Officer cleared in fatal northern Ontario court shooting, but SIU questions response

Ontario’s police watchdog says no criminal charges will be laid against a provincial police officer who fatally shot a man inside a courtroom in a remote part of northern Ontario last year.

But the director of the Special Investigations Unit says there is evidence to suggest the officer “unnecessarily delayed in rendering first aid” to the man, and the matter will be referred to the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency.

The SIU says the police officer shot the 23-year-old man inside a makeshift courtroom at a youth centre in Wapekeka First Nation on July 31, 2025.

The watchdog says the man advanced toward the officer with a knife when the officer fired his gun to defend himself from a “reasonably apprehended” attack.

Although the SIU concluded that the officer’s use of force was justified, director Joseph Martino wrote that his delay in providing first aid after the shooting may be a possible violation of the police code of conduct. 

Martino says he will also be raising the matter in his reporting letter to the Ontario Provincial Police commissioner.

The report notes that medical evidence shows the officer’s delay in approaching the man after the shooting “did not endanger (his) life or contribute to his death” since it’s unlikely that any emergency first aid could have saved him.

The report says the man was told “repeatedly” to stop and drop his knife, and he posed a danger in the courtroom. 

“There is no doubt that the lives of the officer and the judge, and the court staff seated with her, were in peril at that moment and that something needed to be done to immediately deter the (man),” it says. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2026.