Police in Timmins acted with reasonable force in arresting a suspect who violently robbed a Timmins convenience store in June, the Special Investigations Unit has ruled. The SIU, which investigates cases in which civilians are injured when dealing with police, said the robbery suspect ended up with cracked ribs while resisting arrest. The incident took place June 24 around 7:25 p.m., when an employee at the Circle K called police to say that a man had taken two cases of beer and tried to leave without paying. The man had a knife and had pushed other customers in the store. “The clerk remotely locked the exit door, prompting the complainant to return to the counter, activate the exit door and depart leaving the beverages behind,” the SUI report said. Assaulted employee “Almost immediately, the complainant returned inside the store to retrieve the items, at which point the clerk again remotely secured the door.” At this point, the man assaulted the clerk and demanded he open the door. The clerk refused, so the man kicked the door until it opened, and the suspect left the store. Police arrived and quickly found the intoxicated man, who began resisting arrest. He was grounded by the officers and placed in the squad car. Once inside, he kicked the interior door of the police cruiser from the backseat. Once they arrived at the Timmins police station, he became combative again when they tried to place him in a cell. An officer “delivered a knee strike to the complainant’s thigh area (and) his handcuffs were removed,” the SIU said. When he was taken from his cell at 3:28 a.m. to be fingerprinted, he complained that he had sore ribs. He was taken to hospital, at which point he was diagnosed with two fractured ribs. In his incident narrative, SIU director Joseph Martino wrote that according to video and witness evidence, the man assaulted patrons and a security guard at the store while trying to steal two cases of beer. Police arrived and caught the suspect after a short foot chase, forcing him to the ground so he could be handcuffed. Martino wrote that this was most likely when his ribs were cracked. “There is no evidence that the grounding was executed with unnecessary force or that the complainant was subsequently subjected to excessive force while on the ground,” he said. “It remains unclear at the end of the investigation precisely when the complainant suffered his injuries and there is some prospect that they occurred before his arrest,” Martino said. “Be that as it may, as there are no reasonable grounds to believe the fractured ribs are attributable to unlawful conduct on the part of the police, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges. The file is closed.” Read the full report here.
