No charges for officer over man’s death on the Linc

SIU concludes police not at fault in incident where man stumbled onto highway

No charges will be laid by the Special Investigations Unit against a Hamilton police officer in relation to an incident in which a man was hit and killed by a tractor trailer on the Lincoln Alexander Parkway last year.

The SIU announced on Friday it had cleared the subject officer, 13 months after the fatality took place at about 9 p.m. on Oct. 13, 2017.

The SIU says a 36-yearold man had called his father, told him he’d been at a party and that someone had put something into his drink. He said he was walking somewhere in Ancaster and was disoriented. The subject officer was sent to the area. He was driving west on the Linc and saw the man standing on the median near the Rousseaux Street off-ramp. The SIU report says the officer “asked the HPS dispatcher to have the (man) walk toward his cruiser.”

The dispatcher would have had to relay that message to the man’s father, who was still on the phone with the man. The man started walking across the off-ramp and was grazed by the right front fender of a vehicle that kept driving. The man then stumbled into the path of a truck.

“The (man’s) full body was impacted by the front grill of the tractor trailer,” according to the SIU.

He was pronounced dead at hospital. Five SIU investigators were assigned to the case, along with two forensic officers and one accident reconstruction expert. The team interviewed six civilian witnesses and two police witnesses.

The subject officer exercised his right not to be interviewed, according to the SIU. But he did provide a written statement.

The SIU concluded that it was unclear whether the man had, in fact, been told to go toward the cruiser. It was also reasonable that the officer had not intended for the disoriented man to cross the highway.

The agency investigates all deaths, serious injuries or allegations of sexual assault involving police officers.

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The officer “asked the HPS dispatcher to have the (man) walk toward his cruiser.”

SIU REPORT