DRYDEN, Ont. -- The province's special investigations unit has deemed the force used by police that led to a broken wrist suffered by a 61-year-old man was justified.
The arm's length police watchdog, in a report issued on Wednesday, said there was no reasonable grounds to lay criminal charges against an OPP officer in relation to the man's injury.
According to the report, police arrived at a disturbance call on Dec. 12, 2018 at 4:30 p.m. at a property on Highway 665 in Dryden.
A witness on the phone with dispatch had earlier expressed a safety concern.
"I can't talk, just come. Somebody is going to get shot. Please help me," they are quoted as saying in the report. The witness then fled the scene and called police wth more details.
The complainant, the landowner, was subsquently arrersted on weapons and assault charges and taken to the detachment, where he'd asked the cell police officer for access to medications in his home.
Officers obliged and drove the man to his home to retrieve the medicne. On the way back to the detatchment, the man complained of a sore wrist. At 10:19 p.m. he was taken to hospital where the wrist fracture was diagnosed.
Five civilian and four police witnesses were intereviewed during the sourse of the subsequent SIU investigation.
Police say when they originally arrived at the man's property, they were called for a dispute involving a firearm. Shortly afterward a shotgun was recovered from a nearby pick-up truck and police moved toward the complainant to place him under arrest. The officer took hold of the man's right arm, but the complainant resisted slightly, prompting the officer to employ a wrist lock, rotating it down to control the suspect.
He was then handcuffed and taken into custody.
The report suggests while the injury may have occurred prior to police interaction, most likely from a shotgun recoil as the suspect discharged the firearm, it more likely occurred when the officer applied the wrist lock. The report said the officer was justified, having confronted a man who had threatened four people with a shotgun and appeared intoxicated and belligerent. Thus there was no grounds for proceeding with criminal charges against the officer.
