Two Guelph police officers acted properly when they arrested an intoxicated man in an apartment building, Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has concluded.

The 36-year-old man was arrested in May 2016, in a building on Speedvale Avenue West that police had been called to in response to a non-violent domestic dispute.

The SIU did not start looking into the case until one month later, after the man filed a complaint claiming he had been injured during his arrest.

According to the SIU, the man said that he had received two broken ribs while police were trying to arrest him in the hallway of his building.

Investigators reviewed video from after the man was arrested, during which he mentioned pre-existing elbow and knee injuries, but said nothing about his ribs. After being released from custody, he went to the hospital and was told that he had two fractured ribs.

Police were not aware of the fractures until three days later, when the man made an official complaint, saying they had been caused by the officers who arrested him.

In addition to the video, the SIU’s investigation included interviews with the 36-year-old man, as well as civilians and police officers who witnessed the events surrounding his arrest.

The two police officers who made the arrest – believed to be the only people other than the 36 year old to witness the arrest itself – did not agree to be interviewed or to share their notes with investigators.

One of the two officers did provide the SIU with a written statement, in which he said that the 36 year old was refusing to co-operate after being placed under arrest for public intoxication. As a result, he said, he grabbed the man and forced him onto the ground, then punched him in an attempt to get him under control. The man continued to resist the arrest for about one minute after the punch, the officer wrote.

In its report, the SIU found two possible explanations for the man not immediately complaining about his ribs.

“Either he was so intoxicated that he could not feel any pain and his recollections thus cannot be relied on at all, or perhaps the injury did not happen at that time,” the report reads.

“I am inclined to believe that his intoxication affected his recollections and dulled his pain.”

SIU director Tony Loparco also questioned how two people in the apartment could have heard nothing about the interaction between the 36 year old and police, as they told investigators was the case.

“By all accounts, the confrontation with police was quite loud and forceful and yet they could provide absolutely nothing to investigators,” he said.

Loparco also questioned the evidence provided by the officer, wondering why he arrested the man for public intoxication when returning the man to his apartment would have allowed him to stop the offending behaviour “much more easily,” given that the man did not seem to be causing any sort of commotion.

The SIU director concluded that while the decision to arrest the man was a “hasty decision,” it was legal and valid, with no proof that excessive force was used.