The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) says there are no reasonable grounds to lay charges against a city police officer in relation to the death of a man late last year.
The investigation by the provincial police watchdog showed London officers arrested a 29-year-old man at a shelter on the afternoon of December 26, 2018 for the offence of arson.
From there, the suspect — the complainant in the report — was brought to the London Police Service headquarters on Dundas Street, where he was held in the cell area.
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While in custody, officials said the complainant said he had back pain but didn’t ask for medical attention.
On the morning of December 27, the complainant was taken to the London Courthouse at 80 Dundas St. for a hearing. While in the cells area around noon, another prisoner called out to a special constable that the complainant appeared to be sick. The cells area supervisor was called over and spoke to the complainant, who apparently turned down an offer of medical attention.
Late that afternoon, the complainant was brought to the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre on Exeter Road and while he was being admitted to the facility, he collapsed. He was transported to Victoria Campus of the London Health Sciences Centre and several hours later was pronounced dead.
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In its report, the SIU said the man’s preliminary cause of death appeared to be pneumonia and lung abscesses, but the pathologist who conducted the autopsy later said it was staphylococcal sepsis due to, or as a consequence of, a history of intravenous drug use.
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The analysis portion of the SIU report stated the offences considered in the case were failure to provide the necessaries of life and criminal negligence causing death under the Criminal Code.
“As offences of penal negligence, neither crime is made out unless the impugned conduct amounts to a marked departure from the level of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in the circumstances,” interim SIU director Joseph Martino wrote in his report.
“The evidence revealed gives cause for concern regarding the care received by the Complainant while in cells at the courthouse. There is some evidence that the guards were repeatedly alerted that the Complainant was having trouble breathing and needed medical attention, and these requests were either ignored or not acted upon.”
Martino said that if the evidence is to be believed, the conduct of the personnel who dealt with the man in the courthouse cells is subject to legitimate scrutiny under those Criminal Code provisions, but the focus of the SIU is on the conduct of the subject officer (SO) involved in the case. The conduct of the courthouse staff, referred to as police employee witnesses, doesn’t fall within the SIU’s mandate.
The report went on to say that the SO did not provide a statement to the SIU, nor did they authorize the release of their notes, exercising their legal rights in both instances.
“In the circumstances, it is difficult to know what the SO knew of the Complainant while the Complainant was in custody at the courthouse. Certainly, none of the police employee witnesses who were interviewed by the SIU who dealt with the Complainant reported conveying any information or concerns about his well-being to the SO,” Martino wrote.
The report also noted that while the SO was in charge of the police employee witnesses who worked in the cells looking after the prisoners, it appears the overall responsibility for the prisoners’ well-being fell in practice to the supervisory special constables on duty at the time. One of those special constables said they made 99.99 per cent of the decisions regarding the prisoners given their level of experience.
“On this record, there is insufficient evidence to conclude on reasonable grounds that the SO’s conduct transgressed the limits of care prescribed by the criminal law. Consequently, there is no reasonable basis to proceed with criminal charges in this case and the file is closed.”
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.
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