Ontario's police watchdog has cleared officers of any wrongdoing in the death of a Wallaceburg man who drowned in the Sydenham River this past spring.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said at around 6:30 p.m. on April 6, 2021, Chatham-Kent police received a complaint about two people loitering and acting "suspicious" in a parking lot on Wallace Street.
A police officer arrived and spoke with a male and a female who were seated near a Jeep. The officer had suspicions that the vehicle was stolen and asked if the pair had any identification which he was told they did not.
The man, who had previously attempted to wander away from the scene, fled on foot prompting the officer to pursue him. At the time, the man was supposed to be on house arrest. The officer chased the man along the northern part of the parking lot which borders the southern shore of the Sydenham River. When the two reached the eastern limit of the lot, the man scaled a fence and entered the shallow part of the water.
When the officer continued his pursuit, the man headed east underneath the McDougall Street footbridge. The officer demanded the man return to shore before watching him dive further into the river, where he quickly began to have difficulties navigating the water. Investigators believe a backpack he was wearing may have impeded him from staying afloat.
The responding officer radioed for assistance from the fire department and briefly left the area to retrieve the spare tire from his cruiser to use as a floatation device, but he could not pull it free. The officer returned to the river and found the woman had jumped into the river to try and help the man. The officer, along with two witnesses, also entered the river to try and rescue the man.
A short time later, the man disappeared underneath the muddy water and didn't resurface. The four were forced to abort the rescue as the frigid water and physical exertions posed a threat to their well-being. Everyone but the suspect male made it back to shore. Members of the Chatham-Kent Police Service's Marine Unit and the Chatham-Kent Fire and Emergency Service's Dive Team found the body of the 29-year-old Wallaceburg man the following morning.
SIU Director Joseph Martino said Thursday he's satisfied with the measures the subject officer took after the man entered the river.
"When the [man] did not return to shore after the subject officer asked him to, the officer had a difficult decision to make: jump into the water to attempt a rescue at that moment or seek to retrieve a flotation device that could be deployed from a position of safety," Martino said. "In the result, I am satisfied for the foregoing reasons that the subject officer was not criminally derelict in his dealings with the [man] throughout their engagement, notwithstanding [his] tragic death. Accordingly, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case, and the file is closed."
The SIU is Ontario's law-enforcement watchdog agency, which is called in to investigate incidents where a police officer is involved in a death, serious injury, or sexual assault.
-With files from Matt Weverink
