Manitoba’s police watchdog will not press charges against a group of Winnipeg police officers who struggled to arrest a man who was found to have a broken arm after he was taken into custody.
In August 2022, Winnipeg police contacted Manitoba’s independent investigation unit (IIU) — which investigates all serious matters involving police — after a man was detained under the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act and later admitted to the Health Sciences Centre with a fractured humerus.
The IIU’s final report on the incident, which was completed in August and published on Monday, indicates one of the officers used force after hitting the man on his torso with a closed fist and then using a pressure point behind his jawline to “gain control,”
However, the police watchdog concluded, there is “insufficient evidence” to indicate how the man’s arm was broken.
“I do not have reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the interaction of [the] SO [subject officer] and the police officers that dealt with AP [associated person] caused his serious injury,” the report said.
The arrest stems from a 911 call on Aug. 19, 2022, for assistance with a drunk man who had come onto the porch of a house on Dufferin Avenue near Salter Road.
A witness who gave a statement to the IIU said the intoxicated man “would not calm down” and “started getting angry and was throwing punches at everybody,” hitting at least three people, including one who tripped the intoxicated man to the ground.
The witness told the IIU four men took turns holding the man “three times for 20 minutes” before police arrived.
Officer punched man in the torso
The first police officer who arrived at the home told the IIU that the intoxicated man was lying on his stomach, pinned down by another man, and was “screaming nonsensically.”
The officer and his partner identified themselves as police and handcuffed the man who complied and was co-operative, their statement to the IIU said.
Two more officers were dispatched to the home and the man was guided out of the house by his left arm, but he wasn’t wincing or suggesting it was broken, the first officer responding told the IIU.
The report says the man fell twice as officers escorted him to the cruiser before he was taken to the Main Street Project.
Officers told the IIU the man’s “demeanour escalated,” becoming unco-operative at the protective care facility. He started acting erratically and repeatedly tried to stand up from a bench while telling one of the officers he was going to beat him, the statement from police officers said.
An officer told the IIU the man lifted his foot from the ground “aimed towards his groin area, to possibly kick him in the testicles,” but the officer jerked back.
The officer said that when the man kicked another officer who was on his left side, he punched him in the midsection, then “kept control of his head … and allow[ed] officers to then place a Rip Restraints Hobble on him.”
The officer told the IIU “a single strike to the mid-section was effective, and that officers did not have to use any more force,” the report says.
Injuries not related to police’s use of force: IIU
An advance care paramedic who examined the man at Main Street Project told the IIU she saw the man “lying on the floor on his stomach handcuffed behind his back struggling with four WPS officers” who were “holding his legs and one on each side of his upper torso.”
The man had some trauma to his face, he was also bleeding from his mouth and nose, and had a hematoma or goose egg on his forehead, the paramedic statement said.
The IIU report says the man was transported to the Health Sciences Centre and medical records indicated he had a “transverse oriented fracture” of the humerus.
The man spoke to IIU, but “he did not remember the incident as he was intoxicated,” the report says. He also said he did not know how he broke his arm or where it happened.
The IIU concluded there is “no evidence to suggest” the arrested man’s injuries were related to the police’s use of force, and given “the totality of the circumstances, there is insufficient evidence” to indicate when or how the arm was broken.