The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba (IIU) said Jan. 29 that no charges should be laid against a Nelson House RCMP officer who injured an intoxicated man’s hand during the course of an arrest last July 29 despite differing accounts of witnesses.
The IIU, which investigates serious incidents involving on- and off-duty police officers in Manitoba, said the possible fracture of the man's hand did not count as a serious injury by its definition but the civilian director decided that it was in the public interest to investigate.
Seven witnesses were interviewed during the course of the IIU’s investigation, which also examined occurrence reports, dispatch information, copies of three 911 calls, RCMP cell block video, guard log books, admission forms and medical reports from the Thompson General Hospital. The witnesses include the officer who injured the arrested man’s hand, two other RCMP officers and four civilian witnesses, including the one who called RCMP.
The officer who was the subject of the investigation said that the intoxicated man who suffered the injured hand, who was about 6’2” and 275 pounds, said “shoot me” and “kill me” before bolting towards the kitchen sink to grab something. When the officer saw that the man had something in his hand, he hit his hand with a single strike of his defensive baton, causing him to drop the knife, at which point one of the people in the house came over to the man who had been holding the knife, striking him on the buttocks and saying “he was a bad boy.”
The man who suffered the injury told investigators that he had a butter knife in his hand when the incident occurred and did not remember being stuck, but only waking up with an injured hand. He said he had been drinking before the incident and did not remember much about it.
The other officer who witnessed the incident said that the man they were there to arrest said, “Why don’t you just shoot me?” and “Go ahead, shoot me,” and that he heard something drop into the sink when the other officer struck the man with his baton.
Two of the civilian witnesses said that the man whose hand was injured had been hit with a Taser, but the two officers told investigators that they did not have Tasers and records showed that no Tasers had been signed out to either of the RCMP officers on the night of the incident. One of the other witnesses said he saw the man pick up a butter knife in the kitchen but did not see where the RCMP officer struck him. The fourth witness said he had grabbed the man being arrested in a full nelson wrestling hold, at which point he dropped the knife, and was then thrown to the ground and handcuffed by the RCMP.
Medical records showed that the man had an old healed fracture to his fifth metacarpal bone and no new fracture from the incident.
IIU civilian director Zane Tessler said in his final report that the officers at the scene were acting lawfully in their capacity as police officers and that the force applied by the officer who struck the man was intended to nullify the danger posed by the knife in the intoxicated man’s hand.
“I am not satisfied that reasonable and probable grounds exist to charge,” said Tessler.
