A Regina police officer shot the man as he was taking what the officer thought was a handgun out of his pocket, according to SIRT's investigation. The object turned out to be a cellphone.
Officer thought cellphone was a gun in 'split-second' decision to shoot the suspect
Jeremy Warren · CBC News
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Saskatchewan's Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) cleared a Regina police officer of any wrongdoing in last year's fatal shooting of a murder suspect.
On July 18, 2025, the officer shot and killed a 29-year-old man during an attempted arrest in the back alley between the 1300 blocks of Athol Street and Garnet Street.
A major crimes officer in plainclothes shot the man as he was taking what the officer thought was a handgun out of his pocket, according to a SIRT investigation summary released Wednesday afternoon. The object was actually a cellphone, the report stated.
SIRT investigated the shooting and determined the officer will not be charged with a criminal offence. The report does not name the deceased or the officer who shot him.
Two days before he died, the man was arrested by Regina police in connection with a homicide investigation. He was released on July 17, 2025; later that night, police found more evidence implicating him in the homicide and officers were told to arrest him for murder once he was found, according to the SIRT report.
On the morning of July 18, 2025, officers with the major crimes unit spotted the man riding a bike. They lost track of him and called for backup because they had learned during the homicide investigation that the suspect might be carrying a Glock pistol, according to SIRT.
A plainclothes officer with major crimes driving an unmarked police vehicle spotted the man leaving the backyard of a home in the 1300 block of Ahtol Street and attempted an arrest in the alley. He got out of the vehicle with his service pistol drawn.
The officer told SIRT investigators he did not recall specifically identifying himself as a police officer, but told them "that the affected person understood that he was a police officer based on the comments he made referring to his arrest the previous day," according to the SIRT report.
The officer told the man to get on the ground and informed him he was being arrested. The man got off his bike and the officer noticed the man had a knife in his left hand. The officer pointed his gun at the man and told him to drop the knife, which he eventually did after several more verbal commands, according to the SIRT report.
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The officer then told him to get on the ground, but the man instead took off his backpack and dropped it on the ground. The officer then saw him reach into his pocket and told the man to remove his hand, which he did while "holding a black object."
The officer shot the man once. The officer "believed the object to [be] the black Glock handgun, which at that point in the encounter was still unaccounted for," according to SIRT.
The officers then discovered the object the man pulled from his pocket was a cellphone.
EMS responders pronounced the man dead at the scene. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be a single gunshot to the upper left torso.
Officers searched the man's backpack and found a black replica Glock pistol, according to SIRT.
"Faced with significant pre-existing information regarding the possession of a firearm by the affected person, the officer was required to make a split-second decision," the SIRT report stated in explaining why the officer won't be charged with a criminal offence.
"The subject officer's response to this reasonably perceived lethal threat was both proportionate and necessary."
SIRT investigators interviewed 16 police officers, two civilians and EMS responders.
SIRT is an independent, civilian-led unit responsible for investigating serious incidents involving municipal police, RCMP officers or special constables in the province. The team is called to investigate when someone dies or is seriously injured while in police custody or as a result of a police officer's actions.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Warren is a reporter in Saskatoon. You can reach him at jeremy.warren@cbc.ca.
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