A Peel Regional Police officer who shot and killed a 19-year-old man during an incident last December in Mississauga’s north end has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by the province’s Special Investigations Unit.

The SIU, a civilian agency that looks into incidents in which members of the public are seriously hurt or killed during interactions with police, said in a news release on Wednesday there are “no reasonable grounds to believe that an officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the man’s death.”

The man who was shot was a suspect in a stabbing incident to which police officers were responding on the afternoon of Dec. 11, 2025, the SIU said.

In its narrative of events, the provincial watchdog agency said police officers responded to an incident shortly after 2:30 p.m. at a home in the area of Britannia Road West and Winston Churchill Boulevard.

The man who’d called police reported that he had been attacked and stabbed by a family member in the basement of his home. The SIU said the family member “rushed at him with a knife, stabbing him in the left shoulder.”

The wounded man quickly fled to a neighbour’s home and called police, the narrative continued.

Officers who responded to the scene learned a short time after their arrival that the attacker had barricaded himself in the basement bathroom.

Another family member who’d arrived at the scene around 3 p.m. told police the barricaded man’s “mental health had been deteriorating and he was not taking his medication.”

After repeated attempts to have the man come out of the bathroom with his hands up proved unsuccessful, police officers then forced their way into the bathroom where they spotted the man lying on his back inside a glass-enclosed shower.

Again, the man did not respond when police ordered him to show his hands, the SIU said, adding one of the officers discharged his conducted energy weapon at the man.

Moments later, the man “began to lift himself from the floor and lunge forward at” another police officer “with a knife in his right hand,” the narrative noted. 

The SIU said an officer then deployed a CEW again, which was followed “immediately” by another officer “firing three (gunshot) rounds in quick succession, striking the (man) and knocking him back into the shower on his back. He fired a fourth round about half-a-second later, and a fifth and final round a couple of seconds after that.”

Officers then shouted at the man to drop the knife “and it fell from his hands onto the shower floor,” the SIU said. 

Police then brought the man out of the bathroom, handcuffed him and “began to administer first aid.”

A short time later, paramedics brought the man to hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 4 p.m., according to the SIU.

SIU Director Joseph Martino said in the news release this week: “On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the (police officer who fired) committed a criminal offence.”

He added he’s satisfied “that the officer would have rightfully believed that defensive force was necessary to preserve himself from grievous bodily harm or death.”

Martino did note, however, that while the first three gunshots fired by the police officer were more clearly justified, “the fourth and fifth shots are subject to closer scrutiny.” 

The SIU director added, “that said, there is evidence that the (man) still had a hold of the knife and remained a threat during this time…”


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