REGINA —Saskatchewan’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) has cleared a Regina Police Service (RPS) officer in the fatal shooting of a 29-year-old man wanted in connection with a homicide.
The shooting happened in North Central Regina shortly after 10 a.m. on July 18, 2025, in a back alley between Garnet Street and Athol Street, north of 8th Avenue. Plainclothes members of the RPS Major Crimes Unit were conducting an investigation related to a homicide days earlier when they located the man, only identified by SIRT as the “affected person,” riding a bicycle.
According to SIRT’s report released to the public on Aug. 19, the officer got out of his unmarked vehicle with his service pistol drawn but pointed downward. He was wearing plain clothes and displaying a police badge on a lanyard. A civilian witness talking to the man on the bicycle just before police arrived, confirmed the officer identified himself and ordered the man to get to the ground.
The man got off his bike and was seen holding a silver-coloured knife in his left hand. After repeated commands, he dropped the knife. He then removed a backpack, placed it on the ground, turned slightly toward the officer, and put his hand in his pocket. A second Major Crimes officer arrived at that point.
The first officer ordered the man to remove his hand from his pocket but the man rapidly pulled out a black object in an upward motion. Believing it to be a black Glock handgun that police had information he was carrying and that remained unaccounted for, the officer fired a single shot. The bullet struck the man in his left shoulder and didn’t exit his body. He collapsed on the ground, and the object that fell to the ground turned out to be a cellphone.
EMS arrived at 10:17 a.m., and pronounced the man dead at approximately 10:19 a.m., about seven minutes after police located him in the alley.
A search of the man’s backpack recovered a non-functional black replica Glock handgun. DNA testing confirmed the man’s DNA was on the knife and the replica firearm. Toxicology results showed the presence of methamphetamine and cocaine.
According to SIRT, the man had been arrested on July 16, 2025, in connection with a homicide on July 13, 2025, but released the next day. At that time, officers seized two live rounds of ammunition but didn’t recover the reported handgun. Police made the decision to re-arrest him and charge him with murder based on additional evidence gathered overnight. The man had also been under a court-ordered prohibition on possessing firearms or ammunition, and there was an officer-safety flag was on his profile.
SIRT determined the officer lawfully attempted to arrest the man and that the lethal use of force fell within the protections of the Criminal Code. The officer’s belief that the black object was a gun was supported by prior intelligence, radio communications seeking uniformed officer backup because of the suspected handgun, the recovery of ammunition days earlier, the seriousness of the murder investigation, and the man’s inconsistent compliance with commands.
The unmarked Major Crimes vehicles involved didn’t have in-car cameras, video from RPS marked vehicles only captured events that occurred following the incident.
A neighbourhood canvass for civilian video footage yielded only one video of limited relevance, capturing an individual believed to be the man on the bicycle before the incident.
