MIDLAND, Ont. -- A central Ontario police officer won't be facing criminal charges in the death of a 44-year-old man who killed himself after the officer told him he was the subject of a criminal investigation.
The Special Investigations Unit says the officer with the Midland, Ont., police force called the man on June 1st to tell him he was being investigated and asked him to come to the police station.
The SIU says the man texted his wife shortly after the conversation with the officer and wrote that he would be taking his own life as he could not face going to jail.
The man's wife immediately called police and officers -- including the one who had contacted the man -- went to search for the man and found his body, with a gunshot wound to the chest, next to a rifle in a park.
SIU director Tony Loparco says that when the officer contacted the man to advise him of the criminal investigation, it set into motion a series of events that resulted in the man electing to take his own life.
But Loparco says the officer won't be charged as legal fault cannot be attributed in this case because the outcome of the man taking his own life was not reasonably foreseeable.
"Put simply, the man's suicide was such a remote possibility that fault cannot be properly attributed to the subject officer," he said.
"The subject officer did not cause the man's death in a legal sense, and consequently there are no reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed," Loparco added.
The SIU is an arm's length agency that investigates reports involving police where there has been death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
