Sudbury police cleared in case where police dog bit IPV suspect

A Sudbury police dog is seen in this file photo. Ontario’s Special Investigation Unit has ruled there are no grounds to lay charges in a case dating back to January in which a suspect was bitten by a Sudbury police dog, fracturing his finger. (File)

Ontario’s Special Investigation Unit has ruled there are no grounds to lay charges in a case dating back to January in which a suspect was bitten by a Sudbury police dog, fracturing his finger.

The incident took place Jan. 5 on Notre Dame Street East in Azilda.

“A 911 call had been received suggesting a potentially violent disturbance inside a vehicle,” said the SIU’s incident narrative of the case.

“The caller did not communicate directly with the call-taker, but the police were able to use her cellphone to approximate a location from where she was calling.”

Police had grounds to believe the victim had been choked by her partner, a man who could be heard swearing in the background, at one point saying, “I am not going to jail over this.”

Police arrived and found the victim outside the vehicle, crying, with the male suspect still in the backseat.

“Information was received that the complainant might be in possession of a firearm, described as a black Glock-style handgun,” the SIU investigation said.

As police neared, the man fled the car, running to a nearby house, hiding in a crawl space under a staircase of a deck in the area of Notre Dame Street East and St. Agnes Street.

A police officer and his dog arrived to search for him.

“He was not hard to find,” the SIU said.

“The officers followed a set of footprints in the snow to the house in the area of Notre Dame Street East and St. Agnes Street (and) spoke to one of the homeowners briefly, and entered the rear deck.”

The officer released the dog, which then bit the suspect’s hand. With the hand still in the dog’s mouth, he was handcuffed and taken into custody. The dog then let go.

“The complainant was transported to hospital after his arrest and diagnosed with a fracture of the small finger on the right hand,” the SIU said.

Use of force was reasonable

In his decision, SIU director Joseph Martino said the extent of force Sudbury police used to arrest a potentially armed suspect was reasonable.

“The officers had reason to believe that the complainant had just been violent … and could be armed with a gun,” Martino wrote.

“They also knew that he was prepared to break into a home to avoid arrest. Concealed as he was in a dark crawl space, the complainant constituted a real and present danger of harm to the officers.”

Using the police dog to distract the suspect allowed officers to safely place him under arrest.

“While I accept that the complainant’s broken finger was the result of the dog bite, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the injury is attributable to unlawful conduct,” he wrote.

“The file is closed.”

Read the full decision here.