A Greater Sudbury Police officer has been cleared by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) for using an anti-riot weapon to stop a man wielding a hatchet.
In a July 29 news release, SIU director Joseph Martino said there was “no reasonable grounds to believe that a Greater Sudbury Police Service officer committed a criminal offence in connection with his deployment of an Anti-riot Weapon ENfield (ARWEN) in the course of the arrest of a 42-year-old man in March.”
An ARWEN is a form of less-lethal launcher that fires a variety of munitions from a rotary drum magazine, including direct impact batons, chemical irritants and smoke munitions.
SIU reported that on March 31, GSPS officers went to the man’s residence to arrest him on an assault charge.
“The man refused to present himself without a warrant, and proceeded to threaten the officers through the locked door as they repeatedly asked that he surrender,” the report states.
Additional officers, including the GSPS Tactical Unit, were deployed to the residence and police set up containment around the basement apartment, SIU stated, and attempted to negotiate the man’s surrender.
Officers awaited the issue of a Feeney warrant, which gives police the authority to enter a residence or business forcibly to arrest the person named on the warrant.
“When the Feeney warrant had been issued authorizing a forcible entry into the apartment by the officers to effect the man’s arrest, the officers broke the apartment’s kitchen and living room windows,” the report states.
An officer shouted into the apartment for the man to emerge with nothing in his hands, SIU states, but he refused to comply, so another officer fired canisters of tear gas into the apartment through a broken kitchen window.
“The man went to his bedroom and returned to the living room with a hatchet in his hands,” the report states. “An officer armed with an ARWEN fired his weapon twice at the man.”
After being hit, the man dropped the hatchet and surrendered. He was arrested without suffering any serious injuries, SIU reported.
“As there was no reasonable grounds to believe that the officer who discharged the ARWEN comported himself other than lawfully in his engagement with the man, there was no basis for proceeding with criminal charges against the officer,” the report states.
As a result of the investigation, SIU has closed the file.
