Woodstock officers cleared of wrongdoing by SIU in February arrest

Three officers in Woodstock have been cleared by the Special Investigations Unit after an incident in a hotel parking lot in Woodstock earlier this year.

Early in the morning on February 6th, a 28-year-old man drove a stolen pickup truck into the parking lot of the Quality Inn on Bruin Drive in Woodstock. Police found that the truck was registered to a woman in Brantford and attempted to speak with the man before he tried to run away.

The man’s hand was fractured during the arrest and he complained of being sexually assaulted during a strip search when back at the police station.

SIU Acting Director Joseph Martino says, “the fact that the man refused to answer questions and then ran from the officer as the officer approached only added to the officer’s suspicions and conferred the requisite grounds to detain the man for further investigation (…) Knowing he was in the possession of a stolen vehicle and illicit drugs, the man ran from the officers and then refused to show them his hands and get down to the ground when they caught up with him. On this record, I am satisfied that the use of pepper spray and physical force (without any blows) to ground the man fell within the range of what was reasonably necessary to overcome his recalcitrance and effect his arrest, notwithstanding the injury that resulted in the process.”

When it comes to the strip search, Martino says that was lawful too. He adds, “The officers clearly had grounds, in my view, to strip search the man. They had already recovered a pack of cigarettes from the area of his buttocks and they had seen him with his arms behind his back in that same area despite their direction that he show his hands.”

Three investigators were assigned to this incident.

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