Margie Gray, mother of Myles Gray, looks over family photographs of her son near Garden Bay, B.C., on Jan. 28.Rafal Gerszak/The Globe and Mail
More than seven years after a man who owned a florist supply company died in a shaded yard as a handful of Vancouver constables struggled to arrest him, the officers will speak publicly for the first time about what happened that day.
The seven Vancouver Police Department officers, the only witnesses to Myles Gray’s death, are slated to testify at a coroner’s inquest beginning Monday in Burnaby.
Their statements to date have left considerable uncertainty as to how Mr. Gray died in August, 2015.
The coroner’s inquest will look into their failed arrest of the 33-year-old entrepreneur, who suffered a broken nose, eye socket, rib and voice box, as well as brain bleeding and a ruptured testicle.
One of the inquest jury’s stated aims is to determine “how, when, where and by what means” Mr. Gray died, as well as to make recommendations on how to prevent similar deaths. Its other core goal is ensuring “public confidence that the circumstances surrounding the death of an individual will not be overlooked, concealed or ignored.”
Mr. Gray’s sister is scheduled to be the first person to testify Monday morning at the quasi-judicial hearing, which is a fact-finding and not a fault-finding process. Inquests also allow lawyers for the various parties present to question those on the witness stand but not in the adversarial style that cross-examinations can take in criminal trials.
Margie Reed, Mr. Gray’s mother, who is travelling from B.C.’s Sunshine Coast to attend the inquest, is hopeful to get an official ruling on how exactly her son died after what she alleges is a years-long effort by police and their union to muddle the events of that day.
“Nobody knows who did what and when so that nobody specifically could be targeted in Myles’ death,” she said in a phone interview.
A crucial recommendation she expects the jury could issue is for Vancouver Police to equip its front-line officers with body cameras.
“That sort of protects them if people come at them, but it also protects us – civilians like Myles Gray,” Ms. Reed said.
She said she also doesn’t see why her son had his blood and urine tested for drugs after his death, which found traces of the drug kratom that he used once in a while to relax, but the officers – who she maintains used unnecessary force – never had to have any toxicology screens. She said she hopes the jury recommends that any officer involved in the death or serious injury of a member of the public should have to take a drug test afterward.
The inquest is slated to run for at least 10 days and hear testimony from 41 people, including a total of 18 officers as well as Ronald MacDonald, the head of the Independent Investigations Office, and paramedics that responded to the scene.
Mr. Gray ran a business on the Sunshine Coast supplying ferns and other greenery to florists in the region. On that unseasonably hot day, he was making deliveries in southeast Vancouver. While out for a walk, he encountered a woman violating the region’s rigid water restrictions by watering her lawn. He said something to her, then either grabbed or kinked her hose, causing it to spray her, according to witnesses.
The woman’s son called police, saying Mr. Gray seemed upset and unwell. Mr. Gray retreated to a secluded yard in nearby Burnaby, where the officers eventually ended up struggling with him and he died.
The woman and her son are both scheduled to testify at the inquest.
Vancouver Police declined to comment this weekend on the inquest, as did the Vancouver Police Union.
The seven officers, who remain on active duty, face professional misconduct charges of using too much force. That process began after a criminal probe by the provincial Independent Investigations Office ended two years ago. The civilian-led watchdog, which investigates deaths or serious injuries at the hands of police, recommended charges against the seven, but Crown prosecutors announced that it was hamstrung by the “incomplete” and “inconsistent” accounts police had given investigators from the office. At one point, the agency sued the first officer to respond that day in order to get her to sit for another interview.
Six of the officers that struggled with Mr. Gray may also have failed to take clear notes after the incident and upload them promptly into the force’s internal database, with four of these constables telling an investigator handling the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner misconduct probe that their union directed them not to fulfill this core responsibility of policing.