Saskatchewan’s police oversight organization has cleared police of wrongdoing in a 2025 Regina incident that saw a plainclothes police officer shoot and kill a homicide suspect. Saskatchewan’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) released its findings Wednesday. On the morning of July 18, plainclothes officers with the Regina Police Service (RPS) were actively investigating a homicide in the North Central area. At 10:08 a.m., the officers spotted a 29-year-old man on a bicycle who was wanted in connection to the investigation. More units were called to the area after the officers lost sight of the suspect. Four minutes later, at 10:12 a.m., two plainclothes officers in unmarked police vehicles found the suspect in an alley between Garnet Street and Athol Street north of 8th Avenue. A confrontation ensued, which saw the man brandish a knife before dropping it. After not responding to several orders to remove his hand from his pocket, investigators say the suspect rapidly pulled his hand from his pocket in an upward direction while holding a black object – which was later revealed to be a cellphone. Concerned the object was a handgun the suspect had in his possession – which police were warned of prior to the incident – one of the officers fired his service pistol, hitting the suspect in the shoulder. Paramedics arrived at the scene at 10:17 a.m. However, the man was declared dead at 10:19 a.m. The handgun police were warned about, was discovered in the man’s backpack. However, the firearm was revealed to be a non-functional replica of a Glock 19 handgun. In a lengthy conclusion, SIRT investigators deemed that the officer who fired the fatal shot had reason to believe his life, and the lives of others in the area, were in danger given the information known at the time. “When assessing force used, particularly in a case such as this when information obtained after the fact sheds light on the actual level of threat present during the incident, it is particularly important to avoid the lens of hindsight,” the report read. “The issue is not whether the Subject Officer was correct in his belief that the affected person might have been reaching for a firearm. The issue is whether the Subject Officer believed that the affected person was doing so, and whether that belief was objectively reasonable.” More details to come…
