Groin search legal, Sault police officer cleared of sex assault allegation

Sault Ste. Marie Police Service headquarters. (File photo/CTV News Northern Ontario)

A Sault Ste. Marie police officer who found drugs hidden next to a male suspect’s groin has been cleared of a sexual assault allegation.

Ontario’s police watchdog – the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) – ruled police acted lawfully when the suspect’s testicles were groped during a search for drugs. The search uncovered crack cocaine.

The incident took place Nov. 4, 2021, when police stopped the vehicle in a parking lot near Pine and McNabb streets in the Sault. Inside were the suspect and three other people.

Police approached them, guns drawn, and ordered them out. The complainant in the case was the last to exit the vehicle.

“An officer took control of him, handcuffed him, and began to search him in public view,” the SIU report said.

“The officer proceeded to grope his testicles inquiring as to what was in his pants. The complainant responded that it was his ‘nuts,’ after which the officer placed his hands inside his pants, underneath his underwear, and continued to grope his testicles. There, the officer located a quantity of crack cocaine.”

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While it took place in 2021, the complaint was sent to the SIU Jan. 30 of this year. The investigation was complicated by the fact police didn’t have a video because police “had been under a cyber-attack at the time of the incident under investigation and had lost the ability to record.”

The complaint alleged that police contact with the man’s genitals “was more than was necessary to locate and recover the drugs.”

In his decision, SIU director Joseph Martino said police were well within their rights. Warrants were in effect and a pat-down of the suspect revealed there was “an object in the area” of the man’s groin that turned out to be crack.

“In the result, as there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the incident included anything more than contact that was part and parcel of a legitimate law enforcement exercise,” Martino wrote.

“There is no basis for concluding the contact was sexual in nature or, by extension, that it amounted to a sexual assault. The file is closed.”

Read the full decision here.