Front Burner - Eight years after Myles Gray’s death, police finally testify

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

This episode deals with details of violence. In August 2015, 33-year-old Myles Gray was making a delivery for his wholesale florist business in B.C. when he confronted a woman who was watering her lawn in the midst of an extended drought. The police were called. Within an hour, Gray – who was unarmed – was dead. His list of injuries – including a fractured voice box, several broken bones, brain hemorrhaging and a ruptured testicle – was so extensive that forensic experts could not pinpoint the exact cause of death. The officers involved are speaking publicly for the first time since Gray’s death at a coroner’s inquest. CBC’s Rhianna Schmunk joins guest host Alex Panetta to explain what we’re learning about what happened to Myles Gray, and his family’s hopes for answers and accountability. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Alex Panetta. A warning before we begin. This episode deals with details of violence.

Vancouver Police Emergency Line. Hi there, we have a problem here. There is a guy who bothered my neighbor. She's a middle-aged woman. And he just, you know, she was just washing the outside and he took the water and the spray on her. And he's just standing in front of the door and swearing. Who is this guy? What you're hearing is one of two 911 calls made back in August 2015. When a guy on delivery for a flower business in Burnaby, B.C. confronts a woman who's watering her lawn in the middle of a drought. A police officer arrives. Backup is called. Burnaby, B.C. confronts a woman who's watering her lawn in the middle of a drought.

A police officer arrives. Backup is called. Charlie 63, can we just hurry up cover here? Just acting a little aggressive. Seven officers follow the man. The unarmed 33-year-old Miles Gray into a nearby forested area. And within an hour, Miles is dead. It's empty in Code 3HS. The male's dead. He's beaten so badly, his eye socket was fractured, his nose, his rib, broken. His voice box, crushed. His testicle, ruptured.

His injuries were so severe that an autopsy couldn't determine what exactly killed him. Miles' mother and sister have said they're haunted by questions about what happened that day. But the only surviving witnesses to Miles' death, they're the police officers who beat him. And they weren't talking, not publicly. It just feels very corrupt that this can happen in Canada. That they haven't had to say anything,

and we've just been waiting. And that all changed last week. Nearly eight years later, a coroner's inquest is now underway in B.C., looking to determine the facts around his death, and with the help of a jury, to make recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future. My colleague Rhianna Schmunk is here. She's covering the

inquest in Vancouver, and she's going to walk us through what we're learning about what happened to Miles Gray. Hi, Rihanna. Hi. First, before we get into the circumstances of his death, why don't we start with Miles Gray and his life? What can you tell me about him? Sure. So his sister, Melissa Gray, she was actually the first person to take the stand at the start of this entire inquest. And it's worth noting that she's the only person who's really gotten up there and talked about his character, about who he was as a person outside of the way that he died. about who he was as a person outside of the way that he died. She says Miles was her only sibling,

someone who was kind, goofy, loyal, you know, the kind of person who maintains a lot of friendships and made those friends laugh all the time, no matter where they were or what they were doing. Loved shows like SNL, Saved by the Bell, Fresh Prince, and he ran, as we know, a wholesale business selling florals in Sechelt on BC's Sunshine Coast. Melissa told a story to the Inquest about how Miles helped her boyfriend, who's now her husband, pick out her engagement ring before her husband proposed and how Miles never got to be at that wedding or meet his future niece and nephew. So overall, she's, you know, the way any sister would talk about the brother that she loved so much. And of course, on one afternoon in 2015, Miles is out making a delivery for his

wholesale florist business. And there actually was, if I understand correctly, a watering restriction in place in Metro Vancouver at the time because of the drought. And that included a total ban on lawn watering. And so what do we know about how the police ended up being called and about this confrontation he gets into with this woman who's watering her lawn? Right. So like you said, we've always known that this started with something to do with lawn watering, some kind of dispute, but we now have a little bit more detail about what happened. So a woman's son and neighbor called 911 and they said a man who was shirtless, wasn't wearing any shoes had wandered

into their neighborhood on marine drive and yanked the garden hose was the term they used from her hand outside the co-op building sprayed her with it uh swore at her um made sexual remarks to her he sprayed my mom with water i don't know he did what to your mom with water he's like my mom with watering like the plant and he grabbed this on her and started spraying her and saying And so the woman's son and neighbor call 911, and they say that they think maybe this man is intoxicated, something's going on. And he's just standing? He's being fired. I'm just one of them. I don't know. And he's just standing in front of your house? Yeah. He's walking around right in front of me.

