Detectives from the 1 District (St. Catharines/Thorold) Street Crime Unit of the Niagara Regional Police Service have been investigating a series of commercial break and enters in St. Catharines and Thorold.
The investigation focused on incidents that occurred at properties owned by local electricity providers between February and March 2025. Thieves entered secured yards and stole copper and power tools. The stolen copper was then sold to a local scrap metal business. As a result of the investigation, two suspects were identified.
On April 7, 2025, Joseph Ernest Speck, 44, of St. Catharines, was arrested and charged with the following Criminal Code offences:
Break and enter and commit an indictable offence (place other than dwelling) Possession of break-in instruments
He attended a bail hearing the following day and was held in custody. On May 2, 2025, Speck pleaded guilty to the above offences and was sentenced to time in custody.
On May 20th, 2025, while still in custody Speck was charged with:
Break and enter and commit an indictable offence (place other than dwelling) Fail to comply with probation.
On June 9, 2025, while still in custody, he was charged with the following additional offences:
Break and enter and commit an indictable offence (place other than dwelling) – two counts
On June 3, 2025, Thomas E. Summerfield, 45, of Thorold, was arrested and charged with the following Criminal Code offence:
Fail to comply with a release order
Summerfield subsequently attended a bail hearing and was held in custody. As a result of the ongoing investigation, on June 9, 2025, while still in custody, he was charged with the following additional Criminal Code offences:
Break and enter and commit an indictable offence (place other than dwelling) – four counts Trafficking in property obtained by crime not exceeding $5,000 Fail to comply with a release order Fail to comply with a probation order
He remains in custody following these charges, with a future court date pending.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact the investigating officers by calling 905-688-4111, option 3, extension 1009782.
Members of the public who wish to provide information anonymously can contact Crime Stoppers of Niagara online or by calling 1-800-222-8477. Crime Stoppers offers cash rewards to persons who contact the program with information which leads to an arrest.
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