didn't know the bullet had hit someone.

But the court heard that King and Matheson separated moments after the shooting. King walked down an alley, removed the remaining live round from his .22 calibre Derringer and stashed the gun out of sight.

That's odd behaviour, said Crown attorney Brian Adsett, for someone who thought he'd missed. King said he just "didn't want nothing else to do with (the gun)."

"You brought a gun to a fist fight, didn't you?" Adsett said to him.

"No," King said.

King shot Al-Hasnawi, Adsett said, because "hedidn't back down like he should have when you flashed the gunand let him know who you and Jameswere."

"That's not why," King said. "He was about to stab my friend."

The shooting happened around 9 p.m. King and Matheson walked past Cadillac Jax bar on Main Street East. Theysaw Paul Cowell, an older man who lived at a nearby residential care facility. King says Cowell was yelling to himself. He and Matheson laughed about it, and Matheson began imitating the way Cowell walked.

Al-Hasnawispotted this. He'dstepped outside the Al-Mostafa Islamic Centre mosque with his 13-year-old brother Ahmed and two 16-year-old friends. He called at Matheson and King to stop, and the pair crossed the street.

Didn't hit Matheson

Witnesses say King flashed his gun, andAl-Hasnawi said he wasn't scared of a gun. Matheson sucker punched Al-Hasnawi and the pair ran, and Al-Hasnawi chased them. Ahmed and one of the friends trailed after them.

King shot Al-Hasnawionce in the abdomen.Al-Hasnawi, who was unarmed,died in hospital about an hour later.

King said Al-Hasnawi was close enough to Matheson that he nearly grabbed his hoodie. King ran about 20 feet ahead. If King fired as he was running, Adsett said, how did he know he wouldn't hit Matheson?

King said he didn't want it to hit anyone.

"That bullet did not go into the ground like you were aiming down," Adsett said.

'Should have swallowed his pride'

"No, it didn't," King said. "And that's the most unfortunate thing for (Al-Hasnawi's) family."

The court watched part of a video interview from late 2017 after King was arrested for the shooting. Picking fights with someone on the streets of Hamilton, he said then,is asking for trouble.

"He should have swallowed his pride and I can't I don't know, just you don't just pick fights with anybody, right?" he said."Especially in this city. You walk down the street. You keep your head down. If you're somebody who has a little bit of juice, you walk with your head up.

"If you have a beef with somebody, you don't act on it. You show that guy 'yo, I'm right here, the parking lot's over there.' But you don't start anything in this city. You don't start it anywhere becauseyou never know. You never, never know."

King said he'd taken some meth and drank a little that day. He was dealing drugs then, he said, and was headed to the Budget Inn to sell "a point" to someone a small amount of crystal meth worth about $10.

From 2 different worlds

After the shooting, King said, he and Matheson went to two bars, then to a friend's place so he could charge his phone. King said Matheson wanted to return to an apartment on Connaught, where they'd been earlier and encountered someone who threatened them.

At Connaught, that same person robbed and assaulted them again, and demanded King hand over his gun. King said he went back to the alley, walked past police tape, retrieved the gun and took it back to the place on Connaught.

In the police interview, King saidhe wished he was dead and not Al-Hasnawi. He said Wednesday that he still feels that way.

"I'm pretty sure we're the same age," he said in the interview."But we're also two different guys from two different worlds. Or two different yeah, two different worlds, almost.And I regret not following my education and being what he was becauseI'd be right there with him if I had stuck to my education and sport careers and whatnot."

King was the final witness in the superior court trial at Hamilton's John Sopinka courthouse. The jury will begin deliberations on Tuesday.