Ontario's police watchdog has wrapped up its investigation into an arrest in Lambton County in which a 23-year-old woman suffered a fractured foot.
The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) released its full report of the March 8 incident on July 2.
Provincial police were called to a rural Lambton County apartment to conduct a welfare check on March 8. When officers arrived at 3:18 p.m., they found the woman and a man who were allegedly under conditions to not be around each other, read the SIU report.
Both were taken into custody.
The SIU said body-worn camera footage showed the woman asking the arresting officer if she could get socks, but was told no and reportedly refused to put shoes on without socks.
While being escorted down an exterior staircase while barefoot, she allegedly became uncooperative, turning and twisting her body. Near the bottom of the staircase, the report said she screamed and yelled at the officer for stepping on her foot.
"It is in this context that the [officer] is alleged to have intentionally stepped on the complainant’s left foot," said the SIU report. "The [officer] denies that he purposely stepped on the complainant’s foot. He says that action was accidental, the result of the parties making their way down a narrow staircase."
The woman was first taken to the Petrolia OPP detachment and later transported to Charlotte Eleanor Englehart Hospital, where she was diagnosed with fractures to two bones in her left foot.
The SIU report concluded the "evidence does not reasonably establish excessive force by the officer." As such, the file was closed.
