The province’s Special Investigations Unit has closed its probe into an incident in Walkerton nearly one year ago when a woman was injured during the course of her arrest.
According to a release from the SIU, Ontario Provincial Police officers responded to a call about a woman in distress on Feb. 21, 2021.
The SIU says police attempted to apprehend the 55-year-old woman under the Mental Health Act, and as one officer took hold of each of her arms she kicked out towards the officers.
According to the SIU, the woman was then brought to the floor in a prone position and officers wrestled control of her right arm behind her back and handcuffed it, followed by her left.
The woman was then taken by paramedics to hospital where she was diagnosed and treated for a dislocated right elbow.
The Director of the Special Investigations Unit Joseph Martino found no reasonable grounds to believe an OPP officer committed a criminal offence in connection to the woman’s injury suffered during the apprehension, a release says.
“Director Martino found that the officers were entitled to use a measure of force to subdue and control the woman, who was resisting arrest,” a Jan. 26 news release from the SIU explains. “While Director Martino accepted that the woman’s injury occurred in the process of these actions, he was not reasonably persuaded that the force used by the officers was disproportionate to the task at hand. Accordingly, the file has been closed.”