SIU clears officer who hit man in the face with elbow

KITCHENER — A Waterloo Regional Police officer has been cleared of wrongdoing for hitting a man in the face with his elbow during an arrest.

The incident occurred Jan. 12, 2017, when police were called to a community support centre in Kitchener to remove a man who had been threatening others with a hammer and garden shears.

The 41-year-old man, who also smashed his guitar on the ground, was a known meth user.

The province’s Special Investigations Unit said the man was aggressive when police arrived. He refused to go with them.

The man threw an object at an officer and came at him with his fists clenched, the report said.

SIU director Tony Loparco said the man was belligerent and angry and paced back and forth. He made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere with police.

Officers got the man to the ground and an officer used his elbow to strike the man in the face.

Loparco said the man continued to struggle until handcuffs were put on his wrists. He had a visibly swollen left eye.

The man was taken to hospital under the Mental Health Act. He had a facial fracture.

“While some might question the decision to strike the complainant in the face rather than another, less vulnerable area of his body, given that there were two other officers present and the complainant was not armed with a weapon at the time, I recognize that this use of force did achieve the desired result to gain control of him and that the complainant was acting violently,” Loparco said in his report.

Loparco said the use of force was not unreasonable and within the limits of the law.