The Vancouver Police Board receives the department’s report on the inquest into Myles Gray
VANCOUVER — A report to the Vancouver Police Board says the department is determined to adopt both recommendations of a coroner’s inquest into the beating death of Myles Gray, but lawyers say key concerns remain unresolved.
In a statement released by Pivot Legal Society, the policy director of the BC Civil Liberties Association says the police report “leads the reader to believe that everything is fine in the (department) — aside from implementing body-worn cameras.”
Meghan McDermott says the department “insists that its approach to crisis de-escalation is fine and elegant,” though she says police are using the same practices as when Gray died in August 2015 after being beaten by several officers.
The first 911 call on the day the 33-year-old died was about an agitated man behaving erratically who sprayed a woman with a garden hose.
Gray, 33, died after a beating by police that left him with injuries including ruptured testicles and fractures to his eye socket, nose, larynx and rib.
The jury at the coroner’s inquest made two recommendations for the Vancouver Police Department, with expediting the use of body-worn cameras for all patrol officers at the top of the list, followed by enhanced crisis de-escalation training for officers – especially in situations where someone is experiencing a mental disorder.
The department’s report to the Vancouver Police Board, which will be considered at a meeting Thursday, says the police are committed to implementing the jury’s recommendations.
According to the report, a pilot project will begin this fall that will see about 100 uniformed officers wearing body cameras with video and audio capabilities for six months.
After that, the department says it will review the results with the intention of implementing the cameras for all front-line officers in the long term.
The report also outlines crisis intervention and de-escalation and training in the use of force, as well as mental health-focused courses introduced in 2020.
It says the crisis intervention and de-escalation training that has been mandatory for first-line officers and supervisors since January 2015 is owned by the BC Ministry of Public Safety and the department cannot change the content.
Prime Minister David Eby, speaking at an unrelated event on Thursday, said he was pleased Vancouver police took on the body camera pilot project.
“I’m sure the Solicitor General will be very interested in the results of this pilot and whether there is an opportunity for us to expand that if it produces good results for the people of Vancouver,” he said.
Eby said body cameras would help provide evidence of crimes officers witness, as well as accountability if police overstepped their authority.
“Body cameras have the potential to make improvements in both accountability and prosecution for crimes affecting British Colombians that affect their safety.”
The jury at the inquest held in April classified Gray’s death as homicide.
The coroner presiding over the inquest, Larry Marzinzik, had advised the five jurors before they began deliberating that homicide meant death resulting from injury intentionally inflicted by another person, but it is a neutral term that does not imply fault or guilt. implies.
Dr. Matthew Orde, the forensic pathologist who performed an autopsy on Gray’s body, testified at the inquest that a “perfect storm” of factors led to his death, including his extreme physical exertion when officers tried to restrain him.
Orde said Gray died of cardiac arrest complicated by police action, pointing to “neck compression”, blunt force injuries, the use of pepper spray and holding Gray on his stomach with his arms cuffed behind his back.
People who are forcibly restrained on their stomachs have a higher risk of death, especially when their bodies have higher physiological demands, he testified.
Order had originally listed “excited delirium” as one of the possible contributing factors to Gray’s death. Many of the 14 Vancouver police officers who testified at the inquest also used the controversial term describing a state of agitation.
However, Orde revised that finding during his testimony at the inquest, saying that published data and research suggest it is “quite unlikely” that so-called excited delirium syndrome can independently lead to someone’s death.
“Acute conduct disorder” more accurately describes what Gray was experiencing the day he died, Orde told the inquest.
A statement from the BC Coroners Service said it no longer recognizes “excited delirium” as a cause of death in its investigations, saying the decision was “made in response to the evidence-based literature changing over time.”
A years-long investigation by BC’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, found reasonable grounds to believe that a crime may have been committed and filed a report with the BC Public Prosecutor’s Office to review the charges.
The agency announced in late 2020 that it would not press charges against the officers involved in the fight to apprehend Gray because the police were the only witnesses and the Crown could not prove an offense had been committed.
The Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner is overseeing an investigation into the conduct of several officers and a disciplinary hearing is expected later this year.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 15, 2023.
