Left: Daquela Collins. Right: Quintell Collins holding firearms with his nephew Da’quel Collins circled in background (Milwaukee Police Department).
A brother and sister in Wisconsin are facing charges after her soon-to-be 7-year-old boy died from a gunshot wound to the head, according to authorities.
Daquela Collins, 26, and her 21-year-old brother Quintell Collins are behind bars in connection with the April 1 death of her son Da’quel “King” Collins, who was set for his seventh birthday just three days before he died. The boy’s grandmother called 911 around 9:30 p.m. April 1 and said “I think my grandson shot himself,” a criminal complaint prepared by the Milwaukee Police Department and obtained by Law&Crime stated.
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The grandmother said she was in bed when she heard a bang. When she ran out into the living room, she found her grandson lying in a pool of blood with a gun next to his left foot, the complaint said.
“He was dead,” she told cops.
Paramedics pronounced the boy dead on scene.
Detectives began to investigate how Da’quel ended up shot. The complaint doesn’t explicitly state how cops believe the boy was shot, but it appears their working theory is that he got ahold of a gun and it went off.
Cops obtained surveillance camera footage from a neighbor that shows two men — one of whom allegedly was Quintell Collins — running out of the home and stashing an object under a trash bin in an alley moments after the shooting. Officers later looked under the bin and found a 9 mm handgun with an extended magazine, per the complaint.
Daquela Collins and her kids had recently moved into her mother’s home, where her brother lived in the basement. On the day in question, she left her son in her brother’s care and her mother’s care to go to her boyfriend’s house and later to work.
In a post-Miranda interview with detectives, Daquela Collins said she had recently bought a 9 mm handgun for safety. She said her brother “be into it with people” so she felt she needed to buy a firearm. Earlier in the day, her brother sent her an Instagram video of him making a rap video while holding two firearms, one of which appeared to be his sister’s 9 mm found by Da’quel’s feet, the affidavit said. The boy was sitting on the couch behind him, wearing Hot Wheels pajama pants, the same ones he was wearing when cops found him dead.
She sent him a message telling him to “put her s — t down” but her brother responded with a laughing face emoji, cops wrote. She also contacted her mother to tell her brother to stop touching her firearm, per cops.
“Despite observing a video of her convicted felon brother brandishing two firearms in a reckless fashion while rapping with Daquela
Collins’s six-year-old son on the couch in the background, Daquela Collins did not leave her boyfriend’s residence and rush home to ensure the safety of [Da’quel],” detectives wrote.
She also told cops her 3-year-old daughter asked to have a gun, which she suspects is from seeing her brother walking around with them all the time, according to the complaint.
During a search of the home, cops allegedly found the box of the 9 mm on the floor of a living room closet. There was also an unopened box for a gunlock, the complaint said.
Quintell Collins also allegedly was caught on video returning to the alley where he ditched the gun to look for it, but cops had already collected it as evidence.
Officers tracked him down after receiving a tip and tried to pull his 2015 Jeep Cherokee over, but he sped away from the traffic stop, the complaint said. He drove as fast as 80 mph in a 25 mph zone during a nearly four-mile chase. He kept circling the neighborhood, cops said.
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“The last time Quintell Collins drove by prior to his arrest, Quintell Collins threw money out of the window at the citizens, who appeared to be cheering on Quintell Collins’s reckless and criminal actions,” cops said.
Officers deployed stop sticks, which put an end to the chase. They took him into custody.
Post-Miranda, he insisted that he was not inside the home at the time of the shooting and denied placing the firearm under the trash bin in the alley, despite evidence to the contrary. During the interview, he “demonstrated to be a continuous liar,” detectives wrote.
Both he and his sister stand accused of neglecting a child where the consequence is death. He also faces additional charges of second-degree reckless homicide and other counts related to being in possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and related to fleeing cops. Daquela Collins is also charged with straw purchasing of a firearm, which is related to allegedly buying a gun for her brother. She’s in the Milwaukee County Jail on a $10,000 bond while her brother has a $100,300 bond.
Their next court date is slated for April 15.
A GoFundMe fundraiser described Da’quel as a “bright, loving and joyful” boy.
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