The province’s police watchdog has cleared a Barrie officer of wrongdoing after a man suffered a broken nose during an arrest last year.
On Nov. 3, shortly after 6 a.m., an officer was in pursuit of a man. The pursuit was called off near Wellington Street.
About an hour-and-a-half later, another officer located the suspect vehicle, unoccupied, at a hotel near Dunlop Street and Highway 400. The vehicle was towed, and a woman associated with it was arrested for breach of an undertaking.
At 10:10 a.m., an officer saw the man involved in the earlier pursuit going into a room in the hotel and tried to arrest him. During an altercation, the 41-year-old man “sustained superficial cuts” and was taken to Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) stated in a report.
“On his assessment of the evidence, SIU director Joseph Martino determined there were no reasonable grounds to believe that a Barrie Police Service officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the man’s arrest and injury.”
The full report can be found here.
