Regional police officer cleared by SIU after arrest sent a man to hospital
Posted Jan 17, 2025 04:00:41 PM.
Last Updated Jan 17, 2025 04:06:09 PM.
The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) cleared a Waterloo regional police officer, who in a struggle, punched a man he was trying to arrest.
The incident happened Sept. 21 around 7:44 p.m. in the area of Bleams Road and Strasburg Road in Kitchener. Police received a call that an Uber driver was assaulted while trying to make an alcohol delivery to the address and a man was preventing him from leaving.
Once on scene officers attempted to arrest the 49-year-old suspect who was drunk and harassing a woman, the SIU’s report reads.
Police asked the man to “calm down” but he did not comply so they tried to arrest him for breach of peace and public intoxication. In turn, a struggle ensued.
“The Complainant punched one of the police officers and, in return, a police officer punched the Complainant, who fell to the ground and lost consciousness,” the report reads.
Police called an ambulance, which the SIU report notes came six minutes later. WRPS informed the SIU of the situation and the police watchdog invoked its mandate.
At the hospital, the man was diagnosed with a brain bleed, which the SIU’s Director Joseph Martino said was “regrettable.”
“The delivery of a single punch would appear a proportionate response that was commensurate with the exigencies of the situation,” he said. “In the result, while it is regrettable that the Complainant fell, struck his head and suffered a brain bleed, his injury is not attributable to any unlawful conduct on the part of the (officer).”
The SIU investigates incidents in which someone is injured during an interaction with police.
