Two Men From British Columbia, One Plaza in St. Catharines: Niagara Police Lay 22 Counts Including Kidnapping and Attempted Murder in the Bunting Road Shooting (August 18, 2026)
This file is late, and we are saying so at the top. The charges were laid on August 5 and announced the following day. It has not run on this site until now. It runs today because of one detail that ought not to have been passed over: two of the three men charged in a daylight shooting at a St. Catharines strip plaza are from British Columbia, and the counts against them begin with kidnapping.
At approximately 7:15 in the morning on Thursday, July 16, 2026, Niagara Regional Police officers from 1 District were called to a plaza near Bunting Road and Carlton Street in St. Catharines for a shooting that had just happened. They found a 39-year-old man with a gunshot wound and what were first described as serious injuries. He was taken to an out-of-region hospital, and his injuries were later determined not to be life-threatening. The men who shot him were gone before police arrived.
Twenty days later, on Wednesday, August 5, detectives from 1 District Criminal Investigative Branch arrested three suspects without incident in Niagara Falls and Thorold, assisted by the street crime units of both 1 and 2 District and by the Emergency Task Unit. A firearm was seized in the arrests, which police believe is the gun used on Bunting Road. Investigators applied for a search warrant on a Niagara Falls residence and seized a vehicle for forensic examination.
Who Is Charged With What
- Philip England, 46, of British Columbia — eleven counts: robbery with a firearm, kidnapping, aggravated assault, attempted murder, discharge firearm with intent to wound, possess firearm without holding a licence, possess restricted firearm knowingly not holding a licence, possess unloaded regulated firearm, careless storage of a firearm, unauthorized possession of a firearm in a motor vehicle, and utter threats.
- Devon Le, 35, of British Columbia — ten counts: the same list as England, without the threats count.
- Joseph Delgobbo, 54, of Niagara Falls — one count of accessory after the fact to commit an indictable offence.
- Custody: all three remained in custody for a bail hearing on Thursday, August 8, 2026 at the Robert S. K. Welch Courthouse, 59 Church Street, St. Catharines.
- Police file: NRPS Incident #26-88248.
The Charge Sheet Describes a Job, Not a Fight
A shooting outside a plaza at quarter past seven in the morning reads, on its face, like a dispute that got out of hand. The charges say otherwise.
England and Le are each charged with kidnapping and robbery with a firearm alongside the attempted murder count. Those are not the charges police lay when two men argue and one produces a gun. They describe a victim taken, a victim robbed, and a firearm used to wound — a sequence with a purpose behind it. The identical charge lists against the two accused, differing by a single count, indicate police allege they acted together throughout.
Then there is Delgobbo. He is not alleged to have been there. Accessory after the fact means police believe someone in Niagara Falls helped after the shooting, which implies the two men from British Columbia had somewhere local to go.
What This File Is Not
Niagara Regional Police have not named a criminal organization. There is no criminal-organization count on any of the three charge sheets, no reference to a gang, club or network in either media release, and no statement about motive at all. This site has published a great deal about the movement of people and firearms between British Columbia and Ontario — the long attrition documented in our file on the Hells Angels in Canada, and the cross-country reach set out in the Alkhalil brothers profile. Neither of those files is being connected to this one. They are offered as the background against which a reader might understand why two men from the other side of the country turning up armed in Niagara is worth a paragraph, and nothing more than that.
None of the allegations has been tested in court. All three accused are presumed innocent.
The Sequence
Standing of This File
What is verified. Every name, age, charge, date, time and location on this page comes from the Niagara Regional Police Service media release of August 6, 2026 and its incorporated original release of July 16, 2026, both published on the service’s own newsroom. The charge lists are reproduced in the order the police published them.
What is missing. Police have not released the identity of the wounded man, any account of what preceded the shooting, whether the accused knew the victim, or why two residents of British Columbia were in Niagara. The bail outcomes from August 8 have not been reported. The result of the search warrant on the Niagara Falls residence and the forensic examination of the seized vehicle are not public.
What is not claimed. No organized crime connection has been alleged by police, and none is asserted here.
Why this is late. This story fell outside the geographic scope our daily briefing process had been applying. That scope was too narrow, and this file is the correction.
When this will be updated. On the release of bail outcomes, on any further charges arising from the search warrant, or on any statement from police connecting the accused to a wider network.
Primary Sources
- Niagara Regional Police Service: “Update #1: 1 District Detectives Investigating St Catharines Shooting” — published August 6, 2026. Incident #26-88248. Source of the arrests, the three charge lists, the firearm seizure and the bail hearing date.
- Niagara Regional Police Service: “1 District Detectives Investigating St Catharines Shooting” — published July 16, 2026. Source of the original incident details.