And so, I mean, is it possible he might have been having some kind of mental health crisis? Like, was that a possibility? So Melissa Gray, who's Miles' sister, told the Inquest that her brother had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was a teenager around maybe 1999. But she says she understood Miles was stable since then. He had that initial episode and otherwise she knew him to be completely stable and fine. His family doctor also testified and said he knew about a historical diagnosis, but believed the bipolar was well controlled. Melissa Gray now actually works as a psychiatric nurse and she says that she agreed that perhaps he could have been suffering a manic episode but if that was the case she said he would have needed some compassion and some help We know the officers arrive on the scene that day and they've now testified at the inquest.

How do they explain what they came upon and how they responded? at the inquest. How do they explain what they came upon and how they responded? So we heard that the first officer who responded on that initial 911 call, she arrived alone in a police van, or they refer to it as a police wagon. And she says she called for backup after Gray got aggressive with her. You know, she says she started talking to him and then it kind of took a turn. And he ended up grabbing the door of her van when she retreated back into the driver's seat. So two more officers responded to her call for backup and then four more after that.

So the initial first group of officers, they follow Gray up a set of stairs into this forested backyard on Joffrey Avenue. And I'll pause here to say that this forested aspect of the backyard will become important because the trees that are around it, it's a very leafy, secluded kind of green backyard, which is important because in the end, no one else would be able to see what was going on in that backyard. It's all very obscured from the sidewalk. It's kind of up a hill. So all of the officers in gray, you can imagine, kind of follow this concrete staircase up into the trees, into this backyard, and they disappear. And no one but police saw what unfolded next. And within nine minutes, Gray was unconscious, handcuffed, hogtied. His ankles were bound. He was beaten. he was beaten and he did regain consciousness at some point after falling unconscious,

woke up again, but 12 minutes later, he went into cardiac arrest and was later pronounced dead. And so we know his injuries were extensive, but this wasn't just one or two hits while police were trying to handcuff him. Could you lay out for me what we've learned about the force the police used in this case? We've heard from roughly half a dozen officers have taken the stand now, and they all follow this theme and they all outline what they did. But he was pepper sprayed, punched, kneed, struck batons. At one point, he was held in a chokehold. As I mentioned, he was hobbled, which is when his feet are tied together.

They were trying to get handcuffs on him. It was a violent, violent beating. And one constable says he thought the only alternative to subdue him would have been to shoot him. And that's kind of the theme, you know, not the shooting aspect, but the theme that all of the officers are following is that they believe that that's what they had to do, that Gray was aggressive. He was threatening them. They all commented on his physical fitness. They described him as jacked or ripped. Exhibiting superhuman strength was a term used more than once. They believed he was intoxicated, maybe using performance-enhancing drugs like steroids.

So they all paint a picture of someone who they couldn't subdue through any other means. Okay. Well, just to be clear here, Miles Gray was unarmed. I mean, have any of the officers indicated that anybody, like anyone at all, attempted to deescalate the situation before resorting to force? So the first officer, as I mentioned, she says she got on scene. She's just responding to a disturbance at this point. And she says she did try to talk to him, you know, hey man, how's it going? You okay? But something that the family has pointed out is that they don't think so. They think that

the others, the others who responded to her calls for backup just kind of went in and didn't give de-escalation a fair chance. They need to be able to verbally de-escalate people. They need to learn what to do when somebody is in a crisis. If someone's having a mental health crisis and they aren't wearing shoes and they aren't wearing a shirt, they should be able to identify that. And I can't, like, I can't imagine what it must have been like for Miles Gray's family to hear this testimony. And how have they been reacting to the things they've been hearing? So they have been in the room, in the inquest room. It's quite a small room, so they are quite, you know, physically close and hearing all of this. You know, as I

said, it was a violent beating and it's difficult for anybody to listen to, but unimaginably so. For his family, his mother has attended every day, Margie Gray. He was in obvious mental distress. He needed care. He needed compassion. And nobody cared about him. They were playing the audio of the 911 call. They're playing, you know, the audio from police radios. And they're listening to all of it, of course, knowing how it ended. So, yes, unimaginably difficult.

