Greater Sudbury Police Service officers have been cleared by the Special Investigations Unit for an arrest they made back in October 2022.
On Oct. 2, 2022, at 12:40 a.m., the report states GSPS officers on patrol on Notre Dame Avenue passed a vehicle in which officers believed a person wanted on outstanding warrants was an occupant.
A traffic stop was initiated by officers in two separate police cruisers after following the vehicle north on Notre Dame Avenue, east on LaSalle Boulevard and north on Rideau Street, and finally pulling it over on Grandview Boulevard.
The SIU investigation found that the complainant in the SIU case, a 23-year-old man wanted on numerous warrants, was the passenger in the vehicle. Initially, SIU said the man gave officers a fake name to avoid arrest, but they were soon able to determine who the man really was and attempted to place him under arrest.
The subject began to resist arrest and officers forced him to the ground in an attempt to take him into custody. The SIU said the man continued to resist on the ground.
“The Complainant continued to resist on the ground and was met by several strikes delivered by the (subject officer) and CEW (conducted energy weapon) discharges from (the other officer’s) weapon. He was eventually subdued and handcuffed.,” the report states.
Taken to police headquarters, the man was placed in a cell pending an appearance in court the next morning.
Police report that at 10 a.m. the next morning, officers report seeing the man with what appeared to be a small ball of a white substance in his hand that he attempted to conceal “in his anal region.”
“When the Complainant was approached by the cell staff, he flushed the substance down the cell toilet,” the report said. “A strip search was authorized by the staff sergeant. The Complainant told the officers he would not comply with the search. The Complainant was grounded and handcuffed.”
After the search was concluded, the report states the man admitted to consuming a quantity of fentanyl so paramedics were called and the man was transported to hospital for further examination and a computerized tomography (CT) scan.
“During the assessment, it was revealed the Complainant had sustained a right metacarpal fracture. The Complainant indicated he was injured either during the arrest or the search. The Complainant also alleged sexual assault during the search,” the report states. The report later states the man also suffered an injury to the tympanic membrane in his left ear.
The same day, Oct. 2, GSPS notified SIU of the injury to the man and the investigations unit began its probe of the situation.
The complainant and two witness officers were interviewed by the SIU.
However, the subject officer who was under investigation for the complainant’s injury, refused to co-operate and refused to provide their notes to investigators, “as is the subject official’s legal right,” the SIU report notes.
The investigation determined “the officers involved in the Complainant’s arrest were within their rights in seeking to take the Complainant into custody. The Complainant was subject to two arrest warrants at the time for violations of probation orders and other offences.”
In his conclusion, SIU Director Joseph Martino said he was “unable to reasonably conclude” the force used in effecting the arrest of the man was excessive as the subject was resisting being taken into custody.
“In the heat of the moment, and possessed of information that the Complainant had a history of violence in prior police interactions and a record for weapons offences, I am not persuaded that the officers exceeded what was reasonably necessary in the circumstances to quickly and safely effect the arrest,” Martino writes in the report. “Indeed, in a search that followed the arrest, a knife was located on the Complainant’s person.”
Martino did not address the complainant’s sexual assault allegation in his conclusion. He said there “are no reasonable grounds” to believe the violence used to take the man into custody was excessive or unlawful.”
Martino concludes saying there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in the case and closed the file.
