No charges against police in man’s arrest at motel
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has determined no charges will be laid against a Niagara Regional Police officer who repeatedly struck a man in the face while attempting to arrest him at a Niagara Falls motel last year.
At about 4 a.m. on May 27,
2017, police were called to a motel after the owner, fearing the room was being damaged, wanted a group of people removed.
After clearing the room of all but one of the group, police located the remaining person, a 42year-old man, hiding under a bed. An officer ordered the man to come out from under the bed with his hands where he could see them. When the man didn’t respond, the officer tried pull him out. The man resisted, and another officer saw him reach his hand behind his back. The officer also saw a sheathed knife. He grabbed it and threw it out of reach. The officer then saw a gun near the man’s hand.
In his report, SIU director Tony Laparco said the circumstances of the attempt to arrest the man and to prevent him from potentially accessing a weapon justified the use of force.
The officer subject to the complaint said he feared what might have happened if the man was able to grab the gun and immediately bent over, grabbed the complainant’s shirt and began pulling him out from under the bed.
The officer couldn’t see the resisting man’s left hand but saw that his right was getting close to the gun. The officer struck the man five or six times as hard as he could in an effort to either knock him out or distract him from getting the gun.
The officer got the man on the ground but, still not seeing the man’s left hand, delivered knee strikes to his upper torso while pulling his left arm to prevent him from grabbing a weapon.
Another officer assisted, also using force, and eventually the man was handcuffed.
Later that morning, Niagara Regional Police notified the SIU of the man’s serious facial injury, and an investigation was launched.