Director's Report Details

The Special Investigations Unit is a civilian law enforcement agency that investigates incidents involving police officers where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault. The Unit’s jurisdiction covers more than 50 municipal, regional and provincial police services across Ontario.

Under the Police Services Act, the Director of the SIU must determine based on the evidence gathered in an investigation whether an officer has committed a criminal offence in connection with the incident under investigation. If, after an investigation, there are reasonable grounds to believe that an offence was committed, the Director has the authority to lay a criminal charge against the officer. Alternatively, in all cases where no reasonable grounds exist, the Director does not lay criminal charges but files a report with the Attorney General communicating the results of an investigation.

Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (“FIPPA”)

Pursuant to section 14 of FIPPA (i.e., law enforcement), certain information may not be included in this report. This information may include, but is not limited to, the following:

• Confidential investigative techniques and procedures used by law enforcement agencies; and
• Information whose release could reasonably be expected to interfere with a law enforcement matter or an investigation undertaken with a view to a law enforcement proceeding. 

Pursuant to section 21 of FIPPA (i.e., personal privacy), protected personal information is not included in this document. This information may include, but is not limited to, the following:

• Subject Officer name(s);
• Witness Officer name(s);
• Civilian Witness name(s);
• Location information; 
• Witness statements and evidence gathered in the course of the investigation provided to the SIU in confidence; and 
• Other identifiers which are likely to reveal personal information about individuals involved in the investigation.

Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (“PHIPA”)

Pursuant to PHIPA, any information related to the personal health of identifiable individuals is not included.

Other proceedings, processes, and investigations

Information may have also been excluded from this report because its release could undermine the integrity of other proceedings involving the same incident, such as criminal proceedings, coroner’s inquests, other public proceedings and/or other law enforcement investigations.

The Unit’s investigative jurisdiction is limited to those incidents where there is a serious injury (including sexual assault allegations) or death in cases involving the police.

“Serious injuries” shall include those that are likely to interfere with the health or comfort of the victim and are more than merely transient or trifling in nature and will include serious injury resulting from sexual assault. “Serious Injury” shall initially be presumed when the victim is admitted to hospital, suffers a fracture to a limb, rib or vertebrae or to the skull, suffers burns to a major portion of the body or loses any portion of the body or suffers loss of vision or hearing, or alleges sexual assault. Where a prolonged delay is likely before the seriousness of the injury can be assessed, the Unit should be notified so that it can monitor the situation and decide on the extent of its involvement.

This report relates to the SIU’s investigation into an injury a 25-year-old man (the “Complainant”) suffered.

Notification of the SIU

On October 9, 2020, at about 1:40 a.m., the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) notified the SIU of an injury to the Complainant.

OPS advised that on October 8, 2020, at 9:17 p.m., OPS police officers were dispatched to an apartment in a building in Ottawa to apprehend a woman under the authority of the Mental Health Act (MHA).

When police officers arrived at the address, they knocked on the apartment door and received no answer. The police officers contacted Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) in order to get a key to the apartment. While the police officers waited for the key to arrive, they heard noises from inside the apartment. At 9:54 p.m., the tenant from the apartment directly below the woman called 911 to report hearing noises outside of his balcony. The tenant went on to his balcony and saw someone limping from the building.

Police officers caught up to and attempted to talk to the person that was limping [now determined to be the Complainant] but the Complainant refused to talk to the police officers. Police called an ambulance for the Complainant and he was transported to Ottawa Civic Hospital.
 

The Team

Number of SIU Investigators assigned:                   3
Number of SIU Forensic Investigators assigned:    0 

The Scene

The scene was located at an apartment building in Ottawa. The apartment building is managed by OCH and provides affordable housing. SIU Forensic Investigators did not attend the scene.

Police Communications Recordings

911 Call

On October 8, 2020, at 9:54 p.m., a man called 911 to report seeing someone [now determined to be the Complainant] limping outside his apartment building. He reported that the pigeon netting covering the apartment balconies was ripped. At 9:57 p.m., WO #2 and WO #3 advised the dispatcher they were attending. At 10:00 p.m., police officers reported being out with the Complainant in front of the apartment building. At 10:04 p.m., a police officer reported that the Complainant may have jumped from the balcony of the woman’s apartment.

Communications Recordings

The recordings were made on October 8, 2020 and were of no evidentiary value in that they did not speak to why or how the Complainant may have received his serious injury.

