Halifax police officer who shot suspect during 2025 standoff won’t be charged: SiRT

A man was taken to hospital with serious injuries after he was shot by police in the Fairmount area of Halifax on July 10, 2025. (CTV Atlantic)

Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team (SiRT) has found no grounds to believe a Halifax Regional Police officer committed a crime when discharging a firearm during a standoff in July last year.

SiRT says Halifax police responded to a 911 call from an adult male who said he had barricaded himself in his home on July 9, 2025. Police learned the man’s adult daughter, who was vulnerable and nonverbal, was also inside the home at the time.

According to a release on Friday, SiRT says officers were worried for the man’s mental health and had grounds to arrest him for public mischief.

SiRT says the man refused to leave the house, made threats to the officers while acting volatile, and could even be heard drilling barricades into the home. Officers also believed they heard him racking a firearm.

A man claiming to be the suspect called the CTV Atlantic newsroom just after 9 p.m. on July 9 and spoke to anchor Bruce Frisko. At that time, Frisko said the man sounded flustered, but polite, and said the problem stemmed from another incident in Ontario that he had tried to resolve with police. The man told Frisko he was in his house with his daughter and the police had been there for hours.

Officers remained on scene overnight and tried to get the man to leave the home.

Early the next morning, a warrant was granted giving officers the authority to enter the home and arrest the man. When police tried to make contact with the man, SiRT says he allegedly fired a flare gun at the officers and pointed what appeared to be a firearm at them, leading to one of the officers shooting the man.

The man was treated for gunshot wounds at the scene.

An investigation by SiRT began on the morning of July 10, 2025.

The team found it was reasonable for the officer to fire his gun as he believed the suspect was going to fire his own weapon, “placing the officers in imminent danger,” so there are no grounds to lay charges.

The director’s detailed report is available online.

SiRT investigates all serious incidents involving police in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

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