Watchdog clears 2 Ottawa cops after man found unresponsive in cell and later died | CBC News

Ontario’s police watchdog says two Ottawa police officers are cleared from wrongdoing after they arrested a man in August who was later found unresponsive in his cell after appearing to ingest a substance “retrieved from his buttocks.” The man died a few days later.

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) looked into the arrest and death of the 25-year-old man and released its final report Friday.

The SIU invokes its mandate to investigate police conduct that may have resulted in death, serious injury or sexual assault. It can recommend criminal charges.

Two officers were dispatched to an apartment on the evening of Aug. 3 after receiving reports of a domestic disturbance, and heard a woman screaming upon arrival, the SIU report read.

The officers knocked on the door and a woman ran out alleging she’d been assaulted, the report continued. While the officers arrested the man for assault, they noticed drugs in the apartment. They searched the man and found what appeared to be crack cocaine and unknown pills in his pockets, according to the report.

The man was taken to the Ottawa Police Service headquarters on Elgin Street and was paraded before the officer in charge.

The SIU said the man was “belligerent” with custody staff and was searched twice more for drugs but none were found.

According to security camera footage reviewed by investigators, the man used the toilet within a few minutes of entering the cell.

“After sitting on the toilet, the [man] removed something from the area of his buttocks and placed it in his mouth,” the report stated.

A few minutes later, the man was seen laying on the cell floor before making his final noticeable movement, it added.

In the next hour, two different staff members approached the cell, looked inside and walked away, according to video footage notes.

About an hour after the man’s last noticeable movement, staff became concerned about the man’s well-being, noticed his “breathing seemed laboured,” and alerted the officer in charge.

After determining he was unresponsive, officers began first aid and administered both a defibrillator and several doses of naloxone, the notes said.

The man was taken to hospital and died five days later, the SIU said.

The SIU added it has not yet received the autopsy or toxicology report, so the cause of the man’s death “remains pending at this time.”

Not criminal negligence, watchdog says

SIU director Joseph Martino said he looked at two criminal code sections in his investigation: failure to provide necessaries and criminal negligence causing death.

Martino said the officers lawfully took the man into custody for illegal substances and assault.

“It is true that the [man’s] custodians did not see him apparently ingesting a substance he had retrieved from the area of his buttocks, but that is not entirely surprising,” Martino wrote.

Martino said he looked at whether the officers should have ordered a strip search.

He noted that strip searches “are only condoned where officers have reasonable and probable grounds for believing they are necessary,” as those searches are “inherently degrading and invasive.”

“The fact that drugs had been found in the [man’s] clothing and apartment might have raised a suspicion that he could be concealing illicit substances in his person, but there was no hard information that really pointed in that direction,” Martino wrote.

Martino concluded there’s “no basis” for criminal charges in this case.