Officer’s use of force justified, says SIU director

Cop used Taser while trying to arrest mentally ill man

The Special Investigations Unit has decided a Toronto police officer’s use of force was justified in apprehending a mentally ill man, which ended with the man needing surgery under his right eye.

Director Tony Loparco, who leads the unit charged with investigating police interactions involving death, serious injury or sexual assault, said the officer involved in the July 2016 case “was required to make an unenviable, immediate decision.”

“I appreciate that the complainant suffers from serious mental-health issues, and received a significant injury to his eye that day requiring surgery,” Loparco wrote his decision on the case.

“In the circumstances, he presented an immediate danger to the attending officers.”

The complainant, who is not identified in the director’s report, was apprehended after a Justice of the Peace issued an order under the Mental Health Act for him to be taken by police to a hospital for an examination. The same man had been apprehended two weeks earlier after he threw wood at a neighbour. The director’s report cites the man’s Canadian Mental Health Association worker as saying that he was paranoid schizophrenic at the time.

The officer who apprehended the complainant used a Taser once for five seconds, the report stated, which caused the man to drop the barbell he was holding.

The Taser caused injuries to the complainant’s chest and under his right eye, the latter of which required surgery. The officer called an ambulance immediately after using the Taser, according to phone call recordings cited in the report.