Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team Investigating Officer Involved Shooting at Deschambault Lake

Released on August 14, 2025

On Friday August 8, 2025, at approximately 9:14 a.m., the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) received a notification from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) regarding an officer-involved shooting that had just taken place near the village of Deschambault Lake. 

SIRT's Civilian Executive Director accepted the notification as within SIRT's mandate and directed an investigation by SIRT.

On August 8, 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 discharged. The two RCMP members approached the group separately on foot and issued verbal commands to one member of the group, an adult male, informing him that he was under arrest. At this time a second member of the group, a 19-year-old male, pointed a firearm at police, and both RCMP members discharged several rounds from their service pistols, striking the man in the torso and causing him to fall to the ground. 

The man died of his injuries at the scene of the incident, and the other members of the group were taken into custody by RCMP. 

Following the notification, a SIRT team consisting of the Civilian Executive Director and four SIRT investigators were deployed to Deschambault Lake to begin their investigation. A community liaison will also be appointed pursuant to S.91.12 (1) (a) of The Police Act, 1990. A firearm and two replica firearms were recovered from the incident scene and have been secured as exhibits for both the SIRT and RCMP investigations. As part of the ongoing investigation, SIRT is asking anyone who directly witnessed or may have video of the incident to contact SIRT at sirt@gov.sk.ca.

SIRT's investigation will examine the conduct of police during this incident, including the circumstances surrounding the man's death. The RCMP will maintain responsibility for the investigation of the original incident as well as the actions of those present during the incident. No further information will be released at this time. A final report will be issued to the public within 90 days of the investigation ending.

SIRT's mandate is to investigate alleged cases of serious injury, death, sexual assault or interpersonal violence arising from the actions or omissions of on and off-duty police officers, or while an individual is in police custody.

For updates on SIRT investigations, follow SIRT on X.

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