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Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared London police after a 38-year-old man suffered serious injuries, including facial fractures, during an interaction with police in December.
Officers had attended the man’s apartment near Adelaide and Huron streets on the morning of Dec. 11, 2025, to compel him to attend the hospital for a psychiatric examination under the Mental Health Act, according to the Special Investigations Unit report released on Friday.
A woman had obtained a Form 2 under the Act from the London courthouse after the man allegedly made utterances that he wanted to stab police and die from suicide by cop, the report said, citing what police told the agency.
When officers arrived at the man’s unit around 7 a.m., officers explained who they were and why they were there and asked that he exit his apartment; however, he “adamantly refused,” the SIU said.
“Behind a barricaded front door, the complainant variously threatened police that he would jump from the balcony and harm them or himself if they entered his residence,” the SIU report said, referring to the man as the complainant.
“You will not get me out of the room alive,” the man is quoted as telling police in a phone call.
The SIU says the man remained unreceptive as officers negotiated with him to refrain from harming himself or others, assuring him he wouldn’t face criminal charges. Police observed him with both of his feet over the balcony railing as he screamed at officers below, the report said.
The emergency response unit was called to the scene, with the plan to rappel from the building’s roof to the man’s balcony to prevent him from jumping.
As they reached the balcony, the SIU says the rappelling officers were confronted by the man who then allegedly swung a metal baseball bat at them, striking one officer in the hand. The incident was captured on body cameras worn by the officers.
One officer, the subject official who was the focus of SIU probe, “managed to land on the balcony and immediately became engaged in a struggle with the complainant,” the SIU said. “The two punched at each other, and the complainant fell to the ground.”
The man was tased by another officer and was punched in the face by the subject official as he lay on the ground on his back, the report said. He was handcuffed and taken to the hospital and diagnosed with a fracture to each of his orbital bones.
The SIU interviewed four witness officials, but the subject official declined to speak with investigators or provide his notes, as is his legal right.
In his decision, SIU Director Joseph Martino said he found no reasonable grounds to charge the subject officer. Police are immune from criminal liability from the use of reasonable force in the execution of an act they were required or authorized to carry out, he wrote.
In this case, officers were authorized to apprehend the man, and his behaviour “created a legitimate concern that entry was necessary to prevent him harming himself,” he wrote.
“I am also satisfied that the evidence falls short of reasonably establishing that the complainant was subjected to unwarranted force,” Martino adds. The man had repeatedly said he wanted to hurt himself and others, and efforts to have him leave the unit voluntarily were unsuccessful.
The initial strike and use of a taser were justified given the dangerous and volatile situation, he said. The subject official’s second punch, while the man was on the ground, was subject to closer scrutiny, Martino said, but it too was also justified.
“The fact that the complainant had not yet been handcuffed and there remained a pressing need to keep him firmly subdued until that happened, I am unable to reasonably conclude that the (subject official) acted with excess when he delivered a second punch in the heat of the moment.”