Ontario’s police watchdog say OPP officers shouldn’t be charged after a 25-year-old man went into medical distress at the Lambton OPP detachment following his arrest this spring.
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A Special Investigations Unit (SIU) probe found no reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offense was committed during the April 17 incident, director Joseph Martino said in a report released Friday.
The man, who was being watched as part of a Lambton OPP drug investigation, was arrested after getting a flat tire on Highway 401, he said.
There was a physical altercation when an officer went to arrest the man, who was “forcibly grounded and subjected to a number of strikes before he was handcuffed,” the report said.
He was searched and placed in a cruiser where, despite being handcuffed, he “was able to retrieve a quantity of illicit substances from the left inside pocket of his jacket and insert it between his buttocks,” the report said.
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A second search failed to find the substances and the man was taken to the Middlesex OPP detachment and searched again before being taken to a London hospital, where he was diagnosed with a broken nose.
“Urinalysis did not reveal the presence of drugs in his system,” the report said.
The man was taken from hospital to the Lambton OPP detachment early on April 18, where he was searched again and placed in a cell.
Just before 4 am, the man convulsed and rolled off the cell bench. Officers administered Narcan and called paramedics. The man was taken to hospital and diagnosed with a drug-induced cardiac arrest, the report said.
“On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that either subject official committed a criminal offense,” Martino said in his report.
The SIU is a civilian agency that investigates deaths, serious injuries, shootings or allegation of sexual assault involving Ontario police.
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