SIU says no charges for Toronto police after 2 men fall from Liberty Village balcony
No grounds to believe officers 'transgressed the limits of care' dictated by law, SIU says
Ontario's police watchdog has cleared Toronto police officers of any wrongdoing after two men fleeing from the police were seriously injured in a fall from an apartment balcony.
In a report released on Friday, Joseph Martino, director of the Special Investigations Unit, said there is no reason to proceed with criminal charges against the officers involved in the operation in Liberty Village on Feb. 17.
The report says members of the police's centralized shooting response team (CSRT) and emergency task force (ETF) executed a warrant at an apartment unit on East Liberty Street in Toronto at about 9:15 p.m. The CSRT was investigating a September 2022 incident in which a man had been shot and robbed of his Rolex watch.
When members of the ETF used a ram to force open a door to an apartment unit, the two men went over the balcony to escape.
One, 31, landed a floor below and suffered broken legs, while the other, 27, hit a balcony on a lower floor then landed on the ground. He suffered several fractures and internal bleeding. Both men were taken to hospital.
"While it is always conceivable that individuals will seek to evade police apprehension in high rises by fleeing via their balconies, it is not clear that anything could have been done to prevent that from happening in the circumstances that prevailed at the time," Martino says in the report.
"In the result, as there are no reasonable grounds to believe that any of the TPS officers involved in the entry of the apartment unit transgressed the limits of care prescribed by the criminal law, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case."
The report added that a Glock pistol was found on the sofa in the unit. A gold-coloured Rolex watch was found on the balcony of a unit one floor below.
The SIU is an independent government agency that investigates police conduct that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault and the discharge of a firearm at a person.