Watchdog clears Ottawa police in teen’s fatal fall

A file photo of the Special Investigations Unit logo. Photo by Ashley Fraser /POSTMEDIAArticle content

Ontario’s police watchdog agency has cleared Ottawa police in the fatal fall of an 18-year-old woman from a Lowertown apartment building balcony last November.

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In a report posted online Friday, March 28, Special Investigations Unit director Joseph Martino wrote there were “no reasonable grounds to believe that an officer committed a criminal offence in connection with the death.”

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The report said that Ottawa Police service officers had initially assessed the woman on the afternoon of Nov. 27 as part of a wellbeing check resulting from a phone call from a friend of the teen and had concluded there were no grounds to apprehend her under the Mental Health Act.

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The teen then agreed to further assessment at an area hospital, where staff subsequently released her.

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Early the next day, just after 1 a.m., another friend of the teen contacted Ottawa police, saying they had received concerning text messages from her.

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A police officer reportedly contacted the teen by telephone at 1:45 a.m., and less than 10 minutes later three officers knocked on her door in the apartment building in the area of St. Patrick and Cobourg streets.

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Two additional officers located her body outside at the base of the building and, despite attempts at life-saving measures by police and paramedics, she was later pronounced dead.

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According to the SIU report, an autopsy determined that the cause of death was attributable to “blunt force trauma consistent with a fall from height.”

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