No charges against Hamilton police officer who shot man in March: SIU

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has found that a Hamilton police officer used "reasonable force" in shooting and wounding a 30-year-old man in March.

The man was shot as Hamilton police were responding to the stabbing death of a 74-year-old man in his downtown home.  

The 30-year-old was later charged with second-degree murder.

On March 16, officers responded to a residence in the area of Hunter Street East and Spring Street after a male victim was stabbed in the neck in his apartment by a male intruder, the SIU said.

According to the SIU, officers located the intruder in a bedroom with the door closed. The officers forced the door open, and the man jabbed at them with a knife through the doorway when he was met with gunfire.

SIU director Joseph Martino said he is satisfied that "the shots fired by the officer constituted reasonable force in self-defence," according to an SIU news release shared on Wednesday.

"The man had just stabbed the victim and attacked the officers with a knife at close range. Director Martino concluded that the officer had cause to believe that his life, and the lives of the other officers with him, were in peril," the SIU said in the release.

The SIU investigates cases of serious injury, death and allegations of sexual assault involving police, as well as cases where police discharge firearms at people.