SIU clears officer after man fell from incline

Man’s skull fractured in fall 2016 mishap

A city police officer has been cleared of wrongdoing by the Special Investigation Unit after a 22-year-old man fell 3.35 metres off an embankment and slammed his head on a concrete slab in 2016.

SIU director Tony Loparco determined there were no reasonable grounds to lay criminal charges against the officer over the injuries after an investigation that lasted more than a year.

The city police officer has not been named by city police or the SIU since no charges are being laid.

The injured man, who also was not identified by city police or the SIU, but had been identified at the time by family members as Jesse Rowe, suffered fractures to his skull, nasal bone, left sphenoid, left lateral sphenoid, clivus, carotid canal and temporal bone, along with a comminuted fracture of the left temporal bone in the fall, according to the SIU investigation report.

He was in a coma until waking up several days later in a Toronto hospital.

The man had 300 mg of alcohol in 100 ml of blood (nearly four times the legal limit for driving), plus cocaine and marijuana, in his system at the time of the fall, toxicology testing found.

Since the sample was taken the day after his fall, his blood-alcohol level would have been even higher at the time of the fall, the report notes.

The SIU investigation determined, based on the accounts of other officers at the scene, that the man lost his balance while walking in circles and fell down the embankment just after the officer, who was three metres away from him, had been directing him to sit down.

“I find that the complainant’s injuries were caused by his own actions without any direct involvement by the police officers present,” Loparco stated.

The fall happened on Sept. 30, 2016 on the embankment along the Otonabee River at the CPR bridge behind the Holiday Inn.

City police were called to the area around 7:35 p.m. after someone who was with the man was reported to have been harassing and spitting on patrons in the parking lot of the Tim Hortons on George St. N.

Officers were directed to the railway bridge where the man and the other person were. The other person fled as officers

approached, while the man then walked across the train tracks and stood on a concrete piling, the report states.

While one of the officers attempted to talk with the man, the man fell.

The SIU assigned three investigators and two forensic investigators to the case. They interviewed the man and reviewed his medical records.

The city police officer that was the subject of the SIU investigation declined to be interviewed or provide notes to the SIU, officials stated.

The SIU investigators interviewed four city police officers who were at the scene at the time of the fall and reviewed the notes of a fifth officer.

The SIU is a civilian law enforcement agency that investigates incidents involving police officers where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.