The head of Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) says there are no grounds to believe an OPP officer committed a Criminal Code offense in November while driving a cruiser that struck an 82-year-old woman in a Corunna crosswalk and sent her rolling over the cruiser’s hood and onto the pavement.
The woman was taken by paramedics to hospital with serious fractures to her left leg in the collision that happened on the morning of Nov. 16 at the corner of St. Clair Boulevard and the St. Clair Parkway, according to a report by SIU director Joseph Martino.
The SIU is a civilian agency that investigates when police in Ontario are involved in a death, serious injury, discharge of a firearm at a person, or an allegation of sexual assault.
SIU investigators were able to view video from a surveillance camera at Ken’s Mini Mart on the corner, according to the report.
They also spoke with the officer and three witness officers, as well as reviewed other evidence gathered from the incident.
Martino said that while “there is little doubt” the officer was responsible for the collision, “I am unable to reasonably conclude on the evidence that the officer’s conduct amounted to a marked departure from a reasonable standard of care in the circumstances,” which is required when considering a Criminal Code charge of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
The report says a SIU forensic investigator who reached the scene later that day saw the cruiser parked in the intersection with a small tooth on the hood “along with what appeared to be a short hair.”
The SIU said in a news release, “director Martino was satisfied that the officer’s indiscretion may fairly be characterized as a momentary lapse of attention, which, as the case law makes clear, will generally not be enough to ground criminal liability.“
According to Martino’s report, the officer said “he simply did not see the complainant and believed his path was clear” as he turned.
“I am left to take the SO at his word as there is nothing in the evidence, aside from the collision itself, to suggest that the officer was distracted when he ought not have been,” Martino says in his report.
The SIU said its investigation is concluded.