MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – The Special Investigations Unit says there are no grounds to charge a provincial police officer in the death of a man arrested for impaired driving.
The police watchdog agency says officers pulled over a suspected impaired driver on Highway 17 east of North Bay, Ont., on Dec. 15, 2016, placed him under arrest and put him in a cruiser.
The SIU says the man then went into medical distress and an officer drove him a short distance to meet with paramedics, but the 49-year-old was later pronounced dead in hospital.
The arm’s-length agency says an autopsy found the main artery to the man’s heart was 90 per cent blocked and he had cocaine and a fatal concentration of fentanyl in his blood.
SIU director Tony Loparco says it is clear that the man died due to causes unrelated to the actions of the officer and that the officer was acting lawfully when he stopped an erratic and potentially impaired driver and took him into custody.
He says the drugs in man’s system that caused his impairment were he same drugs that were a significant factor in his death.
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