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Editorial: Five years, no answers in killing of Myles Gray

On Aug. 13, 2015, Myles Gray was beaten to death by Vancouver police in a secluded backyard in Burnaby. Five years later, the public still doesn’t know whether any of the officers involved will face criminal charges.
Myles Gray
Myles Gray died five years ago Thursday after a fatal run-in with Vancouver police. The Crown is still reviewing the evidence to determine whether charges will be laid.

On Aug. 13, 2015, Myles Gray was beaten to death by Vancouver police in a secluded backyard in Burnaby. Five years later, the public still doesn’t know whether any of the officers involved will face criminal charges.

After a long and difficult probe into the killing of the unarmed 33-year-old Sechelt man, the Independent Investigations Office (IIO) submitted its report to Crown prosecutors for consideration of charges more than 18 months ago. Since then the case has been in the Crown’s hands.

What little the public has learned about Myles Gray’s fatal run-in with police came out in October 2017 when the IIO petitioned the B.C. Supreme Court to order a witness officer, Const. Hardeep Sahota, to cooperate with the investigation. The petition was withdrawn after Sahota eventually agreed to sit for a second interview, but court documents filed by the IIO contained a few pieces of the puzzle and some very disturbing details.

Eight VPD officers

The IIO’s statement of background facts said Sahota was the first officer to respond after police were called to South East Marine Drive (on the Vancouver side of Boundary Road). A caller had complained that a man was harassing a woman by spraying her with a garden hose. After arriving, Sahota “reported an aggressive confrontation between her and [Myles Gray] and requested further backup support. When backup arrived an incident developed in a garden in the backyard of a Joffre Avenue residence… The incident ultimately involved a total of eight VPD officers… There were no civilian or independent witnesses.”

Court documents alleged that none of the officers made any notes about the fatal incident, contravening VPD policy. Five months or more after it happened, seven of them finally got around to filing evidence pages to the police database.

The most shocking disclosure in the IIO’s petition was the list of injuries from the forensic autopsy – so numerous and severe that exact cause of death could not be determined. The injuries bore all the hallmarks of a savage beating that crossed every conceivable line.

Margie Reed, Myles Gray’s mother, told us this week that the Crown’s office has assured her that the file is high priority. “They’ve been in contact with me three times throughout this pandemic to reassure me it is still being worked on.” In January, they told her that a decision would be made between June and the fall. “So far there is no end date in sight,” she said. “If this is a high priority file, I’d hate to think how long a low priority file would take.”

Ms. Reed has become a vocal advocate for police body cameras and it takes little imagination, knowing the circumstances of her son’s death, to understand why. The recent focus on police reform has brought the issue into the limelight, with the Prime Minister speaking in favour of body cameras and the RCMP pledging to look at a “broader rollout” of the devices.

The Vancouver Police Department, however, told CTV News that it has studied the use of body cameras but was “not currently considering implementation of this technology for a number of reasons.”

Offhand we can think of eight reasons why the VPD should have no choice in the matter.