Officer’s punch to suspect’s face ‘reasonable’: SIU

A Windsor police officer was acting reasonably when he punched an arrest subject in the face during a domestic disturbance last year, says Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit.

After a review, SIU director Tony Loparco concluded that the unnamed officer’s use of force progressed in a “measured and proportionate fashion to meet and overcome the complainant’s unflagging resistance.” Moreover, Loparco wrote that he is “extremely skeptical” of the arrest subject’s account of what happened, and he has concerns that the complainant is “prone to exaggeration.”

The incident happened in a Windsor residence during the early morning hours of Nov. 26, 2017. According to the SIU’s report, the complainant — a man who was under bail conditions not to consume alcohol — had arrived at his family home in an apparent state of intoxication, acted in an aggressive manner with family members, and locked himself in a bathroom while threatening to harm himself. The man’s stepchildren called 911 and allowed Windsor police officers into the residence to intervene.

After almost an hour of negotiation — during which the man said he had injected himself with an overdose of insulin — the attending officers decided to break into the bathroom.

The officer in question breached the door and was confronted by the man standing in a “fighting position” with a syringe in one hand. The punch was delivered when the man came at the officer with raised hands, according to police at the scene.

Despite the punch, the man continued to resist arrest and did not drop the syringe until a Taser was used on him.

After his arrest, the man was found to have a small cut on the bridge of his nose that required two sutures to close. Loparco found that the complainant lied repeatedly in his statement to SIU, most notably in his assertions that he had not been drinking — disproven by toxicological screening of his urine sample at hospital.

Moreover, at the time of the incident, it was found that the man had lied about injecting himself with insulin.

Loparco found little credibility in the arrest subject’s claims of being punched nine times, suffering a broken nose, and being “covered in blood.”

“I am, therefore, satisfied on reasonable grounds on this record that the actions exercised by the officers fell within the limits prescribed by the criminal law and there are no grounds for proceeding with charges in this case,” Loparco concluded.