Ontario’s police watchdog has found two Ottawa police officers not criminally responsible for a pursuit that led to a man suffering serious injuries when he fell from a ByWard Market parking garage earlier this year. According to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) report released on Monday, Ottawa police were called to a bar in the area of York Street and Sussex Drive for reports of a break-and-enter at around 3:30 a.m. on May 23. After a verbal argument with the manager, a 32-year-old man left the bar through a fire exit door, which opened into a nearby parking garage. Officers then spotted the man in the parking garage, ran and chased him “for a matter of seconds” before he climbed over a third-floor railing. The man momentarily hung on the side of the railing by his hands before falling on the sidewalk below and hitting his head. The man suffered a brain bleed and skull fracture as a result, according to the report. “On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that either subject official committed a criminal offence in connection with the Complainant’s fall,” SIU director Joseph Martino said in the report. Martino writes the officers could not have anticipated the man would climb over the railing. Martino says the officers gave thought to how they could help the man, but he fell before they could act. The SIU investigates police interactions that may have resulted in death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm and/or sexual assault.
