Police watchdog clears OPP in woman’s death at Brampton bar

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Published December 2, 2022 at 3:30 pm

Peel police officer committed no offence during takedown in Malton

Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared Caledon OPP officers of a woman’s death at a Brampton bar just hours after she was arrested for impaired driving.

Around 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 5, a 48-year-old woman was arrested by Caledon OPP on Hwy 10 south of Old School Rd. for impaired driving.

According to a report from the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), police had been searching for the woman for hours after receiving a call from a man reporting an impaired driver.

The woman had reportedly pulled into the caller’s driveway and was intoxicated, saying she had been in a fight with her boyfriend in Wasaga Beach “and wanted to go home.”

She then took off from the home and was apprehended hours later by police, and charged with impaired driving before being released from custody.

The SIU says the woman then went to the Viva Café in Brampton where she collapsed around 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 6. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead, and the SIU was called in to investigate.

SIU director Joseph Martino says there is no reasonable grounds to believe that OPP officers committed a criminal offence in connection with the death of a 48-year-old woman.

The SIU is Ontario’s civilian watchdog agency which investigates whenever a policing incident leads to death, assault or serious injury.

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