By Gagandeep Ghuman
Published: Jan. 3, 2014
The provincial police watchdog agency has dismissed a complaint against Squamish RCMP in which a man alleged that local police officials had broken his arm while arresting him.
The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) is responsible for conducting investigations into all officer-related incidents which result in death or “serious harm.”
A 41-year-old man who was arrested in a domestic assault case on July 1 last year claimed the officers broke his arm.
The injured man claimed he was woken in bed by the police.
He believes that there were two officers who escorted him from his bedroom down the hallway towards the front door.
He stated that it was there that the officer broke his arm, although the man acknowledged he was drunk at that time and couldn’t recall if he was in handcuffs when his arm was injured.
“They stopped to do something for a second and they grabbed my arm, pushed, forced it behind my back and snapped it,” he claimed.
The affected man said an officer asked, ‘How’s your arm feeling’ and that the police office was ‘laughing about it’.
A witness to the incident observed the affected person was in handcuffs with his hands behind his back and one officer on each side of him.
As the officers escorted him to the police car, the witness observed the affected person was intoxicated and was stumbling.
The witness heard the intoxicated person say ‘ouch’ but the witness didn’t see any use of police force.
The IIO also obtained the audio of the arrest of the man’s booking at the police station.
The affected person was found hearing ‘ouch, ouch’ when his handcuffs were removed, but at no time is he found complaining about injury to his right hand.
The radiologist at the hospital confirmed that the injury to man was likely caused by FOOSH (Fall on Outstretched Hands).
The radiologist who treated the man said the injury was consistent with the affected person falling and injuring himself.
Based on video and medical evidence, the IIO concluded that the police didn’t commit any offence and the IIO won’t take any further action.
Dave says
This injury certainly reads like a Colles fracture (had one myself) and it is caused by the hand being pushed back as in a fall….mine was when my hand got pushed back by a fast soccer ball while I was in goal. The radius gets cracked in the process. It doesn’t sound like the cops broke his arm through any brutality to me. Maybe the man fell out of bed…who knows? Also this injury is often shown by people with some degree of osteoporosis. This article is a News item, no more , no less but interesting.