The Gun Went Off and the Man on the Floor Was Never Hit: York Regional Police Charge Four Over the May Avenue Home Invasion, and the One Accused of Firing It Was Already Under a Weapons Prohibition (September 8, 2026)

RICHMOND HILL — Thirty-one hours after the fact, York Regional Police have put a written release on the May Avenue home invasion, and it changes the central fact of the file. The gun was fired. The man it was fired around was never hit. His serious, non-life-threatening injuries came from the beating, not the bullet, and officers found him outside the house rather than in it. Four people are charged, one of them with eight counts, and a fifth is still outstanding.

Gangland Files reported this incident on September 8 from a CP24 account built on the force’s social media, at a point when York Regional Police had issued no written release on it — the second Richmond Hill house shooting inside twenty-seven hours to be handled that way. That briefing is here, and the correction belongs at the top of this one: it recorded a victim found with gunshot wounds. The release, published Tuesday at 2:37 p.m. EDT and updated five minutes later, says plainly that the firearm was discharged during the assault and that the victim was not struck by the gunfire.

What the Release Adds

The location is now precise: a residence in the area of May Avenue and Yonge Street, roughly a block south of the Weldrick Road West intersection first reported. The call came in shortly after 7 a.m. on Monday, September 7, 2026, and it went out as a weapons call. Multiple suspects, armed with at least one firearm, forced their way into the residence, confronted the victim and assaulted him. During the assault the firearm was discharged. All the suspects were gone before officers arrived, which is consistent with the original account.

The vehicle is what broke the file open. A black Cadillac Escalade was identified as a suspect vehicle, and with the assistance of the Ontario Provincial Police Northumberland Detachment it was stopped on Highway 401 in the Town of Cobourg — about a hundred kilometres east of the house — and seized as offence-related property. The driver was the vehicle’s sole occupant and was taken into custody. Investigators then identified three more suspects and arrested them. A search warrant was executed at a residence in the City of Toronto, where ammunition, a controlled substance and Canadian currency were seized.

No firearm has been recovered. The release does not say so in those words, but the seizure list is ammunition, a substance and cash, and nothing else. It gives no round count for the ammunition, no weight or name for the controlled substance, and no figure for the currency.

Eight Counts on One Name

Three of the four accused carry one or two counts. Fils-Aime carries eight, and the composition of those eight is the part of this file that reaches past a single morning in Richmond Hill. Two of them — possess firearm while prohibited, possess ammunition while prohibited — exist only because a court had already told him he could not have either. A third, breach of probation, says the same thing a second way. A fourth, discharge firearm with intent, is the allegation that he is the one who pulled the trigger inside the house.

The eighth is possession for the purpose of trafficking cocaine. It does not arise from the home invasion. It arises from what the Toronto search warrant found, and it is the only drug count anywhere in the file. York Regional Police attach no quantity to it and no value, and they do not say whether the cocaine came from the same address as the ammunition and the cash or from somewhere else in the warrant.

The two accessory counts against Hewes and Johnson are also worth reading carefully. Accessory after the fact means the Crown alleges they helped someone escape or avoid arrest after the robbery, not that they were inside the residence. Neither faces a weapons count, and neither faces a robbery count.

The Quebec Thread, and What It Is Not

Saint-Elien is listed as being of Terrebonne, on the north shore off the island of Montreal, and was wanted by the SPVM on unrelated matters when York Regional Police picked him up. Fils-Aime and Hewes are both listed as of no fixed address. Johnson is of Toronto. The warrant was executed in Toronto. The vehicle was stopped near Cobourg.

That is a file with reach, and it is worth stating precisely what the release does and does not do with it. York Regional Police name no criminal organization, no gang and no project. They do not say the home invasion was targeted, do not describe the victim beyond his injuries, do not give his age or name, and offer no motive. They do not say what the unrelated Montreal offences are. None of that is filled in here. A man from Terrebonne charged in a Toronto-area robbery is a man from Terrebonne charged in a Toronto-area robbery until a police force says otherwise.

What Is Still Missing

The firearm itself. The round count. The drug weight. The cash figure. The victim’s age and condition since Monday. Whether the fifth suspect is believed to be the one who assaulted him or the one who fired. Whether this file touches the other Richmond Hill house shooting, at Leslie Street and William F. Bell Parkway at 4:07 a.m. on September 6, which York Regional Police have still never issued a written release on. The force says only that the investigation is ongoing.

The investigating unit is the York Regional Police Hold-Up Unit, reachable at 1-866-876-5423 extension 6630. The media release officer is Constable Kevin Nebrija. The occurrence number is 26-307399 and the file sits in #2 District.

All charges above are allegations. None has been tested in court, and each of the four accused is presumed innocent.