Updated October 22, 2025 @ 1:57pm
Ontario's police watchdog is investigating after a suspect linked to a homicide investigation and a now-cancelled Amber Alert was shot dead by police officers in Niagara Falls, Ont., early Wednesday.
The Special Investigations Unit said in a press release that Niagara police officers found the suspect at Gales Gas Bar near Thorold Stone and Montrose roads around 2:30 a.m. There was an "interaction" between the man and police before one officer shot the suspect, the SIU said.
The SIU said the man was pronounced dead at the scene and police have identified him as 38-year-old Anthony Deschepper.
SIU spokesperson Kristy Denette said the suspect was "struck multiple times" by the officer's gunfire. Paramedics responded and provided life-saving measures before he was declared dead, she said.
"What precipitated that shooting is basically what the SIU is investigating," Denette said at a press conference Wednesday. "There was a firearm that was recovered at the scene that belonged to the male individual."
Denette said police had been tracking the vehicle before the shots were fired. The SIU said later Wednesday that five investigators and two forensic investigators have been assigned to the case.
Niagara police spokesperson Const. Rich Hingley said a woman was placed under arrest at the scene.
"She is in our custody right now, charges are pending," Hingley said at Wednesday's press conference, adding that investigators do not know her relationship to the suspect at this time.
Provincial police had issued the Amber Alert on Tuesday on behalf of police in Peel Region for a one-year-old girl who was later found safe. Police have said the suspect fled the scene with the child in the back seat of a vehicle, but the child is believed to have been dropped off with family.
It came after a woman was shot dead at a commercial plaza in Brampton, Ont., in what police believe was a case of intimate-partner violence.
Police had previously placed and lifted a shelter-in-place order in a Fort Erie, Ont., neighbourhood after the suspect was thought to be in the area.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2025.
