A public inquiry into the death of a man who was killed during a violent encounter with as many as nine Vancouver police officers got underway Monday with testimony from his sister, who described the “devastating” effect his passing had on their family.
Melissa Gray said her older brother, Myles Gray, was kind, goofy and loyal, maintaining friendships across the province while balancing his florist business on the Sunshine Coast.
She said Myles helped her then-boyfriend, now her husband, choose a ring for the proposal before his death almost eight years ago.
“Myles was very excited, but he never got to come to the wedding,” said Melissa Gray, speaking to a crowded room at the Burnaby Coroners’ Court.
“Every day I see Myles’s grin on my son’s face … this is the stuff that Myles is missing. This is what he would live for.”
The coroner’s inquest is examining the death of Gray, 33, who died during a confrontation with police in a Burnaby, B.C., backyard on Aug. 13, 2015.
Gray’s injuries were so severe an autopsy couldn’t determine exactly how he died. Police were the only people who saw what transpired in the minutes leading up to Gray’s death but refused to co-operate with the watchdog’s investigation for years.
The inquest will see the officers publicly answer questions about what happened for the first time, as they are scheduled to give evidence over the course of the week.
WATCH | Melissa Gray talks about the outcomes she’d like to see from the inquest:
Speaking before the start of the public inquest into her brother’s death, Melissa Gray says the Vancouver police officers involved in the confrontation that claimed his life should lose their jobs.
The inquest is meant to answer the enduring question of how Gray died and whether anything could be done to prevent others from dying in the same way, according to the province. It will also be another step in a case that has been mired in allegations of interference and raised concerns around police accountability when it comes to investigations of their own.
Speaking to reporters before the inquest began, Melissa Gray said the officers involved should lose their jobs.
“We take comfort in knowing Myles was innocent,” she later said.
Discipline hearing postponed to fall, police say
Gray was in town to make a delivery for his Sechelt-based florist business the day he died. Police were called after he confronted a homeowner for watering her lawn during the summer’s extended drought.
In the fight that followed, officers restrained Gray’s arms and legs, punched, kicked and kneed him, pepper-sprayed him and struck him with a baton, according to a report from the B.C. Prosecution Service.
His injuries included a fractured voice box, several broken bones, brain hemorrhaging and a ruptured testicle. The next day, police described Gray as having been “distraught” and “agitated.”
On Monday, Melissa Gray said her brother had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a hospitalization in 1999, when he was around 18. She said she understood he’d been stable since.
After its investigation, the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. forwarded a report to Crown, believing there were grounds to charge some of the officers with manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault causing bodily harm.
Prosecutors declined to bring any of those charges in 2020 — a decision Melissa Gray on Monday said left her family feeling “deflated, broken [and] hopeless.”
At the time, a statement from Crown said they concluded a conviction wasn’t reasonably likely without stronger, more consistent evidence or a concrete cause of death.
It noted inconsistent evidence from the officers involved, who had all refused to speak to the watchdog’s investigators.
After prosecutors declined to bring charges, the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner in B.C. reopened its investigation.
The external police chief in charge of that file later found seven of the nine police officers might have abused their authority by using unnecessary force on Gray and could face discipline as severe as losing their jobs if those allegations were proven.
Metro Vancouver Transit Police Chief David Jones also determined six of those officers might have neglected their duty by failing to take any written notes about what happened to Gray, according to an executive summary of Jones’s findings obtained by CBC News last month.
A discipline hearing was expected to begin in early April, but Transit Police on Friday confirmed it has been postponed — likely until the fall.
There have also been allegations of interference in relation to Gray’s case. Several of the officers who were at the scene said they didn’t take proper notes about the incident because senior union representatives told them so. Firefighters who were first on the scene also said police told them not to check on Gray as he lay on the ground.
The coroner’s inquest is set to hear from more than 40 witnesses over two weeks, ranging from people in his personal life to police officers to an autopsy pathologist.
Gray’s mother, Margie, declined interviews ahead of the inquiry.
A coroner’s inquest is not the same as a criminal trial. It is meant to determine the facts around a death, not to assign fault.
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