Timmins police officer cleared for shooting suspect during arrest

The section of Rae Street South between Bannerman Avenue and Commercial Avenue in Timmins, Ont. remains blocked at this time. Oct.31/20 (Lydia Chubak/CTV News Northern Ontario)

Sudbury` -

A 31-year-old man was shot during an arrest last fall and now Ontario's Special Investigations Unit has cleared the Timmins police officer responsible of any wrongdoing.

The officer responsible was on patrol when he reportedly saw the suspect run from a residence on Commercial Avenue around 1:25 a.m. Oct. 31. Around that time, the resident called police to report a break-in in progress and said that someone he didn't know broke the side window of his house by throwing a beer bottle at it, the director's report of the incident said.

The suspect was seen meeting up with another man and a woman on the street before getting into a vehicle and driving away, the report said. The responding officer pulled them over nearby at the intersection of Rea Street and Bannerman Avenue.

Another officer arrived and during the arrest, one man ran away on foot while the suspect fought with the two officers trading punches. At one point during the fight, the suspect pulled out a Ruger pistol shot twice at the officers and was then shot in the lower back by one of them when he tried to get away.

The man sustained serious injuries in the shooting and was taken to hospital by paramedics. He had surgery for a fractured spine as a result of the incident.

Video footage from both of the officer's vehicles as well as surveillance footage from a home on Rea Street South was used as evidence in the decision.

The female driver was arrested without incident and a canine track was conducted for the second man that fled.

No injuries to the police officers were mentioned in the incident report.

Because the suspect shot at the officers first, the SIU director, Joseph Martino, said the officer was justified in shooting him in order to protect himself and his colleague and no criminal charges will be laid.

"On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the (subject officer) committed a criminal offence in connection with the shooting," Martino said in his decision. "I am satisfied that the force used by the officers during the struggle was reasonably necessary pursuant to section 25(1) of the criminal code. More specifically, in the context of an individual determined to break free from the officers, and whose resistance escalated to the point of producing a firearm despite the several punches to the head delivered by (witnessing officer) #2 and the (subject officer), the evidence not does establish that the force used by the officers during this time was excessive."

Read the full report here.