SIU clears Norfolk OPP in man's overdose

[Michael Jack]

The province’s Special Investigation Unit says a Norfolk OPP officer acted “quickly and professionally” after an arrested man in a holding cell was able to take fentanyl in February.

The agency, which looks into deaths and serious injuries that involve police officers, considered whether the officer involved with the man was derelict in his duty by not locating and removing the man’s drugs before he was put in a cell.

A review of body-worn and police station camera footage showed the officer doing “a fairly thorough pat-down” at the scene of the arrest – which was an abandoned house in Simcoe where the man had started a fire in order to warm himself.

At the police station, the man was searched more thoroughly and asked to remove several layers of clothing and his socks. He was allowed to retain his spandex underwear although the officer ran his hands up and down the man’s legs and part of his groin.

“Perhaps a more diligent pat-down search in the area of the groin would have detected the vials concealed in that area,” said the final report. “Or perhaps, they were only discoverable through a strip search” which the officer didn’t feel he had grounds to perform.

The man had been questioned about drugs several times but said he was “clean”, denying he had used anything recently.

The man made a call to a lawyer and, after being returned to his cell, appeared to pull some fentanyl from his waistband and was soon on his back, on the floor.

Another officer looked in the cell and, about four minutes after taking the drugs, an officer was in the cell doing a sternum rub on the man and giving him two doses of naloxone.

Eighteen minutes later paramedics arrived and the man was taken to hospital, intubated and treated for acute fentanyl overdose.

While there, three vials of fentanyl were found concealed under the man’s scrotum.

The SIU was notified of the incident and its investigation considered whether the police failed to provide the necessities of life or were responsible for criminal negligence causing bodily harm and determined they were not.

“The question is whether there was any want of care on the part of the subject officer, sufficiently serious to attract criminal sanction, that endangered the complainant’s life or contributed to his overdose.

“In my view, there was not,” said SIU director Joseph Martino, closing the file.

SGamble@postmedia.com

https://www.simcoereformer.ca/news/loca ... s-overdose

[Michael Jack]

Special Investigations Unit says OPP officer was justified in not strip-searching man found squatting inside abandoned house.

Ontario’s police watchdog cleared a Norfolk County police officer of wrongdoing after a man in police custody snuck fentanyl into his cell and ended up overdosing on the powerful drug.

As detailed in a Special Investigations Unit report released on Tuesday, Norfolk OPP officers responded to reports of smoke coming from an abandoned home in Simcoe on Feb. 6 and arrested a 53-year-old man found inside.

The man told officers he broke into the boarded-up house seeking shelter from the cold and started a fire in a crock pot to get warm.

He denied having any drugs on him despite there being drug paraphernalia — namely straws and foils — at the scene.

Officers did not find any drugs after what SIU director Joseph Martino called a “fairly thorough pat-down search” at the house and an “even more thorough search at the detachment” in Simcoe, where officers told the man to remove all but one layer of clothing.

Both searches “reached the area of his groin” but the arresting officer did not have the man remove his long underwear, Martino said in his report.

Returning to his cell after calling a lawyer, “the man retrieved fentanyl from vials secreted in his groin area” and took the drug, Martino said.

He slumped to the floor, where officers soon found him and administered two doses of nasal naloxone while paramedics rushed to the station.

Hospital staff discovered three vials of suspected fentanyl concealed under the man’s scrotum. He was intubated and given medication to reverse the overdose.

The SIU interviewed the subject officer and three witness officers.

Martino said there were “no reasonable grounds” to conclude the arresting officer committed a criminal offence, saying the officer acted reasonably and did not endanger the man’s life through “reckless disregard” for his safety.

“Perhaps a more diligent pat-down search in the area of the groin would have detected the vials concealed in that area,” Martino said. “Or, perhaps, they were only discoverable through a strip search.”

But the officer “did not believe he had the grounds to justify a strip search,” a belief Martino said was reasonable given the man denied using drugs and was “co-operative and coherent.”

“It is important to note that the officer acted quickly and professionally moments after it became apparent that the (man) was in trouble,” Martino said before declaring the file closed.

https://www.thespec.com/news/crime/siu- ... 6b7a1.html