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The father of an 18-year-old man found dead in an east-end park wants people to know his son’s death was an accident

“I know there are rumours out there about what happened to him,” the deceased man’s father said Monday afternoon after Regina police deemed the case to be non-criminal.

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“It wasn’t murder. It wasn’t suicide.”

According to him, his son was carrying a loaded sawed-off shotgun in his pants — “which he shouldn’t have had, but he did.” — when he split from his friends after asking for a cigarette.

“He wanted to come home and he tripped and fell in the dark walking through the park and that thing shot him in the leg and he bled out,” the man’s father said.

Police responded to a report of a deceased person located on the Howell Park pathway in the 2700 block of Howell Drive at 8:30 Sunday morning. The 18-year-old, who lived in the area, was confirmed by EMS to be dead at the scene. His name will not be made public by Regina Police Service as it’s not being treated as a criminal case.