The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) will not be laying charges, months after a police-involved collision in Toronto which left a man with fractured vertebrae.
The incident happened March 29 near Finch Avenue and Humberline Drive.
The officer was pursuing two vehicles which he believed were involved in a theft at a nearby business.
According to the SIU, the officer did not stop at a red light. While passing through an intersection, he struck a van that had come in on a green light.
A man in the van was taken to hospital.
The SIU’s director, Joseph Martino, found the officer was “not as careful as he should have been,” but did not consider his actions to be criminal in nature.
“With respect to the manner in which the [officer] operated the cruiser, the evidence falls short of reasonably establishing a marked departure from a reasonable standard of care,” wrote Martino. “The officer failed to stop at the red light as he was required to do pursuant to sections 144(18) and (20) of the Highway Traffic Act. Those provisions, while conferring latitude on police officers to travel through red lights in the interests of law enforcement, require that they first come to a complete stop in order that they might assess safety considerations before doing so. The [officer] then compounded his error by accelerating through the intersection without ensuring that traffic in all directions had fully yielded. While some if not most of the motorists travelling east and west on Finch Avenue West had come to a stop, the [injured man] had not. On the other hand, if the officer did not stop, he did slow. A post-collision statement made to other officers also suggests he believed, albeit wrongly, that it was safe to proceed when he did. Finally, it is worth noting that the officer had his emergency equipment operating at the time. On this record, the [officer] was not as careful as he should have been, but his conduct fell short of transgressing the limits of care prescribed by the criminal law.”
You can read the full ruling here.
Photos credited to the SIU
