The province’s Special Investigations Unit says there are no reasonable grounds to lay criminal charges after a woman was seriously injured during an arrest by Peterborough police officers a year ago.
According to SIU director Tony Laparco’s report, officers were called to a women’s shelter to deal with an unwanted person on Feb. 23, 2018. The investigation revealed that a 52-year-old woman who had been staying at the shelter got into a verbal dispute with another resident.
Shelter staff attempted to intervene and called the police.
Laparco’s report says when officers arrived, the woman attempted to strike one of the police officers and was subsequently arrested for assaulting police. When an officer put her to the ground by striking the back of her leg, she landed on her right knee while being handcuffed.
The report says while at the police station, the woman informed a booking officer that she had been injured. She was subsequently taken to hospital where she was diagnosed with a torn tendon in her right knee which required surgery.
Laparco’s extensive investigation, involving witnesses and medical experts and records, determined that the impact to the woman’s knee was in the front of the knee and not the back of leg.
“While I note that the complainant was a large woman, estimated as weighing approximately 245 pounds (111 kilograms), and she fell onto the pavement with her full weight as a result of her knee buckling, I believe the evidence establishes that it is most likely that she was injured when she fell onto her right knee, after throwing a punch at Witness Officer #3 and being struck on her right calf by the Subject Officer,” he wrote.
Laparco concluded the woman was being “resistant and combative” after attempting to punch an officer and grabbing a police radio. Witnesses said the officers did not use any “extraneous or unnecessary strikes” against the woman during the arrest.
“On all of the evidence, it is clear that had the complainant not resisted and attempted to assault Witness Officer #3, no force at all would have been used to apprehend her,” Laparco concluded.
“As such, while I find that her serious injury was sustained during her interaction with police, and as a result of the efforts of the police to maintain control over her, the evidence does not satisfy me that there are reasonable grounds to believe that either officer acted outside of the parameters of the Criminal Code. As such, as I lack the necessary grounds for the laying of criminal charges, none shall issue.”
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