The provincial Special Investigations Unit has ruled that there are no grounds for criminal charges against several Guelph police officers in connection with the arrest of a Guelph man last July at the Market Square splash pad.
The man arrested, Derrick Miller, suffered injuries during the arrest and was taken to hospital by ambulance for treatment.
Miller was original charged with voyeurism, possession of child pornography and mischief, but the charges were dropped before making it to court.
Miller, who is intellectually challenged, and his parents have filed a $5 million lawsuit against four officers, their supervisor, the Guelph Police Service and its chief Jeff DeRuyter.
One of the claims in the lawsuit, which is proceeding, is that police used "non-consensual physical contact that escalated to excessive force and brutality."
Lawyer Joseph Markson, speaking on behalf of the Guelph Police Association, said it's important that the public know that the officers were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.
"The matter was thoroughly investigated. The community should be entitled to know that they acted lawfully and without criminality," said Markson, who is not involved in the civil suit.
"It was a thorough investigation and it wasn't a close call," Markson said.
"Wouldn't you want to know that reading the civil suit?"
The SIU ruling came last February.
The SIU never publicly announced there was an investigation or what the findings were.
Monica Hudon, Communications Coordinator with the SIU, said that not all SIU investigations are made public.
"The SIU receives notification of hundreds of incidents every year. At this point in time, given the SIU’s limited resources, our ability to issue news releases in all cases is not feasible. Given our present resources, the SIU is committed to issuing news releases in all death cases, whenever a firearm is used and for major vehicle collisions," Hudon explained via email when asked why no public statement about the investigation was made.
"What I can tell you is that the Director of the Special Investigations Unit, Tony Loparco, has determined there are no reasonable grounds to lay criminal charges against any Guelph Police Service officer in relation to the injuries sustained by a 32-year-old man in July of 2016," Hudon wrote.
