SIU clears police officer in death of woman in Niagara Falls

Ontario’s police watchdog has cleared a Niagara police officer in the death of a woman in Niagara Falls.

The 24-year-old woman fatally overdosed while in a jail cell on May 20, 2020.

Police had arrested the woman in the area of Kitchener St. and Slater Ave. for breaching conditions of parole.

She was taken to the Niagara Regional Police Service station and lodged in a cell.

The following day, the woman attended a bail hearing via phone call and then returned to her cell.

Nearly three hours later, she was found unresponsive and pronounced dead.

The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) was called in to investigate the actions of the police officer in charge of the station on May 21, 2020.

The SIU determined the officer acted lawfully while the woman was in custody.

It says the woman had hidden fentanyl somewhere inside her pants and ingested it while in her cell.

Investigators said the woman had been searched over her clothes twice and there is no evidence a strip search would have found the drugs or been legally justified since she was not arrested on a drug charge.