DESCHAMBAULT LAKE, Sask. — The Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) has completed its investigation into a fatal officer-involved shooting near Deschambault Lake, finding no grounds to believe any police officer committed a Criminal Code offence.
According to SIRT's report, on Aug. 8, 2025, at approximately 8:41 a.m., two members of the Deschambault Lake RCMP detachment encountered a group of individuals in a wooded area near the village of Deschambault Lake, at a location where a gunshot had recently been fired.
The two RCMP members approached the group separately on foot and issued verbal commands to one member of the group, an adult man, informing him that he was under arrest.
At that time, a second member of the group, a 19-year-old man subsequently referred to as the affected person, pointed a firearm at police. Both RCMP members discharged several rounds from their service pistols, striking the affected person in the torso and causing him to fall to the ground.
The affected person died of his injuries at the scene, and the other members of the group were taken into custody by RCMP.
An autopsy was conducted, which determined the affected person’s cause of death to be multiple gunshot wounds. Toxicology results noted the presence of alcohol, methamphetamine and cocaine in the affected person’s blood, all falling within a range that could have caused or contributed to intoxication.
During the investigation, both subject officers described the affected person as being in possession of a sawed-off rifle during the incident, which he pointed at one of the officers. They also described actions by the affected person that led both officers to conclude he was attempting to fire at one of them.
The accounts of both the police officers and civilian witnesses present at the time of the incident were consistent regarding the actions of the affected person. They described him as not only being in possession of a firearm at the time of the incident, but also pointing it at police despite repeated verbal commands to drop the firearm before officers used force.
According to SIRT, the affected person’s actions of retrieving a firearm from the ground, raising it and repeatedly repositioning it during the incident, despite repeated verbal commands, created a situation that not only gave officers reasonable grounds to perceive a threat of death or bodily harm but, given the imminence of that threat, left no reasonable alternative to the potentially lethal force ultimately used.
SIRT concluded in its report that, taking into account all factors, including the nature of the threat presented by the affected person’s actions, the force used by the subject officers during the incident fell within the range protected by law and provided no reasonable grounds to believe any police officer committed an offence during the incident. As a result, no charges will be laid.
