Officer cleared of striking man during arrest

The province’s civilian police watchdog has cleared an Ottawa Police Service officer accused of striking a suspect outside a homeless shelter after surveillance video of the September 2019 arrest showed no force was used by either of the two officers involved.

“Indeed, the entire incident appears to have been conducted without incident and was completely uneventful, as definitively established by the CCTV footage,” Special Investigations Unit director Joseph Martino said in a report closing the case Wednesday.

The 43-year-old man was arrested on Murray Street near the Shepherds of Good Hope on Sept. 16 by Ottawa police on a warrant from their counterparts in Smiths Falls. When he was picked up by Smiths Falls officers at the Elgin Street police station, he had swelling and bruising to his left eye and cheek and told them he’d been hit by an Ottawa officer.

Officers took him to the hospital where a CT scan the next morning revealed an orbital bone fracture. The man reportedly told medical staff he’d been “jumped” before his arrest.

The man named the officer he claimed came up behind him, spun him around and “sucker punched” him before making the arrest, the SIU said.

But the video showed it was another officer who arrested and handcuffed the man without incident — noting his swollen and bruised eye — before he was searched by the other officer, escorted to a cruiser and placed inside.