Ontario's Special Investigations Unit has cleared London police in the case of a man who was diagnosed with a fractured eye socket after being arrested.
The SIU began its investigation on May 6, 2016 after the arrest of a 24-year-old man at an apartment building near Wellington Rd. and Horton St. According to the SIU, police officers were at the apartment early that morning on a different matter. They approached the man, who was wanted on warrants, and he took off. There was a struggle, which involved one of the officers punching the man in the face, and the man was arrested.
While he was being booked at police headquarters, the man complained of a sore abdomen.
“I want to go to the hospital my ribs are broken… because I was beat up last night,” he is heard saying on video taken at 12:48am.
He was taken to hospital, where he was diagnosed with a fractured orbital bone but no injuries to his ribs.
Investigators were able to get surveillance video from the apartment building that showed the man enter around 1am on May 4. He had no visible injury to his face. Several minutes later, he is shown leaving while holding the left side of his face and a plastic bag held to his injured left eye. There was blood on his coat and a mark on his forehead above his left eye.
"On a review of all of the evidence, but attributing the most weight to the statements of the complainant himself, as confirmed by the video footage from the apartment building as well as all of the police witnesses to whom the complainant indicated that he had sustained his injuries when beaten on May 4, 2016 by unknown perpetrators, I do not have reasonable grounds to believe that the complainant’s injury was caused by police," says SIU Director Tony Loparco in his written decision. "Additionally, upon a review of the actions of the SOs [subject officers], I find that officers used no more force than was justified in the circumstances to apprehend and handcuff a combative, resistant and fleeing individual."
