Ontario's police watchdog has cleared a Middlesex OPP officer of any wrongdoing in the death of a 25-year-old man, who was hit by a vehicle in Strathroy last November.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) began investigating after the November 11, 2017 incident outside of the Strathroy OPP detachment on Centre Road. Investigators determined a man, who had injured his hand at a house party earlier in the night and was forcibly taken to hospital by Strathroy Caradoc police, turned up at the OPP detachment after becoming agitated while being driven home by his grandmother.
The man began banging on the door to the detachment, which was closed for the night.
An officer, who was alone inside the detachment, answered the door and was told by the man that his grandmother thought he was "too drunk and that he should be in the police cells." Noticing the blood on the man's shirt from his earlier injury the officer asked him to wait outside while she retrieved her rubber gloves.
However, instead of waiting, the man walked away from the detachment and toward Centre Road where he was hit by a passing vehicle.
The officer called for an ambulance and used her cruiser to block off the roadway. The man was rushed to hospital and was diagnosed with multiple brain bleeds and a broken right femur. He died from his injuries on January 18 of this year.
"It appears that [the officer] was in fact actively seeking to assist [the man], she simply was not willing to do so without first ensuring her own safety by both donning her protective gloves and by advising communications of the situation in order that other officers could be contacted to assist," said SIU Director Tony Loparco.
"On all of the evidence, it appears that the tragic injuries suffered by the [the man] were as a result of his voluntary actions in walking on the roadway where he was subsequently unfortunately struck by a passing motorist and there is no causal connection between the actions of the [officer] and the injuries to the [man]. On this record, I can find no basis for the laying of criminal charges and none shall issue," Loparco concluded in his report.
The SIU is an arm’s length agency that investigates reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
