TORONTO — Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared two Peel Regional Police officers of wrongdoing in a shooting outside Toronto's Pearson airport in April that left a 30-year-old man dead.
A report from the Special Investigations Unit says the officers fired their weapons to “protect themselves and others” after a man in mental distress pulled out an air pistol.
The SIU says officers were called to the departures drop-off area outside Terminal 1 at about 6:38 a.m. on April 24 by airport security, after a woman asked for help because her brother was reportedly in distress due to a combination of mental illness and drug consumption.
The report says the woman reported that her brother was refusing to exit the vehicle to get on a flight to the Yukon, where he had previously agreed to attend a treatment program, saying he had been taken to the airport against his will.
The report says the man believed his sister was “manipulating" him and said he did not trust police.
The SIU says that as the situation escalated, the man suddenly stepped out of the vehicle and pointed his gun at the officers, prompting police to fire their weapons.
An autopsy later revealed the man died from gunshot wounds to the chest inflicted by one or two of the officers, the SIU says.
“I am satisfied that the subject officials’ resort to their firearms constituted reasonable defensive force,” SIU director Joseph Martino wrote in the report.
"The police officers ... were lawfully placed and in the execution of their duty through the series of events culminating in gunfire," he wrote, noting that the officers had attempted to de-escalate the situation before the shooting.
Martino wrote that although gunfire continued after the man had collapsed to the ground, the officers were faced with what "must have felt like a grave and mortal threat to their lives" and he was unable to conclude that they exceeded their authorized force.
He said there are no reasonable grounds to believe the officers committed a criminal offence.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 22, 2025.
Cassidy McMackon, The Canadian Press
