CHAPLEAU, Ont. - The province's police watchdog says it has found no reasonable grounds to charge an OPP officer in relation with the death of a 27-year-old man in August of last year.
The Special Investigations Unit says provincial police officers were called to an apartment building in Chapleau, northwest of Sudbury, after getting a 911 call that a man had threatened to shoot another tenant.
When they arrived, the SIU says officers initially spoke with the man accused of making threats and determined they didn't have grounds to arrest him. Outside the building, the officers spoke with the person who made the 911 call and then, having received updated information, called a superior to get permission to enter the man's apartment.
Shortly after, the SIU says that while the police were outside, the man accused of making threats fell from his second-floor balcony and landed on the ground. He died in hospital three days later.
The SIU says its investigation found no evidence of a struggle on the balcony or in the man's apartment, nor did it find any evidence at the scene that contradicted witnesses who said the man fell backward off his balcony and hit his head on a patio stone.
The SIU says the man's blood alcohol level was excessively elevated. It calls the man's death "a tragic case of misadventure."
