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An Ottawa police officer has been cleared by the Special Investigations Unit after firing at a stolen vehicle driven by a 30-year-old man on Dec. 16, 2023.

“The Director of the Special Investigations Unit, Joseph Martino, found no reasonable grounds to believe an Ottawa Police Service officer committed a criminal offence,” a news release Monday said.

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The incident took place just after 11 p.m. on Donald Street when officers discovered a Hyundai Elantra had been stolen and attempted to arrest those inside it.

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“The driver attempted to flee and, in the process, pinned and struck an officer, smashed into a police vehicle and drove at another officer,” the SIU said Monday.

“After they stopped their cruisers and approached the vehicle, the driver reversed and an open passenger door struck one of the officers,” the SIU had said in a statement a day after the incident. “The other officer discharged their firearm into the car. The driver struck a cruiser and fled before abandoning the vehicle a short distance away.”

The officer fired four shots at the car, but the man was not hit, and was later found and arrested, Monday’s release said.

“Director Martino was satisfied that the officer’s resort to gunfire was reasonable and doing something to incapacitate the driver made sense as the lives of both officers were in imminent peril,” the release stated.

The police officer who was struck during the incident was not seriously injured, the SIU had said on Dec. 17.

The SIU is a civilian oversight agency that investigates incidents involving police where there has been death, serious injury, the discharge of a firearm at a person or an allegation of sexual assault. The SIU is independent of any police service and operates at arm’s length from the Ministry of the Attorney General. Police no longer comment on a case after the SIU is involved in a case.

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