Ontario's civilian police watchdog has found no grounds to charge any Woodstock police officers in connection with the arrest of a man who suffered a fractured hand.
The Special Investigations Unit launched an investigation after the February 6 incident in the parking lot of the Quality Inn in Woodstock. According to SIU investigators, a 28-year-old man drove a stolen pickup truck into the parking lot. An officer, who was already in the lot on another matter, did a search on the truck's licence plate and found it was registered to a woman from Brantford. The officer spoke with the man briefly before the man ran off.
Other officers arrived and the man was pepper-sprayed, taken to the ground, and arrested. He was strip-searched at Woodstock police headquarters, before being taken to hospital, where he was diagnosed with a fractured hand.
“The officers, in my view, were acting in the lawful discharge of their duty when they apprehended the man," says SIU acting director Joseph Martino. "The fact that the man refused to answer questions and then ran from the officer as the officer approached only added to the officer’s suspicions and conferred the requisite grounds to detain the man for further investigation. It is likely that his injury occurred during the grounding as there is no indication from the man or anyone else that he was struck at any time."
While at the police station, the SIU says the man objected to the strip search and said he was being sexually assaulted. However, Martino says the officers were justifed in conducting the strip search and he cannot conclude that the search was "sexual" in nature.
"They had already recovered a pack of cigarettes from the area of his buttocks and they had seen him with his arms behind his back in that same area despite their direction that he show his hands," says Martino. "I am also satisfied on my review of the evidence relating to the strip search that the officers conducted themselves reasonably throughout; though force was used by the officers against the man, including a punch struck to the man’s left side, this appears to have been precipitated by and commensurate with the man’s physical resistance to the search that was unfolding."
