The province's Special Investigations Unit has rejected the testimony of a man who accused Windsor police officers of beating him during an arrest over a year ago.
Back on May 17, 2019, police were looking for a suspect. They heard the man had a firearm and had rammed police vehicles in the past while fleeing apprehension.
Late that night, they found the man sleeping in the driver's seat of an SUV parked on Demarce Court in Tecumseh. Officers converged on the vehicle and deflated its front tires. The driver's side door was locked, so one officer used his baton to break the glass window, which woke the suspect up.
He put the vehicle in reverse, colliding with a police cruiser and almost hitting an officer in the process. The driver sped away from the scene through residential yards.
Police later found the suspect a kilometre away in the parking lot of a gas station at the corner of Tecumseh Road East and Manning Road. Worried the man might have a gun, officers punched the suspect as they attempted to cuff him.
Back at police headquarters, the suspect complained of injuries, so paramedics took him to the hospital for treatment.
The suspect's complaint alleges he was struck by the police minivan in the parking lot of the gas station and was kneed in the face before officers placed him in cuffs. He told investigators the officers then punched and kicked him repeatedly. While being placed in the prisoner transport van, he said one officer struck in the face with a backhanded blow.
However, video evidence from inside the van shows no such blow, and that tainted the complainant's testimony that he had been brutalized during this arrest.
"The punch which allegedly occurred while the complainant was seated in the prisoner transport van simply did not occur," the SIU said in its report. "A video recording of the complainant's time in the van captured no such conduct. On the circumstances, I am satisfied that the incriminating evidence is simply insufficiently trustworthy to warrant being placed to the test by a trier-of-fact."
SIU Director Joseph Martino concluded, "I am unable to reasonably conclude on the evidence that any officer used excessive force. Accordingly, there is no basis to proceed with charges in this case."