Watchdog clears officer who fatally shot homicide suspect at Estevan police station

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Watchdog clears officer who fatally shot homicide suspect at Estevan police station

SaskatchewanAn Estevan police officer acted reasonably when he fatally shot a homicide suspect who shot another officer with the officer’s own gun inside the city’s police station, according to Saskatchewan’s Serious Incident Response Team.Suspect killed after he shot another officer with officer’s own gun in 2023Jeremy Warren · CBC News · Posted: Oct 09, 2025 2:04 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour agoAn investigation by the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team into a November 2023 incident concluded that the Estevan Police Service officer who shot a 19-year-old man in custody will not be charged with any criminal offence. (Alexander Quon/CBC)An Estevan police officer acted reasonably when he fatally shot a homicide suspect who shot another officer with the officer’s own gun inside the city’s police station, according to Saskatchewan’s Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT).SIRT’s investigation into the November 2023 incident concluded that the Estevan Police Service officer who shot the 19-year-old man in custody will not be charged with any criminal offence. SIRT released its investigation summary Thursday.The officer had “an undeniably reasonable fear of death or grievous bodily harm” for himself and the other officer in the room, the SIRT report said.“The force employed by the [the officer] falls within the range that is protected by law,” the report stated.The incident started in the early hours of Nov. 1, 2023, when Estevan police were called about an injured person at a house in the city. They found a woman suffering stab wounds and a man covered in blood.The woman, 46-year-old Karie Ann Guillas, died. Police arrested the man, later identified as Guillas’s 19-year-old son.At the Estevan police station, two officers put the 19-year-old in an observation room and started processing him for detention, which included taking photos and placing his clothes in evidence bags.During processing, the man grabbed a holstered gun from one of the officers. The two struggled and the man fired a single shot, hitting the officer in the abdomen.The other officer — the one SIRT investigated — then attempted to disarm the suspect, who fired off a second shot into the wall.The officer drew his gun and shot the 19-year-old twice in the torso. The man slumped to the ground and said, “just finish me,” the SIRT report said. He later died in surgery at Regina General Hospital.The wounded officer spent several days recovering in hospital.“In this case, that fear was not merely a reasonably apprehended theoretical or potential risk, but an ongoing and pressing reality,” the SIRT report stated.SIRT investigators had “a significant volume of evidence from a number of different sources” but did not have direct video footage of the shootings, according to the report. The observation room was not equipped with surveillance equipment because it’s often used for suspects to talk with their lawyers.Both officers co-operated with investigators, the report said.A DNA analysis of the officer’s pistol confirmed the presence of the 19-year-old’s DNA on different parts of the gun, and an autopsy confirmed he died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to SIRT.ABOUT THE AUTHORJeremy Warren is a reporter in Saskatoon. You can reach him at jeremy.warren@cbc.ca.

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