Surrey police cleared of wrongdoing after man’s elbow broken during arrest: IIO

Surrey Police Service cruisers enter service on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (SPS)

A Surrey police officer has been cleared of wrongdoing in an arrest outside a homeless shelter that left a man with a fractured elbow last year.

In a decision released Wednesday, B.C.’s police watchdog found that the officer didn’t commit any offence while breaking up a verbal altercation between the man and a woman who were both living at the shelter on Oct. 6, 2025.

Through interviews with the man, his fellow resident, the responding officer, witness officers and a witness civilian, the Integrated Investigations Office learned the incident started when the woman accused the man of stealing food she had been saving.

According to the decision, the responding officer was patrolling alone when he came across the altercation, pulled over and approached the pair.

The resident told investigators that she obeyed the officer’s commands to “sit down and be quiet,” while the man continued to “go on and on and on until the police officer finally had enough.”

A witnesses corroborated her account, saying the man was taken down to the ground “in a wrestling move” after approaching the officer while “flailing his arms.”

The IIO says the officer did not handcuff the man during the arrest out of concern that he’d broken his arm in the fall. The man was subsequently diagnosed with a fractured right elbow, according to the decision.

While the man alleged that the officer had pointed a gun at him during the confrontation, the IIO found no evidence of that.

Investigators determined that the officer was responding to “threatening behaviour” that justified his use of “a limited degree of force” on the man.

The IIO concluded that the man’s injury was the result of “the unfortunate manner in which he fell to the concrete sidewalk.”

The watchdog is tasked with investigating all police-involved incidents that result in death or serious harm, regardless of whether there’s an allegation of wrongdoing against law enforcement.