Thunder Bay police not legally responsible for man’s freezing death in 2015: SIU

Police behaviour was questionable but didn’t rise to the level of criminality, says a formal review of an Indigenous man’s 2015 death in Thunder Bay. The decision by Special Investigation Unit director Joseph Martino was released early Monday evening. (File)

Police behaviour was questionable but didn’t rise to the level of criminality, says a formal review of an Indigenous man’s 2015 death in Thunder Bay.

The decision by Special Investigation Unit director Joseph Martino was released early Monday evening.

Martino was asked to review the case after a report from the Office of the Independent Police Review Director in 2018 was critical of the way Thunder Bay police handled the deaths of a number of Indigenous people.

“Following the … report – Broken Trust – issued in December 2018, the circumstances surrounding the complainant’s death were referred to a team consisting of various specialists for reinvestigation,” Martino said.

The man died on the morning of March 25, 2015. His remains were found in Junot Park, located at the northeast corner of Red River Road and Junot Avenue North.

The night before, his friend called police to say that he was drunk, wearing a T-shirt and pants and yelling.

“No police officers attended at the park to check on the complainant,” Martino said.

The case was referred to the SIU in December 2022 for reinvestigation by the chief coroner of Ontario. Despite canceling the call for service after just 90 minutes, Martino concluded the actions of Thunder Bay police were not criminal.

NO REASONABLE GROUNDS

“On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that (police) committed a criminal offence in connection with the complainant’s death,” he concluded.

To charge someone with criminal negligence causing death, the case must be one of “serious cases of neglect that demonstrate a wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons,” Martino said.

“In the instant case, the question is whether there was a want of care on the part of (police) sufficiently egregious to attract criminal sanction that caused or contributed to the complainant’s death. In my view, there was not.”

Considering the weather and the fact the victim was only dressed in a T-shirt and pants, police out to have known that hypothermia was a real danger.

“The official reason for cancellation – as stated in the communications logs – was that there had been no further calls about the matter,” Martino said.

“But that would hardly appear an extenuating circumstance – one might not expect any call-backs were hypothermia to set in, and the police were aware that the complainant’s friends had left him in the park.”

However, he had been unable to establish a definite link between the cancellation of the 911 call and the man’s death, in part because the time of death could not be established.

“This leaves open the possibility that the complainant died before the call for service was cancelled, the point at which any criminal negligence … would have crystalized,” Martino said.

“In the final analysis, as the complainant’s death cannot be traced in the evidence with any confidence to any criminally negligent conduct on the part of (police), there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case. The file is closed.”