A local Ontario Provincial Police officer has been charged in connection with a vehicle collision in Johnstown in June that left a man seriously injured.
The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) on Friday announced that OPP Constable Timothy Jackson is facing one count of dangerous driving causing bodily harm, in relation to the incident that happened Friday, June 10.
The charge follows the SIU investigation into a collision between an OPP police vehicle and a civilian vehicle on County Road 2, at Mary Street in Johnstown.
“The matter is now properly before the courts. In consideration of the fair trial interests of the accused, the SIU will make no further comment pertaining to this investigation,” SIU officials stated in a media release.
The accused is to appear in court in Brockville on January 6.
Cst. Suzanne Runciman, of the OPP’s Prescott detachment, said Jackson was with the Grenville detachment at the time of the incident but subsequently transferred out.
“He had his transfer letter prior to that incident,” added Runciman.
She referred all other questions on the matter to Acting Sgt. Angie Atkinson, of the OPP’s East Region. Atkinson, however, had no further details on the matter when reached Friday, including Jackson’s current posting and status or the medical status of the victim.
In June, the SIU said preliminary information suggested that, shortly before 9 p.m. on June 10, an OPP officer was responding to a call.
The officer was driving east along County Road 2 when, at Mary Street, the officer’s cruiser collided with a vehicle that was turning left from County Road 2 onto Mary Street.
The 63-year-old male driver of the vehicle suffered serious injuries, added the SIU. He was taken to Brockville General Hospital and then airlifted to Kingston General Hospital. The officer suffered minor injuries to one hand.
The SIU designated one subject officer and three witness officers as part of its investigation. The agency also designated three investigators, two forensic investigators and two collision reconstructionists to the incident.
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.
Under the Police Services Act, the director of the SIU must consider whether an officer has committed a criminal offence in connection with the incident under investigation depending on the evidence and lay a criminal charge against the officer if appropriate.
The Johnstown incident was one of a series in the region this year that involved the SIU.
The agency recently opened an investigation involving the Grenville OPP. Early on the morning of November 14, a detachment officer and a female suspect both suffered injuries while the woman was being driven to a local detachment.
Atkinson said at the time an “interaction” between the suspect and officer on the way to the detachment left both injured.
In October, the SIU began investigating a collision involving an OPP cruiser and two other vehicles on Highway 401 near Lansdowne. Two people suffered minor injuries in the collision, while the officer in the cruiser was taken to hospital as a precaution.
And in August, the SIU began investigating an incident involving the OPP and an injured 66-year-old man following a residential search in the Athens area.
An 18-year-old man was killed in a collision following a short police pursuit just outside Smiths Falls in May, a case that also prompted an SIU probe.
http://www.recorder.ca/2016/12/16/opp-o ... town-crash