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No charges to be laid says SIU after officer pushes woman to the ground during arrest

Woman complained police fractured her ribs during arrest
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The Director of the Special Investigations Unit, Tony Loparco, said in a news release today that there are no reasonable grounds to lay criminal charges against a Huntsville OPP officer in relation to injuries sustained by a 43-year-old woman during her arrest on May 14 last year.

See the full report here.

Loparco says at approximately 1:46 a.m. the woman was seen walking along a street Huntsville, in an apparently drunken state.

An officer arrested the woman and took her to the detachment. She was later assessed at hospital and found to have sustained a small to moderate collapsed lung with a non-displaced right side lateral rib fracture to the seventh and eighth ribs.

"The evidence of all the witnesses is consistent that the Complainant was intoxicated when she was arrested. The Complainant’s memory of the interaction, however, was incomplete. She fell to the ground and 'blacked out' but did not know how she got there and she had no recollection that she had struggled or fought with the officer which might explain what may have led to the injury to her ribs. All the evidence confirmed that the injury to her finger occurred before the events in question."

The officer was on patrol when he was approached by two women in a car who said they had seen a very intoxicated woman walking in the area of the courthouse and that they had seen her fall a couple of times. When they last saw her, she was seated on the ground and yelling.

When the officer found the woman he said she appeared to be very drunk.

"At the time of his initial observation, the Complainant was on her cellphone yelling into the phone and swaying from side to side," wrote Loparco. "The Subject Officer (SO) pulled up beside the Complainant and spoke to her through the window of his cruiser. He asked her where she was going and the Complainant replied that she wished to be left alone and kept walking. The SO then stopped his cruiser and exited, approaching the Complainant on foot while she continued walking and ignoring him. The SO indicated that he then stepped out in front of the Complainant and again asked her where she was going and she indicated she was fine and did not know where she was going. While speaking with the Complainant, the SO observed her to be obviously drunk and she had a bleeding gash to her right finger."

The officer told her she was under arrest for being intoxicated in a public place and she became upset and started screaming at him.

"The officer called for backup and then took a step towards the Complainant in an attempt to effect an arrest, whereupon the Complainant stepped backwards off of the sidewalk and into the street, causing the SO concern for her safety. The SO then advanced towards the Complainant and grabbed her wrist in an effort to move her back onto the sidewalk, at which point she began to kick him and waved her bloody hand in his face. At that point, according to the SO, he was concerned that she was going to get blood in his face and he gave her what he described as a strong push with his right hand and arm striking her just above her chest and causing her to land on her buttocks first and then her back."

This fall was seen by a backup officer, and according to the arresting officer, the woman remained lying on the ground and continued to kick at him whereupon he moved her onto her side and placed his right knee on the back of her legs to stop the kicking and then placed her in handcuffs.

Another officer who responded to the call for backup testified he saw the woman on the ground, lying on her back and handcuffed to the front. He described the Complainant as apparently drunk, slurring her words and with disjointed speech.

While she was being taken to a police cruiser, she lost her footing and fell forward, landing on the pavement where she then rolled over onto her back. She was then helped to her feet and did not complain of any injury from the fall.

Once at the station, she was then taken to the hospital to deal with her finger injury.

It was only at the hospital that she first complained of pain in her ribcage. When asked about the cause of her pain, she stated that she could not recall but that she had gone for a “few tumbles”. She was then returned to the detachment.

The SIU report states there appear to be a number of scenarios where she may have sustained the injury to her rib cage.

"With respect to the injury to her ribs, however, it is open to a finding that the Complainant was injured when she 'went for a few tumbles' on her own, as conceded by the Complainant and witnessed by the two female complainants and prior to police attendance, or that the injury resulted from the subject officer pushing her above the chest area when she was kicking at him and waving her bloody hand in his face or, finally, it would also be consistent with her falling forward when being escorted to the cruiser. The fall as a result of the push by the officer appears not to be the source of the injury, as she fell on her buttocks; the falls before police arrival, are of course an unknown quantity. Only the fall while the Complainant was being escorted to the cruiser, as witnessed by the witness officer #1, wherein she fell forward onto her front, is consistent with the injury observed by the civilian witness, as is the strong push by the SO, although he described it as being above her chest area and nowhere in the area of the seventh and eighth ribs that were fractured (those being lower down in the rib cage).

The report says it would be impossible to precisely determine the cause of her injury when she herself is unable to explain how she was injured.

"It is notable that at no time were any allegations made against any police officers by the Complainant, with respect to any inappropriate actions on their part, and she herself attributed her injury to having taken a few tumbles," said Loparco.


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Jeff Turl

About the Author: Jeff Turl

Jeff is a veteran of the news biz. He's spent a lengthy career in TV, radio, print and online, covering both news and sports. He enjoys free time riding motorcycles and spoiling grandchildren.
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