Smithville Investigation

Niagara Police have released the name of the man who was shot several times by an officer in Smithville yesterday. The Special Investigations Unit is involved, but police say 46-year-old Alexander Jason Bates of Mississauga has been charged with two counts of attempted murder. Bates is still in hospital but has been arrested, and police say more charges are expected. This violence may have begun with the murder of a woman in Mississauga earlier that same day.

Kevin Robins heard his neighbour telling 911 that she had been called home by her boyfriend. Her mother went too and drove.

When she arrived, she got a text message from her boyfriend, and she went downstairs to find him tied up. She fled down the street.

Robins checked on the arrival of police for his neighbour, who waited inside, and he watched the 46-year-old suspect leave with police.

The grey truck was parked around the corner, just past the park at the end of Anastasia.

A Taser was later seen on the pavement beside the open truck door and a police robot searched the truck further. Other officers today were taking photos of a flat tire on a car parked in front of the house.

Police found two badly beaten victims tied up inside, the boyfriend and the mother of the woman who fled to Robins’ house. He was brought out by paramedics with his head wrapped in bandages, and she was brought out in a stretcher, receiving oxygen. Both are now in stable condition in hospital.

Sources say the male victim’s mother was the 83-year-old killed in Mississauga that same morning. Neighbours believe the suspect, 46-year-old Alexander Jason Bates of Mississauga, was recently released from prison.

Police would not confirm the link with the Mississauga incident, but we did hear this from several credible sources.

Peel Police were calling the death suspicious that morning when the 83 year old was found dead in her home with signs of trauma, that night they confirmed they were investigating a murder, and the person listed at that Mississauga house, shares a last name with the person listed at the Smithville house.