Saskatoon teen charged with manslaughter in shooting of 12-year-old released from custody

The lawyer for a Saskatoon teen charged with manslaughter in the death of a 12-year-old says it appears the fatal shooting was "a very unfortunate, tragic event."

"It's the very early days, but I'm not seeing that this is any type of gang war or anything like that," Blaine Beaven said in an interview.

"This seems to be much more in the nature of kids doing something they shouldn't have been involved in, without really malicious intent."

Two boys, 12 and 13, are charged with manslaughter in connection with the Feb. 19 shooting that left a 12-year-old dead. None of the boys can be named because of their ages.

The two boys knew the 12-year-old boy they are accused of killing, according to Saskatoon police.

Officers were called to the 1000 block of Matheson Drive at about 3 a.m. CST on Feb. 19 for an injured person. Police say the 12-year-old boy had been shot and was taken to hospital, where he later died. It was the city's fifth homicide of 2024, police say.

The 13-year-old was released by consent of the Crown and defence on Wednesday with a number of conditions, including not contacting his co-accused or victim's families. He returns to court April 23 to enter a plea.

Beaven said that he's gotten minimal information from investigators about what happened that day.

"There will be more coming … so it's going to come down to the people who are there, what they say happened, what their ability to observe was, especially if they were impaired at all," he said.

"And for my client, who's quite young, about what his ability to understand what was going on, and his actual physical involvement with the act of the firearm going off. And we don't have full details on that yet."

Beaven said it's not yet clear where the gun that killed the 12-year-old came from.

"There's a lot of firearms in the community that aren't legally owned and it's because people steal them and they're able to steal them because they're not properly locked up," he said.

"I think the message is, as always, firearms are not toys. Firearms are improperly used, can be very deadly and that people need to lock them up, keep them secure, keep them safe."