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SIU clears OPP officer in traffic-related incident last year

March 23, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Special Investigations Unit has found no reasonable grounds to believe that an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) offer committed a criminal offence concerning a collision that seriously injured an 18-year-old man.

The incident occurred on Nov. 22, 2022.

A lengthy SIU report detailed the events that occurred before the accident.

The OPP officer was patrolling Highway 9 at Wesson Road near New Tecumseth at approximately 2:06 p.m., when a vehicle approached at an excessive speed. The officer did a U-turn and pursued the vehicle for approximately four kilometres.

The vehicle was clocked with a forward-facing radar travelling at 140 kph in an 80 kph posted zone.

The vehicle being pursued attempted to pass another vehicle on the right shoulder of the road and crashed into a ditch. The driver of the vehicle evading police was not injured. However, the passenger received a broken jaw because of the crash.

The police officer was not injured, and his vehicle was not damaged.

A report characterized the event as a “police pursuit – fail to stop for police.” The driver attempted to flee when the officer tried to stop the vehicle.

The investigation revealed the pursuing officer reached a speed of up to 187 km in an attempt to catch up to the fleeing vehicle.

Because a person was injured during the incident, the SIU was called in to investigate.

During the investigation, it was determined that the female person driving the car was aware that a police vehicle was pursuing her, but she refused to stop. The driver’s license was suspended at the time of the incident due to a previous speeding infraction.

The SIU report indicated that the officer was in “seeming breach of policy” concerning police pursuits and a policy forbidding unmarked police vehicles from partaking in a pursuit.

The report from the Director of the Special Investigations Unit, Joseph Martino, says, “I am not satisfied that the officer’s conduct departed markedly from a reasonable standard of care such as to render it criminal.”

The officer did activate emergency lights and sirens during the pursuit.

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