Incident involving woman bit by dog during arrest in Wauzhushk Onigum Nation cleared by SIU

Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has cleared an OPP dog handler of any wrongdoing following an incident involving the arrest of a woman in Wauzhushk Onigum Nation this summer.

The incident occurred on June 29, when officers with the OPP and Treaty Three Police Service responded to reports that a 39-year-old woman had operated a vehicle while intoxicated and had threatened suicide.

The SIU says officers went into a wooded area to locate the woman in Wauzhushk Onigum Nation. The community, also known as Rat Portage, is just south of the City of Kenora in northwestern Ontario.

"After the officers, including a dog handler and his dog, had travelled about two kilometres, they entered into an area of waist-high grass. Shortly thereafter, the sounds of a female screaming were heard. The police dog had located and bitten into the left calf of the woman," the SIU says in a news release issued Friday.

"The woman was transported from the area by ambulance to hospital."

The SIU is an independent agency that investigates the conduct of police officers in incidents that may have resulted in death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm or allegations of sexual assault.

"There were no reasonable grounds to believe that the OPP dog handler committed a criminal offence in connection with the woman's arrest and injury," says the SIU's report.