SIU clears officer who shot dead man accused of murder, child abduction

The province’s police watchdog has cleared a Niagara police officer who shot and killed a man accused of murdering a woman and abducting a child last October. 

The director of the Special Investigations Unit says there are no reasonable grounds to charge the officer who killed 38-year-old Anthony Deschepper after an investigation found the suspect had fired three shots in his direction during a confrontation with police at a gas station in Niagara Falls, Ont. 

Joseph Martino says the officer’s life was in “imminent peril” and he fired his gun in self-defence.

The SIU says Deschepper was being pursued by police after he allegedly shot and killed a woman in Brampton, Ont., and fled with her child, triggering an Amber Alert.

The report says the suspect reportedly left the child with family members before fleeing Brampton for Niagara Falls, where police eventually located him at a gas station early the next morning. 

The SIU report says Niagara regional police officers surrounded the vehicle where the suspect was hiding and broke down the windows. 

The report says the suspect emerged from underneath blankets in the rear of the car and fired three shots toward an officer, who returned fire and discharged eight or nine rounds into the vehicle, striking the suspect multiple times and killing him. 

The SIU director says the officer used reasonable force in the fatal altercation, saying he “had every reason to believe that he needed to act to save himself and his fellow officers from death or grievous bodily harm.”
The report says a pathologist concluded Deschepper died from a gunshot wound to the chest.

Provincial police said at the time the one-year-old girl for whom the Amber Alert was issued was later found safe. 

They also said at the time the murder of the woman in Brampton was believed to be a case of intimate-partner violence. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 18, 2026.