SIOUX LOOKOUT — Provincial police have been cleared of any potential criminal charges after an investigation into an injury sustained by a man taken into custody earlier this year.
The province's Special Investigations Unit released a report last week, which concluded that there are no grounds to lay criminal charges against officers involved in the interaction with a 48-year-old man who had to undergo surgery on a broken collarbone after being pushed and falling to the floor of a holding cell.
Police officers had been called to a Sioux Lookout hotel on the afternoon of June 21 for a guest who had overstayed and was refusing to leave.
The officers arrived and found the man intoxicated, and decided to bring him into custody.
The Special Investigation Unit's report mentions that the interactions to that point were unremarkable, but when the man was being led into a cell he grabbed onto the bars with both hands and attempted to hold on. Officers used elbow strikes against his forearms to break his hold, but he then resisted further efforts to move him into the cell.
The report said one officer pushed him in the back, which caused him to fall forward and land on his right shoulder and head.
"With respect to the force brought to bear against the Complainant in the cell block, namely, several elbow strikes and a push to the back, I am satisfied it was legally justified. The officers were left with little option but to respond with a measure of force when the Complainant took hold of cell bars, to prevent his placement in a cell, and refused to let go," SIU director Joseph Martino wrote in the report.
"The use of manual force in the nature of several elbow strikes to force his hands free of the bars seems a proportionate response to the Complainant’s resistance at the time."
When the man was released from custody 12 hours later, he was taken to hospital for assessment of his injuries. He was then flown to Thunder Bay, where he underwent surgery to have a plate and pins inserted in his shoulder.
