SIU clears Niagara police in fatal Welland shooting

Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has found no reasonable grounds to charge any Niagara Regional Police officer in the death of a 26-year-old man shot during a tactical arrest in Welland, Ont., in December 2025, the watchdog said Friday.

SIU Director Joseph Martino concluded in a director’s report signed Oct. 16 that the officers acted lawfully and in defence of themselves and others. The SIU announced the decision in a news release on Oct. 23 (case 25-OFD-516). The man is not named in the report, which withholds identifying information under the Special Investigations Unit Act.

According to the report, the man was wanted by Peel Regional Police after he allegedly fired a gun during an incident of intimate partner violence in Mississauga on Dec. 12, 2025. The allegation was not tested in court. Officers located him in an apartment in Welland the next day, and the Niagara Regional Police Emergency Task Unit was sent in with a warrant.

The SIU said shots were exchanged at the bottom of the apartment stairwell at about 10:11 p.m. on Dec. 13. Police deployed CS gas, and the report says the man fired at an armoured response vehicle. He then climbed out a second-floor window and was shot on the sidewalk at about 10:15 p.m., the report said. It said the shooting stopped about three seconds after he fell. He was pronounced dead at 2:43 a.m. on Dec. 14, and the report lists the cause as multiple gunshot wounds.

Investigators recovered a .22-calibre handgun near where the man fell, along with six cartridge cases matched to it, the report said. It said at least 18 shots were fired from five police rifles, and 15 projectiles or fragments were recovered from the man during the autopsy.

Six officers were designated as subject officials. Five declined to be interviewed and did not release their notes, as the law allows. A sixth was interviewed. Twelve other officers were identified as witnesses, and eight were interviewed.

Martino wrote that he was “unable to reasonably conclude that the shots were disproportionate” to the threat the man posed, including the final volley. He also accepted that a sixth officer’s strikes with a rifle after the man fell were reasonable, given the concern that he might still have been armed. The release said the officers’ firearms were the only tool at their disposal that could stop the threat.

The report said that sixth officer may have breached section 12 of the Police Code of Conduct over language used with a civilian witness. The SIU referred that matter to Niagara Regional Police and the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency. The SIU does not decide discipline.

Director’s reports are not court rulings, and the SIU’s decision is final on whether criminal charges are laid. The SIU’s Affected Persons Program, at 1-877-641-1897, offers support to people affected by an incident.

The SIU investigates incidents involving police in which someone dies or is seriously injured. It has recently reported on a Hamilton arrest and a Toronto crash involving an OPP officer, and we also covered its finding in a hospital shooting involving a Toronto officer.

File photo: the Niagara Regional Police station in St. Catharines, Ont. Photo by Hannah Clover, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The photo is not from the incident.

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