OPP officer found not guilty of assault after First Nation man injured in jail cell

A provincial police officer has been found not guilty of assault, for a second time, after a 2012 altercation in a Greenstone, Ont., jail cell left a First Nation man with broken bones in his face.

A second trial was ordered after the crown appealed the 2013 finding of not guilty in the case against Cst. Brian Bellefeuille. 

On Wednesday a judge ruled that Bellefeuille was credible in his description of being "terrified" that he would be spit at, bitten or kicked while attempting to search an intoxicated man who had his hands cuffed behind his back. 

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Throwing Gary Megan to the cement floor of the cell was "necessary, reasonable and proportional" to the threat he posed, Justice Marietta L. D. Roberts ruled. 

Another officer was in the cell at the time. He gave evidence that he did not perceive an "imminent threat" from Megan, whom police said they took into custody outside a bar "for his own safety" because he was too intoxicated to get home on his own.

Megan suffered a cut to his eyebrow and several broken bones around his eye socket after being thrown to the floor.

"Things like this shouldn't be happening," said Dorothy Towedo, the chief of Aroland First Nation, Megan's home community. "He was defenseless. He was handcuffed. What could he do?"

Superior Morning4:35Chief Dorothy Towedo - Court Decision

A provincial police officer has been found not guilty...for a second time...of assaulting a First Nations man in a Geraldton jail cell

Towedo said she is "disturbed" by the not guilty verdict and that it continues a "racist" pattern within the justice system.

"It just seems hopeless," she said. "It's just going to keep happening. [Police] will say "I can get away with it."

At the end of the hearing Justice Roberts asked Bellefeuille to stand and told him that he had caused "great injury" to Megan who "had suffered much". 

"There may be other consequences for you and other officers," she told him. "Take that to heart."

Bellefeuille told CBC News he was glad the case was finally over because his family "was going through a lot" and that he hoped to "repair the relationship" with Aroland First Nation, perhaps with a healing circle.

"I don't want a bad taste to be left," he said.

Towedo said her First Nation members are still too upset to consider such a thing.

"The trust is not there," she said.

The Crown said it is considering whether to appeal the verdict.