Police officer cleared by SIU in arrest of suicidal man in Kitchener
Posted May 23, 2025 07:59:25 AM.
Last Updated May 23, 2025 12:28:51 PM.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) says a Waterloo Regional Police Service officer did not commit a criminal act when he resorted to kicks and punches to take a suicidal man into custody in the City of Kitchener.
A report from Ontario’s police watchdog agency laid out full details of what happened in Kitchener on the night of Jan. 25.
The SIU says a woman called police about a man who was intoxicated after drinking all day, and had just tried to hang himself in the basement of her home in the Pioneer Drive and Doon Village Road area of Kitchener.
The 41-year-old man had already left the house, and police began searching nearby properties, with a drone eventually spotting him in the area.
The report said he resisted when officers tried to arrest him under the Mental Health Act.
The officer investigated by the SIU “delivered three kicks with his right foot towards the Complainant, who was hanging on to a fence post with police officers trying to pull him off.”
But while on the ground, “the Complainant resisted being handcuffed and numerous officers could be seen…in a scrum with him. The (officer) delivered four or five strikes towards the Complainant’s right side.”
In the end, the suicidal man suffered “several right-sided facial fractures.”
SIU Director, Joseph Martino, said “the initial strikes to the body, whether the kick or kicks described by the (officer) or the other arresting officers, or the kicks to the torso and punch to the face, as indicated in another body of evidence, would not appear unwarranted. The Complainant was vigorously resisting arrest…”
He concluded, “whether the four of five punches struck by the (officer) were precisely necessary to overcome the Complainant’s resistance, I am satisfied that they fell within a range of reasonable force.”
