SIU clears Sudbury officer after man’s collarbone fracture

Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has found no reasonable grounds to charge a Greater Sudbury Police Service officer after a 54-year-old man was diagnosed with a fractured right collarbone following his July 7 arrest on an outstanding warrant, according to a director’s report dated Nov. 2.

SIU Director Joseph Martino wrote in the report on Case 26-OCI-313 that the officer’s takedown and punches were within the force the law allows. He also wrote that it remains unknown exactly when the injury happened and that it may have been caused by a fall from a bicycle two days earlier. The file is closed.

Three officers on bicycle patrol spotted the man in the parking lot at 200 Larch St. at about 3 p.m. and confirmed a bench warrant, the report said. The man ran. One officer reached for his upper body, and the officer who was named the subject official took him to the ground beside a parked vehicle.

Body-worn camera footage showed the officer deliver three closed-fist strikes to the man’s right arm before handcuffing him behind the back, according to the report. The man said repeatedly that he had a broken collarbone and needed a hospital. He told the officer the injury was two days old. Police noted bruising on the shoulder, and paramedics took him to Health Sciences North, where the fracture was diagnosed.

Martino wrote that the takedown “made sense” because the man was fleeing. He described the strikes as short punches thrown as the man held his arm by his head. “While it is unclear whether they were strictly necessary,” he wrote, they fell within the reasonable latitude afforded to officers in physical encounters.

Because there were no reasonable grounds to attribute the injury to unlawful conduct, Martino said, there was no basis for charges. Section 25(1) of the Criminal Code protects officers who act on reasonable grounds and use only as much force as is necessary.

The subject official declined to be interviewed or to provide his notes, which is his legal right. Three witness officials were interviewed between July 15 and Aug. 10. The SIU interviewed the man on July 8 and obtained his hospital records. The report did not name any of the people involved. The Greater Sudbury Police Service had not published a statement on the findings in the SIU material reviewed for this story.

It is the second recent SIU decision involving Greater Sudbury police. Earlier, the unit cleared a Sudbury officer over a fractured rib, and on Oct. 28 it cleared a Timmins officer after a man’s rib fractures. We also reported the SIU’s finding that an OPP officer was largely at fault in a Toronto crash.

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