Hamilton Police officer won’t face charges in relation to incident where man suffered head, facial injuries
Published December 24, 2019 at 2:55 pm
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has found no grounds to lay criminal charges against a Hamilton Police officer following an incident where a man suffered face and head injuries after be
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has found no grounds to lay criminal charges against a Hamilton Police officer following an incident where a man suffered face and head injuries after being struck with a Conductive Energy Weapon (CEW).
The incident in question occurred earlier this year, the SIU says in a press release sent Tuesday (Dec. 24), on June 10.
The man called 911 from the Fortinos Plaza at Main and Dundurn to report that he was being followed by a number of people.
Hamilton Police responded to the scene and quickly learned that the man was under the influence of drugs.
The man reportedly became increasingly agitated and indicated to responding officers that he wanted to get in his car and leave.
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Officers offered to drive him to a relative’s house but when they tried to usher the man into a police cruiser, he tried to bolt to his own car.
At this point, one of the officer’s deployed the CEW. The man fell on his face and suffered a fracture.
“While the injuries the Complainant suffered were serious and most unfortunate,” writes the interim Director of the Special Investigations Unit, Joseph Martino, in his report on the matter, “I am satisfied that the SO’s apprehensions that a CEW discharge was necessary in order to prevent the commission of the offence of impaired operation/care and control of a motor vehicle by the Complainant were reasonable.”
Martino sites section 27 of the Criminal Code that everyone is justified in using reasonably necessary force to prevent the commission of an offence that would, were it committed, subject its perpetrator to being arrested without warrant and would likely cause serious injury to a person or property.
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