Three Serious-Injury Investigations Within Weeks – Every Subject Officer Declined Interview & Notes
(Huron County, Ontario) A review of Special Investigations Unit reports involving the Huron County OPP has revealed a recurring accountability issue: police officers designated as Subject Officials have repeatedly exercised their legal right to refuse interviews with Ontario’s civilian police watchdog and, in numerous cases, have also refused to provide their notes.
The refusals are lawful. However, they can leave SIU investigators attempting to determine what happened without statements or notes from the very officers whose conduct is under investigation.
The pattern is particularly striking in three Huron-area SIU investigations occurring within approximately one month in 2026.
March 4 – Man Suffers Two Broken Ribs at Clinton OPP Detachment
SIU investigation 26-PCI-103 examined serious injuries suffered by a 69-year-old man at the Clinton OPP detachment on March 4, 2026.
The SIU concluded that the Subject Official’s use of a knee against the man’s back was the likely cause of two fractured ribs.
The Subject Official declined to be interviewed by the SIU and declined to provide their notes, as was their legal right.
Despite concluding that police force likely caused the fractures, SIU Director Joseph Martino determined there were no reasonable grounds to believe the officer committed a criminal offence. No charge was laid.
This distinction is important: the SIU did not conclude that police had nothing to do with the injuries. Rather, it concluded that the officer’s force likely caused the broken ribs but did not meet the threshold for criminal liability.
March 31 – Drugs Get Through Searches and Into Clinton OPP Cell
Less than a month later, Clinton OPP was involved in another serious-injury investigation.
In 26-PCI-152, an arrested man was searched before transportation and searched again at the Clinton detachment before being placed in a cell.
Despite those searches, the man entered the cell with drugs concealed on his person.
Cell video subsequently showed suspicious activity involving his socks. Police searched the cell and discovered a plastic bag containing a trace amount of suspected narcotics inside one of his socks.
The prisoner subsequently suffered a serious medical emergency and was diagnosed with a polysubstance overdose.
Once again, the Subject Official declined an SIU interview and declined to provide their notes.
The SIU ultimately found no reasonable grounds to believe the officer committed a criminal offence.
April 2 – Two More Subject Officers Decline Interviews and Notes
Just two days later came 26-PVI-159, involving Huron County and South Bruce OPP officers and a man who suffered multiple fractured ribs, a fractured vertebra and a facial injury following a vehicle crash and subsequent arrest.
This time there were two Subject Officials.
Both declined SIU interviews.
Both declined to provide their notes.
Police supplied extensive video evidence to investigators, including 11 in-car-camera recordings and 22 body-worn-camera recordings involving 11 officers.
Remarkably, according to the SIU report, none captured the actual interaction in the field when the injured man was apprehended.
The SIU ultimately determined that the man’s serious injuries resulted from the preceding vehicle collision rather than police force and cleared both Subject Officials.
The absence of video of the critical arrest does not establish misconduct. It does, however, demonstrate the importance of other evidence—including accounts from the officers directly involved.
Those accounts were not provided.
Four Subject Officers – Four Refusals
Across those three serious-injury investigations occurring within weeks of each other in 2026, four Subject Officials were identified.
All four declined SIU interviews.
All four declined to provide their notes.
The SIU reports make clear that Subject Officials are legally entitled to refuse.
The public is equally entitled to ask whether Ontario’s civilian police oversight system can function as effectively as intended when the officers whose conduct is being investigated repeatedly choose not to provide their own accounts.
The Pattern Predates 2026
A review of earlier Huron-area SIU investigations shows that this is not unique to the current year.
In 23-PCI-380, arising from an incident involving Huron County OPP at South Huron Hospital in September 2023, the SIU designated three officers as Subject Officials.
All three declined interviews.
All three declined to provide their notes.
The SIU ultimately found no reasonable grounds to lay criminal charges.
Another case, 23-PFI-424, involved an OPP officer firing at a vehicle in Seaforth in October 2023. The Subject Official declined an SIU interview, although the officer did provide their notes.
In another 2023 Goderich investigation, 23-PCD-236, three OPP officers were designated Subject Officials.
Again, all three declined interviews and declined to provide their notes.
It Wasn’t Always This Way
An older Huron-area SIU investigation provides an interesting comparison.
In 19-PCI-166, involving a July 2019 arrest in Vanastra that resulted in a shoulder fracture, the Subject Officer agreed to an SIU interview and provided their notes.
The SIU investigated the evidence and ultimately cleared the officer.
That case demonstrates that Subject Officials can voluntarily provide their account and notes while still ultimately being cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
Legal Right Versus Public Accountability
None of these refusals should be characterized as illegal or evidence that an officer committed an offence.
Ontario’s SIU legislation provides Subject Officials protections that include the ability to decline an interview and withhold their notes.
But legality and public accountability are separate questions.
The SIU exists because police investigating police has historically generated legitimate concerns about independence and public confidence. It is Ontario’s civilian agency responsible for investigating incidents involving police that may have resulted in death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm at a person, or allegations of sexual assault.
When the officer at the centre of such an investigation refuses both an interview and access to their notes, investigators must reconstruct events using whatever other evidence remains—civilian witnesses, other police officers, medical evidence, forensic evidence and increasingly police cameras.
That makes complete and reliable video evidence particularly important.
Yet the April 2 investigation demonstrates that even dozens of police-camera recordings do not necessarily capture the critical interaction.
Accountability Requires Evidence
The Free Press is not suggesting that an officer’s decision to exercise a statutory right proves guilt.
It doesn’t.
Nor does an SIU decision not to lay charges necessarily mean that every aspect of an officer’s conduct was ideal. The SIU’s mandate in these reports is primarily to determine whether there are reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offence was committed.
Those are very different propositions.
The troubling question raised by these reports is instead about the effectiveness of civilian oversight itself:
How effectively can the public’s police watchdog investigate serious injuries when the officers directly under investigation repeatedly decline to tell investigators what happened or provide their contemporaneous notes?
In one of the 2026 Clinton investigations, independent evidence was nevertheless strong enough for the SIU to conclude that an officer’s use of force likely caused two fractured ribs.
The officer was cleared because the Director determined that the force did not amount to a criminal offence—not because the SIU determined the police force hadn’t caused the injuries.
That is precisely why the details buried inside these reports matter.
Police officers have legal rights.
So do the citizens they police.
And when someone is seriously injured while dealing with police, meaningful civilian oversight requires as complete an evidentiary record as the law can provide.
The Free Press will continue reviewing SIU investigations involving Huron County OPP and reporting what Ontario’s civilian police watchdog finds—and what evidence it was unable to obtain.