No charges against Hamilton officer over elderly woman’s arrest that resulted in injury: SIU
Published April 30, 2021 at 9:32 am
Ontario’s police watchdog has determined there are no grounds for charges against a Hamilton Police Services officer in connection to a 70-year-old woman’s arrest in September 2020 that resulted in injury.
According to a report on the incident, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said that police were called to a residence near Upper James and Fennell to reports of an assault on September 12, 2020.
The report said that one of the tenants of the home’s basement apartment had struck the pregnant owner of the house.
When police arrived on scene, the tenant, a 70-year-old woman, was placed under arrest and when police tried to handcuff her hands behind her back, she complained of pain in relation to a shoulder fracture she sustained in July 2020.
Police reportedly complied with the woman’s request to have her hands cuffed in front.
The woman, however, complained of shoulder pain in the days following and a subsequent ultrasound on October 19 found that she had a “partial tendon tear in the left shoulder.”
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The SIU was called in to investigate the incident a short time later.
Their investigation concluded that given the circumstances surrounding the arrest, the officer who handcuffed the elderly woman employed “lawful force.”
“In the final analysis, while it may be that the [officer] injured the Complainant’s shoulder with force that was not precisely tailored in the circumstances, particularly in view of the fact that the Complainant was an older woman, I am unable to conclude that the force was excessive or fell afoul of the limits prescribed by the criminal law,” the report, signed by SIU director Joseph Martino, said.
“In the result, as I am satisfied that the [officer] conducted herself lawfully throughout her engagement with the Complainant, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges against the officer.”
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