Materials obtained from Police Service

Upon request, the SIU obtained and reviewed the following materials and documents from the OPS:

• Computer-assisted Dispatch (x2);
• Narrative Text-WO #6;
• Narrative Text-WO #4;
• Narrative Text-WO #3;
• Narrative Text-WO #5;
• Narrative Text-WO #1;
• Narrative Text-WO #7;
• Narrative Text-WO #2;
• Narrative Text-the SO;
• Notes-the SO;
• Notes-WO #4;
• Notes-WO #3;
• Notes-WO #5;
• Notes-WO #1;
• Notes-WO #7;
• Notes-WO #6;
• Notes-WO #2;
• Civilian Witness list;
• Forensic Identification Section Photobrief; and
• Policy - Mental Health Incidents.

The following scenario emerges from the evidence collected by the SIU, which included interviews with the SO and several other officers present at the time of the events in questions. In the evening of October 8, 2020, the SO, in the company of WO #1, arrived at the door of an apartment in an OCH building. They were there to apprehend a woman on the strength of an order issued under the Mental Health Act. [1]

None of the officers’ repeated knocks and verbal requests for the woman were answered. Nor did anyone pick up the ringing phone from inside the apartment when the officers called the woman’s line. When asked by the officers, persons in neighbouring units confirmed that the woman lived in the apartment but had not been seen in a while.

At about 9:54 p.m., about half-an-hour after the SO and WO #1 were on scene, a 911 call was received by OPS. The caller, a tenant from an apartment directly below the woman’s apartment, had called to report seeing someone limping outside in front of the building. The caller indicated that the pigeon netting covering the apartment balconies was ripped, the suggestion being that the man limping on the ground may have fallen from a balcony. The man with the limp was the Complainant.

On hearing radio transmissions about the man with a limp and a hole in the netting, which appeared to start from the woman’s apartment, the SO and WO #1 asked the dispatcher to have OCH contacted and attend their location with a key to the unit. At about 10:20 p.m., the CW, an OCH security officer, met with the officers and unlocked the door to the woman’s apartment. The SO and WO #1, and WO #4, also present at the time, entered the unit to search for the woman. No one was inside the apartment. The door to the balcony was closed but unlocked. There was a large hole in the pigeon netting covering the balcony.

The Complainant refused to answer questions about his injury and was arrested for obstruction of justice. He was taken from the scene to hospital and diagnosed with a fracture, presumably to his right foot, which officers had observed to be swollen and the Complainant to be favouring.

Section 219 and 221, Criminal Code -- Criminal negligence causing bodily harm

(a) in doing anything, or

(b) in omitting to do anything that it is his duty to do,

221 Every one who by criminal negligence causes bodily harm to another person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years

On October 8, 2020, the Complainant was arrested by OPS officers outside an apartment building in Ottawa, taken to hospital and reportedly diagnosed with a serious injury. In and around the same time, OPS officers were seeking to enter an apartment at the same address to apprehend a woman under the Mental Health Act. As there was some suggestion that the two incidents were related – the Complainant was found limping on the ground below the woman’s apartment – the SIU was notified and commenced an investigation. The SO was identified as a subject officer for purposes of the SIU investigation. On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the SO committed a criminal offence in connection with the Complainant’s injury.

The only offence that arises for consideration is criminal negligence causing bodily harm contrary to section 221 of the Criminal Code. The offence is premised, in part, on conduct that amounts to a marked and substantial departure from the level of care that a reasonable person would have observed in the circumstances. In the instant case, the issue is whether there was any want of care on the part of the involved officers that contributed to the Complainant’s injury and was sufficiently derelict as to attract criminal sanction. In my view, there was not.

The record establishes that the SO and WO #1 were rightfully at the door of the apartment seeking to enter to lawfully apprehend a woman under the Mental Health Act. The record further establishes that the officers conducted themselves reasonably as they attempted to make contact with the woman, knocking on the door, calling out her name and, finally, entering with the assistance of a security guard and master key.

If the suggestion [2] is that the Complainant, who was not a registered tenant at the building, was nevertheless in the unit and fell from the balcony seeking to escape police apprehension, he and he alone is responsible for that course of action and the injury he sustained in the process. Indeed, it is clear that the Complainant was already at ground level outside the building well before the SO and WO #1, and WO #4, gained access to the woman’s apartment.

In the result, as there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the SO, or, in fact, any of the involved officers, transgressed the limits of care as they sought to enter, and then entered, the woman’s apartment, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case. The file is closed.



Date: March 22, 2021

Electronically approved by

Joseph Martino
Director
Special Investigations Unit