Charges will not be laid against a police officer from Chatham-Kent after an altercation with a man carrying a crossbow and a machete at a home in Chatham last summer.
Director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) Joseph Martino has found no reasonable grounds to believe the officer committed a criminal offence in connection with discharging a foam round at a 51-year-old man just before his arrest in the early morning hours of July 15, 2021.
The SIU said officers responded to the man’s home following a 911 hang-up call just hours before the arrest and found a man with a crossbow. The man confronted officers when they arrived and told them to leave. The investigation revealed the man later refused to surrender to police, exited his home with a machete, and refused commands to stop coming towards officers. That's when the foam round was fired and two officers discharged their tasers. The SIU said the man fell to the ground and was handcuffed, but was not seriously injured.
Investigators said the 911 call was made by the man’s wife after an argument that day because she began to feel threatened, but she hung up before her call was answered. The officers explained that there had been a 911 call from the home, but the man remained belligerent as he held a crossbow in his hands, according to the incident report. The woman told officers she had not been assaulted and left to run an errand. When she returned at about 10 p.m., the officers were gone but the man was speaking with a police negotiator on the phone, who called the home hoping to de-escalate the situation and have the man surrender peacefully for being in possession of a weapon dangerous to the public. The SIU said it became apparent after a few phone calls that the man had no intention of giving himself up. He threatened there would be violence if the police went onto his property and, if they entered his home, there would be a “bloodbath”, according to the SIU.
A Critical Incident Response Team, which is a highly-trained unit that is used to resolve high-risk situations including armed resistance, was sent to the home with an armoured vehicle and told him to come out. He did, this time with a machete, as he continued to ignore all efforts to reduce tensions, and repeatedly threatened the officers. At about 1:45 a.m., the man, still with a machete in hand, refused to drop his weapon and continued walking towards the officers. That's when the foam round was fired and the tasers were used.
Foam round firearm. (Photo via SIU)
Director Martino concluded that the firearm discharge by the officer was a reasonable and necessary force and the file has been closed.
"In view of the 911 call, the uncertainty that remained around the nature of the call and the well-being of others inside the residence, and the Complainant’s threatening behaviour while in possession of a weapon, I am satisfied that the police were within their rights in seeking to arrest the Complainant for being in possession of a dangerous weapon," said Martino. "As for the propriety of the firearm discharge by the officer, it clearly constituted reasonably necessary force. At the time, the Complainant was advancing on the officers with a weapon clearly capable of inflicting grievous bodily harm and death. When he failed to stop and disarm himself, and instead neared to within 10 to 13 metres of the officer and closer to other officers, the subject official acted reasonably in meeting a potentially lethal attack with a resort to a less-lethal weapon. The force used by the officer performed as intended – the projectile struck the Complainant in the abdomen and prompted him to retreat."
The Special Investigations Unit is a civilian law enforcement agency that investigates incidents involving an official where there has been death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm at a person or an allegation of sexual assault.
The full report can be found here.
