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Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared London police of any wrongdoing in the arrest of a suspected impaired driver who suffered a drug overdose while in custody.
Police responded shortly after 2 p.m. on June 10 to a report of an unconscious man inside a vehicle near Commissioners Road and Highbury Avenue, where officers arrested a man, who said he’d ingested fentanyl, the Special Investigations Unit said in a report released Friday.
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The man, 65, was taken to police headquarters and an officer later found a small bag of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, inside her cruiser, the SIU said.
A sergeant called paramedics to the police station after the man had trouble standing, speaking and collapsed several times. He was taken to hospital, where he lost vital signs twice and had to be revived, the SIU said, adding the man was given a naloxone intravenous drip and was reported to be in stable condition in the intensive-care unit.
SIU director Joseph Martino said police could have acted quicker to get the man medical attention, but officers regularly monitored him and no crime was committed.
“Each time he slumped over or fell to the floor, it was not long before a police service member entered the room to rouse him,” Martino wrote in his report.
“Nor was the entire length of time from the moment the complainant arrived at the station to the arrival of paramedics, about two-and-a-half hours, during which period the complainant was sometimes able to operate on his own power, an egregiously long time in the circumstances.”
The SIU investigates all cases of serious injury, death, gunfire and allegations of sexual assault involving police officers across Ontario.
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