Three wounded in downtown shooting
‘Full force’ of Niagara Regional Police brought to bear on investigation
Three people were wounded, two seriously, in a downtown shooting incident in St. Catharines Thursday afternoon near the intersection of Church and Niagara streets.
Two of the persons shot were airlifted from St. Catharines to a Hamilton hospital. According to Niagara Regional Police and Niagara Emergency Medical Services, one patient was in critical condition and the other had life-threatening injuries.
The third person was treated at St. Catharines hospital with threatening injuries that were not life-threatening, said NRP spokesman Const. Phil Gavin.
At press time police were still attempting to apprehend two suspects — two black men, aged 19 to 23, one wearing a dark hoodie and jeans.
The NRP emergency tactical
unit had surrounded an apartment across the street from St. Barnabas Anglican Church on Queenston Street, a few blocks away from the site of the shootings, at about 6 p.m. Officers had taken up position in the church parking lot with their guns aimed at the apartment. It was not clear how many suspects may have been in the apartment.
Gavin said police received multiple 911 calls at about 3:45 p.m. about shots fired and people wounded at Church and Niagara.
There were many people milling about the area of the shooting, including workmen repairing the roof of the Salvation Army Booth Centre as well as residents.
Several residents, too afraid to provide their names after the shootings, said they became aware something was amiss when they heard people shouting near the intersection.
Four people told The Standard when they looked toward the sound of the yelling, they saw a man lying on the street near a sidewalk.
“I saw a guy kind of stumbling a bit, and then he fell down,” said one witness. “I couldn’t tell what happened until the paramedics lifted his shirt and you could see a lot of blood.”
Witnesses say the first NRP officers arrived in moments, followed by paramedics a few minutes later.
Three people, at least two of them men, were rushed from the scene by ambulances escorted by NRP cruisers to St. Catharines hospital. At about 6:38 p.m. an air ambulance could be seen flying toward Hamilton from St. Catharines hospital.
One man — a tall young man in shorts and a T-shirt and not wearing shoes — was seen in police custody shortly after the shootings. It is not yet known if this man was a suspect or is being charged.
Residences near the intersection were evacuated by police, who closed down several roads in the area. Gavin said the “full force” of the NRP was being brought to bear on the incident, and waves of officers arrived at the scene over several hours, including uniform patrol officers, detectives and forensics officers.
Officers, many carrying rifles, surrounded a beige house at the intersection. There have been past shooting incidents and drug-related incidents in that area in the past.
Police have not yet released details of the shootings, and at press time Gavin said that was still a piece of the investigation detectives are looking into.
Police had yet to release details about who may have been in the building. Shortly after 7 p.m. a man came out of the building with his hands up, but did not appear to be a suspect and was not arrested. At about that time, police also brought in a police dog and a drone.
The officers were still at Queenston Street at press time.