Woman with knife fractures wrist during Mississauga arrest; SIU says cops did nothing wrong

A knife-wielding woman who suffered a fractured wrist and a head injury while being arrested last October in Mississauga was not hurt as a result of any wrongdoing by police, Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has determined.

The SIU said in a news release on Monday that no Peel Regional Police officer who was involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 incident in the Port Credit area of the city is guilty of any criminal offence.

The civilian agency looks into incidents involving the public and police where serious injury or death has occurred.

In the news release, SIU Director Joseph Martino said investigation by the provincial agency concluded there were “no reasonable grounds to believe that any officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the woman’s arrest and injuries.”

According to the SIU narrative, Peel police were called to the area of Hurontario Street and Lakeshore Road East on the afternoon of the day in question for reports that a man had been stabbed in what the agency called “an unprovoked attack.”

Shortly after officers arrived at the scene, a 45-year-old woman “walked towards the officers with a knife in her hand,” the SIU said.

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Continuing, the agency said “the officers implored the woman to drop her knife, but this was to no avail. One of the officers fired his conducted energy weapon (Taser), but this had no effect on the woman. When the woman eventually started walking away from the officers, another officer fired his CEW at the woman, resulting in her falling backwards and striking her head on the pavement.”

According to the SIU, the woman was then arrested and later taken to hospital, where she was diagnosed with a fractured left wrist and a brain bleed.

“Given what they knew of the 911 call, the information provided at the scene from the 911 caller and the (woman’s) behaviour on scene with the knife, the officers were within their rights in seeking to take her into custody for assault with a weapon,” Martino said in the news release.

“With respect to the force used by the officers, I am satisfied it was no more than was reasonably necessary to effect the (woman’s) arrest,” he continued, noting the woman was armed with a weapon “clearly capable of inflicting grievous bodily harm or death, and she had already demonstrated a proclivity that day for using it.”