Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared London police officers of any wrongdoing in two separate investigations into suspects who were injured during their arrests in May.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) found no reasonable grounds to believe the officers caused a 32-year-old man to have fractures in his right heel and a 38-year-old man to break his nose, director Joseph Martino wrote in his reports on the incidents, which were released Tuesday.
In the first incident on May 19, London police responded to calls about a man threatening his neighbour near Dundas Street and Clarke Road. The man, 32, fled to his home, where the injury happened, Martino wrote.
“Following a standoff, the man climbed out of a window, grabbed onto a drainpipe and lowered himself. He broke his heel in the process. The man was arrested and later taken to hospital,” he wrote, adding that there was outstanding warrant for his arrest for robbery.
The second incident took place in the early morning hours of the next day, May 20.
A 38-year-old man’s father called police to escort him from his home in the area of Veterans Memorial Parkway and Dundas Street, due to a court order preventing him from being home, Martino wrote.
Martino said the suspect resisted arrest and the officer punched the man’s back once or twice, but that force was justified, and wasn’t enough to break his nose.
“During his arrest, evidence showed the man struggled against the officers’ efforts to handcuff him,” said Martino.
“The subject official delivered one or two short right punches to the man’s back, a not disproportionate use of force, after which the officers’ were able to control the man’s arms.”
The SIU probes incidents across Ontario in which someone is hurt or killed during an interaction with police, or when police use their weapons.
