Saskatoon man sentenced for role in fatal 2025 shooting through motel door

A Saskatoon man has been sentenced for his role as an accomplice in a shooting through the door of a Saskatoon motel room that left 20-year old Matthew Brabant dead.

Tyler Pambrun, 30, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison on Monday at Saskatoon Provincial Court for manslaughter with a firearm. With credit for the time he has already served, Pambrun has around five years and nine months left behind bars.

Previously, Pambrun pled guilty to the offence.

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His co-accused, Lawrence Opikokew, was previously sentenced to 13 years for manslaughter with a firearm.

According to an agreed statement of facts, police were called to the Riviera Motor Inn on Avenue B North at 5:09 a.m. on May 17, 2025, after receiving a report saying someone had been shot.

Surveillance video from the motel showed Pambrun and Opikokew arriving in a grey Infiniti SUV at around 4:13 a.m. Opikokew was seen pointing a sawed-off rifle from the rear passenger window toward Room 101 before both men got out of the vehicle and ran towards the room.

Video shows Brabant leaving Room 101, where he was staying, and running down the hallway. Moments later, Opikokew opened the door to the room as Pambrun briefly appeared in the doorway before fleeing.

Opikokew pointed the firearm at Brabant and other occupants as they fled.

The court heard the two men returned at 5:07 a.m., and Opikokew went back to the room, while Pambrun stayed in the parking lot to “keep watch.”

Footage shows Opikokew firing a single round directly at the closed door of Room 101.

According to court documents, the round struck Brabant, who ran down the hallway clutching his chest, covered in blood, before collapsing.

An autopsy report determined Brabant “died as the result of a gunshot wound that involved the shoulder/top of the chest and the neck.”

The agreed statement of facts said that in an interview, Opikokew confessed that he was not aiming at anyone in particular when he fired the shot, but just wanted to “shake them up” because he claimed he had been threatened with bear spray by someone at the hotel.

“I was unaware of the outcome that Matthew is going to lose his life, I had no intentions to hurt anybody,” Pambrun told the court during his sentencing.

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

Matthew Brabant was killed a month before he was set to graduate from Oskāyak High School. (Anna Brabant-Urquiza/Submitted)

Outside of the courthouse on Monday, Brabant’s sister Anna Brabant-Urquiza said she appreciated Pambrun apologizing rather than staying silent.

But she added that she feels “let down” by the sentence Pambrun received.

“I think our city is not safe, and if you do something wrong there’s no consequence,” Brabant-Urquiza told reporters.

Brabant-Urquiza said her younger brother was killed a month before his graduation from Oskāyak High School.

She said her brother cared deeply for others, and she’ll remember him for his sense of humour and “the way his eyes looked when he smiled.”

“He was like the rock of our family,” she said.