No charges for officer who hit fleeing man with police cruiser, breaking his pelvis

A police officer who was accused of deliberately hitting a fleeing suspect with a police cruiser car will not face any charges, Manitoba's Independent Investigations Unit has ruled.

On Oct. 24, 2018, two Winnipeg police officers were in pursuit near Burrows Avenue and Salter Street of a man who was wanted on an arrest warrant.

"One officer pursued the man on foot while the other officer attempted to intercept him in a marked police vehicle," the IIU said in a statement.

"As he ran from police, he collided with their vehicle. He was arrested and transported to hospital, where he was diagnosed with a fractured pelvis."

The IIU investigated, which is automatic any time a serious injury is reported during an encounter with police, and said the victim ran into the cruiser car on his own.

'He went over the hood'

Two days after the incident, Kyle Malanchuk told CBC in a telephone interview he was walking in the area of Salter Street and Alfred Avenue at 1 p.m. when police attempted to stop him.

He said he took off running and one of the officers got out to chase him while the other followed in the cruiser.

His mother, Linda Malanchuk, said at the time her son told her he was handcuffed and put in the back of the cruiser and officers took him to the hospital.

"No paramedics, not even an ambulance, what the police did was after they threw him in the back of the seat," she said. "He kept telling them that he was in severe pain and that he couldn't move the lower half of his body."

"Kyle said, 'I heard him breathing hard behind me, he couldn't catch me,'" she said in October.

"The next thing he knew, another officer in a car came and slammed into him … he went over the hood and the front went over him and back tire went over him," Malanchuk said.

In his report, IIU civilian director Zane Tessler, found "the collision was unavoidable and accidental and there was no evidence the officer intended to cause the man any harm or injury."

"The driver of the police vehicle was operating the car at low speeds as she searched for the man, and [the suspect] was concentrating on avoiding his foot pursuer when he ran into the vehicle," the IIU said.

The man still faces charges in connection to this incident and the IIU's full report will be posted online once those charges have been dealt with.