SIU closes book on suicide case
An investigation into a case of suicide, last year in The Nation Municipality, has cleared the Hawkesbury OPP detachment of any blame in the matter.
The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) has finished its investigation of the suicide of a 41-year-old man of The Nation, on May 13, 2016. The SIU is an arms-length agency created through the Ontario Police Services Act to investigate cases involving Ontario police officers where a death or injury has occurred or where there is an allegation of sexual assault, to determine whether or not charges may be warranted against an officer.
SIU Director Tony Loparco filed a report with the Attorney General’s office on the results of the agency’s investigation of the May 13, 2016 suicide case and was directed to make the report public. Director Loparco stated that “there are no reasonable grounds” for charges against any member of the OPP and that the Hawkesbury detachment acted according to all procedures set out for dealing with such a situation.
The SIU investigation report of Case Num- ber 16-PCD-121 are available to the public at www.ontario.ca/page/special-investigations-unit-siu-directors-reports. Certain details such as names of officers involved in the case, names of civilian witnesses, name of the deceased, and other details concerning investigation methods may be withheld under the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Personal Privacy Act.
The SIU was called in following results of a call Hawkesbury OPP officers answered on May 13, 2016, about a 41-year-old man in The Nation Municipality who had locked himself in his garage. The man’s wife called police early that morning, fearing for her husband because there were guns inside the garage and he had locked himself in there because of “a marriage breakdown” between them.
OPP officers from the Hawkesbury detachment and the Emergency Response Tactical Unit (ERT) arrived at the site. They first tried to talk to the man through the garage door and also tried to contact him by cellphone and through text messaging. When that failed, a police drone robot was used to break the door down. Inside, officers found the man hanging from a garage beam.
The SIU was notified and assigned a team of six, including two forensic investigators, to the case. They reviewed the scene, took photographs, measurements, and sketches, and collected trace evidence for later examination. They also interviewed both civilian and police witnesses, collected notes from all attending officers and also other officers indirectly involved in the case, and attended the later post-mortem examination.
A 30.06 bolt-action rifle was found on a shelf in the garage but there were no bullets of that calibre found in the building. The post-mortem report sent to the SIU stated that the man’s death resulted from a selfinflicted hanging.
Une unité d’enquête spéciale a déterminé que la PPO de Hawkesbury avait agi avec tous les soins et l’attention voulus pour régler un incident, survenu l’année dernière dans la municipalité de La Nation, qui s’est terminé par un suicide.