KENORA — The province’s Special Investigations Unit has ruled criminal charges against two OPP officers are not warranted after a woman suffered a broken arm while in police custody in Kenora back in February.
On Feb. 16, OPP were called about a domestic disturbance to an apartment in the Main Street South area in Kenora. They subsequently arrested a 34-year-old woman who was highly intoxicated, according to the report released on Friday by SIU director Joseph Martino.
While the two officers were taking the handcuffed woman out of the apartment and down a flight of stairs — with one officer slightly ahead of her and one behind — she “regrettably stumbled and fell,” at the final few steps, “likely fracturing her arm at this time,” his report stated.
“While the officers were unable to prevent the complainant’s fall, it would not appear that it was from a lack of reasonable efforts on their part,” Martino wrote, adding that the relevant criminal charge would have been criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
“On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that either officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the complainant’s arrest and injury,” Martino wrote.
Martino’s report did note that after the woman was taken to the police detachment, she “complained of an injury to her left arm while being booked and placed in a cell.”
A timeline of events included with the report showed that, starting at about 5:25 a.m. local time, the woman was going through the booking process often holding her upper left arm, including at around 5:30 a.m., while in a cell, favouring it while crying and knocking on the cell door.
Various other entries throughout that morning showed her holding or “favouring” her arm while going through the post-arrest process, including seeing duty counsel, attending a bail hearing and, after again being briefly incarcerated at the station following the hearing, getting released from custody around noon.
The report showed she was diagnosed at the Lake of the Woods Hospital later that day with a fracture of her left arm.
When analyzing whether the criminal negligence causing bodily harm charge was warranted, Martino wrote that “the offence is reserved for serious cases of neglect that demonstrate a wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons … predicated, in part, on conduct that amounts to a marked and substantial departure from the level of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in the circumstances.”
“In the instant case, the question is whether there was a want of care on the part of one or both of the subject officials, sufficiently egregious to attract criminal sanction, that caused or contributed to the complainant’s injury. In my view, there was not.”
The SIU investigates the conduct of police that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault and the discharge of a firearm at a person to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.
