An OPP officer who asked that a man found hanging in a Port Stanley home not be cut down has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the province's police watchdog.
In a report released on Tuesday, the interim director of the Special Investigations Unit said the officer could have used his words more carefully, but that his words and actions did not warrant a charge of criminal negligence causing death.
According to the SIU report, on the afternoon of June 9, 2018, a woman called 911 to report that she found her 28-year-old brother hanging by a belt in a home in Port Stanley. The call taker asked the woman if she could cut her brother down. The woman replied that she didn't know, but that she could not talk anymore. A neighbour came on the line and was told by the call taker that she should cut the man down so that CPR could be performed when emergency crews arrived.
An EMS crew was sent to the home and was told that it wasn't known how long the man had been hanging in the home. The crew was also told that the OPP was on its way to the home. The OPP called the dispatcher and asked how long the man had been there. When told that it wasn't known, the caller (believed to be a dispatcher in the OPP communications centre) said that an OPP officer who was on the way to the scene had asked that "if he’s been there for some time, we’re requesting he not be cut down.”
A call was made from EMS to the OPP, in which the caller said they had received a call from the OPP asking EMS to tell Central Elgin Fire Services to not cut the man down. The caller told the OPP they would not do that and that it was their protocol to try to get the person down. Roughly 19 minutes after the initial 911 call, it was reported that the man was "vital signs absent" but the EMS crew was working on him. It was also requested that the emergency department at the hospital in St. Thomas be alerted that the man would be brought there. The person who made that report also said the man was still alive and warm to the touch when he was cut down. Another person on scene said the last time the man was known to be alive was about 90 minutes prior to the 911 call, when he sent a text message to a family member.
The man, still without vital signs, was taken to hospital and diagnosed with an unrecoverable hypoxic brain injury. He was declared dead four days later when he was taken off life support. An autopsy concluded that the immediate cause of the man’s death was “hanging”.
"In the final analysis, while the SO’s [subject officer] conduct in responding to the 911 call involving the Complainant was not perfect, he had a legitimate basis for asking that the complainant not be cut down if he was clearly dead so as to preserve a viable investigation for potential criminality," SIU interim director Joseph Martino said in his report. "Thereafter, as I am satisfied that he was not entirely responsible for the confusion that surrounded his request, the officer’s conduct did not in my view amount to a marked and substantial departure from a reasonable level of care in the circumstances. Accordingly, this file is closed."
Martino's entire report can be read here.
