"The officers who attended at the address on Ford Street seeking to place the complainant into custody were in the lawful discharge of their duty."
Steph Crosier – Whig-Standard (ottawacitizen.com)
KINGSTON — The Special Investigations Unit has cleared Kingston Police of any wrongdoing during the Ford Street standoff last September.
The standoff sent the accused involved, identified by Kingston Police as Mitchell Rattray, 33, to hospital with four fractured right-side ribs, a fracture to the left foot, a partial right-side pneumothorax and numerous bruises.
Rattray was arrested following a nearly 13-hour standoff with Kingston Police and Ontario Provincial Police, who were called in to assist.
“On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that any of the subject officers committed a criminal offence in connection with the complainant’s arrest and injuries,” Joseph Martino, director of the Special Investigations Unit, said in his decision. “The officers who attended at the address on Ford Street seeking to place the complainant into custody were in the lawful discharge of their duty.
“They were aware that the complainant was armed with a knife, extremely agitated and violent, and had just attacked occupants of the residence, inflicting serious injury. There were ample grounds to arrest the complainant for any number of offences, including assault with a weapon.”
Martino wrote that it isn’t even clear whether all of the injuries Rattray suffered were at the hands of the police.
“In fact, it is possible and perhaps even likely that some, if not all, of the injuries happened in the course of the physical altercations with the residents that preceded the police presence or his feverish movements inside the home where he was seen to collide with household items,” Martino wrote.
“Be that as it may, as there are no reasonable grounds on the aforementioned-record to believe that the subject officers acted other than lawfully throughout the course of the standoff, there is no basis for proceeding with criminal charges in this case.”
Rattray was later charged by police with three counts of assault with a weapon, uttering threats to cause bodily harm, possession of a weapon to commit an offence, possession of a prohibited weapon by an unlicensed person, possession of a prohibited weapon while prohibited, two counts of mischief under $5,000, and eight counts of breaching his probation.