No charges against London officer after woman’s elbow fractured during arrest: SIU

The province’s police watchdog says there’s no basis to lay charges in an incident in which a woman suffered a fractured elbow during an interaction with London police.

The Special Investigations Unit says officers were called to a home in the city on Jan. 21, 2019, after a 52-year-old woman sent an email to her children that led them to believe she was going to commit suicide.

The SIU says the woman’s daughter called 911. When asked how her mother would react to police attending her residence, the agency says the daughter “said it was difficult to say and it would depend on her level of intoxication.”

An officer arrived at the residence and met with the woman’s former husband, as well as a man who said he was the woman’s common-law spouse — both of whom had arrived moments earlier out of concern for her well-being.

The officer used the common-law spouse’s key to get into the woman’s bedroom, and the door reportedly had to be forced open “past a bench that had been placed in its path.”

The woman was found on the floor near the bed.

“In very short order,” the report reads, “the officer found himself engaged in a struggle with the Complainant who reacted violently to being roused by the officer.”

The woman was subdued on the ground and another officer was called to assist in the arrest. Once they arrived, the SIU says the two officers handcuffed the woman and took her down the stairs and into the police cruiser. She was arrested for “assaulting and resisting a police officer” and was taken to hospital for examination.

The next day, it was confirmed that she had a fractured elbow.

The SIU says while there’s no doubt the woman’s injury was caused by the officer, there are no reasonable grounds to believe it occurred as a result of any criminal conduct on the part of police.

— with files from 980 CFPL’s Matthew Trevithick.