Officers cleared after man Tasered in stolen jeep takedown in Brampton

Ontario’s police watchdog says there was no “excessive force” when a man in a stolen jeep was tasered twice and had his nose broken during a takedown in Brampton.

Earlier this year, the province’s Special Investigations Unit began looking into the arrest of a 25-year-old man by Peel Regional Police where a suspect suffered injuries.

The takedown happened on Aug. 8 in a parking lot near plaza on Steeles Avenue East near Torbram Road, the SIU says.

Investigators say a stolen Jeep Wrangler was being tracked by undercover officers.

Police watched as a 25-year-old man exited the vehicle and stood near the open driver’s door, moving in with unmarked vehicles on the suspect’s location.

That’s when the man got back into the vehicle and put it into drive, accelerating and crashing into a police cruiser.

Photo: SIU

The SIU says officers used their vehicles to box in the stolen ride and ordered the suspect to get out.

“The Complainant ignored those directions and continued to try to break free of the blockade,” the SIU says.

One of the officers smashed out a window of the jeep before two officers fired conductive energy weapons, commonly known as a Taser, at the suspect.

The SIU says the man was then pulled from the jeep and “forced onto the ground in a prone position and handcuffed behind the back.”

The man suffered a broken nose in the arrest and there were allegations he was “punched him three or four times” by officers.

But the SIU says none of the several officers questioned saw “anyone punch the Complainant.”

SIU Director Joseph Martino called differing accounts a “conflict in the evidence,” and said there is not enough grounds for a charge of excessive force.

“In light of this conflict in the evidence, and the lack of identification, the evidence of excessive force regarding this aspect of the incident is insufficiently cogent to warrant being put to the test by a court,” Martino wrote in his decision.

The SIU is Ontario’s civilian law enforcement agency which investigates police incidents where there has been death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm, or allegations of sexual assault.