The Independent Investigations Office has cleared a Prince George RCMP member of criminal wrongdoing from an incident this summer in which his service dog bit a man in the groin.
According to the report, the member was in a city park during the early morning of Aug. 23, 2013 to give the dog a chance to "stretch his legs" when the dog indicated there was someone in the area.
In an interview, the officer told the IIO investigator he put the dog back on a six-foot leash and continued the walk until they found the man lying the ground wearing only underwear and a T-shirt and appearing intoxicated. He called in a general duty member to help and then roused the man.
"He said that he identified himself as a police officer and informed the affected person that he was not under arrest or in any trouble; that he just wanted to get him into an area shelter," IIO chief civilian director Richard Rosenthal said in the report.
The man seemed agreeable at first and they went back to the RCMP vehicle. But as the dog was being put in the vehicle, the man punched the member in the chest.
As the member took a step or two back to stop himself from falling, the dog immediately got out of the vehicle, brought the man to the ground and bit him in the groin. Although protocol dictates that the dog be left on a suspect until safely restrained, the member called off the dog when he saw the dog had the man in the groin area.
By then, two other RCMP members had arrived on the scene, hearing over the radio on the way there that the dog had been deployed, and took the man to hospital. The man appeared highly intoxicated and, with the temperature at about 5 C, was shivering, one of the members noted.
He noticed blood around the man's groin and when the shivering became uncontrollable, they decided not to wait for an ambulance and took him to hospital themselves.
Medical records confirmed the man's blood-alcohol level was significant and he received multiple stitches from the injuries.
The dog handler was in full uniform at the time, Rosenthal said.
The man, whose name was not released but was 21 years old at the time, "could provide no differing explanation of the events," Rosenthal said.
