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By: Beatriz Baleeiro
LONDON, ONT. — A London police officer won’t face criminal charges after a man was injured when a police dog latched onto his head during an arrest, Special Investigations Unit officials announced in a ruling on Monday.
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The SIU, Ontario’s police watchdog, says London police got a call from Hydro One security just before 2 a.m. last Nov. 17 about a break-in at a hydro transmission site, located just off Highbury Avenue in the city’s east end.
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A security guard told police two men were pulling cables, and then ran off, the SIU said, adding the facility’s gates appeared to have been busted when officers arrived.
A police dog was brought in to track down the suspects, the SIU said, adding that moments later officers heard a yell and found the dog in a bush, latched onto a man’s head.
Police told the man to stop punching the dog before kicking the man in his midsection, the SIU said. The dog then chomped on the man’s right and left hands, releasing when the officers grab the hands as part of their arrest.
The man was handcuffed and taken by ambulance to Victoria Hospital for treatment of injuries caused by the dog — 29 stitches to his head and cartilage damage to his right ear.
There were “no reasonable grounds” to lay criminal charges against the officers, whose use of the police dog was legally justified, ruled SIU boss Joseph Martino.
The SIU probe, Martino noted in his report, found the police dog was trained to bite at “moving limbs,” not the head, though the man in this case was bit several times in the head. The fact the man “seems to have punched the dog even after being told to refrain by (a police officer)” may offer “some reason why the dog acted as it did,” Martino said.
“Beyond that, allowance must be made for the possibility that sentient creatures may not always conform with their training in dynamic situations.”
The SIU is an arms-length agency that probes all cases of serious injury, death, shootings and allegations of sexual assault involving police officers across Ontario.
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