The province’s police watchdog has cleared four London police officers of criminal wrongdoing after a 34-year-old man was diagnosed with a fractured right finger after being arrested in early January.
The report into the nighttime Jan. 7 arrest, released by the Special Investigations Unit on Friday, determined the officers’ use of force, which included at least three punches to the head, two baton strikes to the knee, and several knee strikes to the side, was justified in placing the man into custody as he continued to resist arrest and struggle with officers, including while behind the wheel of a running vehicle.
All four subject officers at the centre of the probe declined to be interviewed by the SIU, but agreed to provide their notes to investigators. Subject officers can’t be legally compelled to be interviewed.
The agency says it also interviewed the suspect and four witness officers as part of the case, and received those officers’ notes, along with the notes of two other witness officers who weren’t interviewed.
The incident
The man’s arrest around 8:41 p.m. at a northeast London cul-de-sac came hours after he allegedly attended his ex’s home and threatened her, the SIU said. The man was also operating a stolen vehicle and had a warrant out for his arrest on unspecified charges, the report said.
According to the SIU, three of the subject officers involved, all members of the LPS Criminal Investigation Division, were in an unmarked minivan looking for the accused when they located him in a stolen Ford Focus in a parking lot in the area of Beckworth Avenue.
Backup units were requested to the scene, and the SIU says the officers followed the vehicle out of the parking lot to a dead-end roundabout on Perth Avenue near Huron and Sandford streets.
The suspect turned his vehicle around, prompting the officer driving minivan to go into the oncoming lane to try and block his path, the SIU said. The suspect reversed his vehicle in response, driving up over a curb into a snowbank and colliding with a light pole.
According to the SIU, after pushing the minivan up against the front of the sedan, and with the suspect continuing to rev his engine, all three officers left the minivan and moved toward the sedan, with two near the driver door, ordering the suspect to get out.
“When the complainant failed to do so, (subject officer #1), with the use of his (baton), smashed out the driver’s door window. (Subject officer #3), by the front passenger door, did the same with its window,” the SIU report reads.
“The officers reached into the vehicle, grappled with the complainant and attempted to turn off the ignition.”
The report says the suspect struggled with officers and was punched in the head twice by subject officer #3 and once by subject officer #2. The man was pulled out of the vehicle after one officer managed to open the driver’s side door.
On the ground, the man was struck twice in the legs with a baton by subject officer #1 after he continued to resist arrest and was attempting to pull away, the SIU report says.
“The officers were able to wrest control of his left arm and bring it around his back, but the complainant continued to resist and refused to release his right arm from under his torso,” the report says. It was at this time that the fourth subject officer involved arrived at the scene.
Attempting to free the suspect’s right arm, the report says subject officer #4 struck the man several times in the right side with his knee. The man’s arm was freed and he was arrested.
Paramedics were called to the scene as the suspect was bleeding from his hands, according to dispatch audio reviewed by the SIU. He was taken by EMS to Victoria Hospital where he was diagnosed with a fractured right finger around 2 a.m. the following morning.
SIU director’s findings
In his decision, SIU Director Joseph Martino said he accepted the man’s finger fracture was the result of the arrest, but says he saw no reasonable grounds to believe the four officers involved committed a criminal offence.
The man, Martino said, had a warrant for his arrest, was driving a stolen vehicle, and had threatened his former partner, leaving lawful grounds to have him taken into custody.
Under the Criminal Code, officers are immune from criminal liability for force used in the course of their duties, “provided such force was reasonably necessary in the execution of an act that they were required or authorized to do by law.”
Martino adds he believes the force used by the officers was “within the range of what was reasonably necessary at the time to effect their purpose.”
“It is apparent that the complainant strenuously resisted the officers’ efforts to take him into custody and was intent on escaping apprehension,” Martino wrote.
“Moreover, the complainant was in a vehicle and revving its engines, raising the prospect of a risk to public safety, including the officers’ safety, were he to break free of the police roadblock.”
He said he was “unable to fault” subject officers #2 and #3 for punching the man in the head, saying “they were entitled to up the ante in the circumstances with empty hand strikes” after failing to get control of the suspect.
Martino adds he is also satisfied that subject officers #1 and #4 “acted with measure” when they used baton and knee strikes to subdue the suspect as he refused to release his right arm.
“In the result, while I accept that the complainant’s injury occurred at some point in his altercation with the police, I am satisfied on reasonable grounds that the force used by the subject officials was at all times commensurate with, and proportional to, the exigencies at hand,” Martino said.
The SIU report can be read here.
Comments