Yeah, I understand. And also, there's this particular audio recording that they heard that made them question this whole idea that he was displaying superhuman strength. I mean, can you talk to me about that specific recording? pain. Multiple officers have said he didn't appear to be feeling any pain. You know, they would punch him. That didn't work. Then they would get the baton. That didn't work. And they, so they're saying he, you know, superhuman strength, not feeling any pain, not fazed by any of this. And at one point there was a recording played for the inquest and in the background you can hear screaming, which is deeply upsetting to the family. And Margie Gray told reporters after that,

that, you know, really refutes any idea that he wasn't feeling any pain at all. It was extremely difficult to hear because the narrative of this whole eight years, almost eight years story is, Miles had superhuman strength and he did not feel pain. I hit him with a baton so hard it broke his arm and he didn't flinch.

I did this to him and that to him and he felt zero pain. I hit him with a baton so hard it broke his arm and he didn't flinch. I did this to him and that to him and he felt zero pain and yet this audio recording that we heard yesterday that we weren't even made aware of that we were going to hear, actually traumatizing. pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo.

50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. We've talked about superhuman strength. I want to ask you about excited delirium. One officer testified that his first impression was Miles is experiencing what I just mentioned, something called excited delirium, which he thought could lead to this so-called superhuman strength.

What is excited delirium? So this is a highly contentious term, actually. And it's typically describes kind of this state of agitation, aggression, extreme strength, overheating, like physical overheating and distress that's generally linked to drug use or mental illness. And it's been used a lot as an explanation for sudden unexpected deaths during interactions with the police. You mentioned it's been referred to in other prominent cases. It came up in the testimony of an Ottawa police officer and the death of Dhiraman Abdi, a senior RCMP officer, cited it in the death of Robert Chikansky at Vancouver's

airport in the U.S. Defense lawyers mentioned it in the George Floyd case. It's a controversial term. Can you talk to me about what makes it controversial? Right. So, and I pause here to say it was also one of several possible explanations given by a forensic pathologist for the death of Gray. But that was back in 2015. And we know now that Gray's injuries were so extensive that forensic pathologists weren't ever able to determine a cause of death. But this excited delirium, the pathologist said maybe this could have been a possibility. But that was back in 2015, and there's a major shift underway. Medical examiners and coroners across Canada and the U.S. are starting to reject excited delirium as a cause of death. Both the American

Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have dismissed this diagnosis entirely. Earlier this spring, the National Association of Medical Examiners made headlines when they released a statement saying they no longer recognize excited delirium as a cause of death. And its president at the time said the group was concerned that the phrase might be used to justify excessive force by police, especially when Black people have died. It's also not a recognized diagnosis, according to several bodies, including the World Health Organization. Okay. So given all that controversy, then what has the coroner's guidance been to the jury when it comes to how they should treat the concept of excited delirium in their deliberations?

Right. And the inquest, I'll say, started off with a bit of a debate about this. Witnesses hadn't even been called and were already, this is already on the table. This is already something that lawyers are kind of getting into a spat about. Lawyers for the family and Vancouver police were having a back and forth about which experts should be allowed to give evidence about excited delirium. So right out the gate, this is contentious. allowed to give evidence about excited delirium. So right out the gate, this is contentious. Police officers, as we expected, have said that they believed Miles Gray was experiencing excited delirium the day he died. But the presiding coroner cautioned jury members about it and said most, as I mentioned, most pathologists no longer recognize the term as a cause of death and that

the medical community is debating its relevancy. So the coroner also noted that the inquest will hear from a medical expert later on about the phrase. And he told the jury to take less weight on a lay person's statements about it, referring to, you know, a police officer who's not a medical expert. Okay, so let's talk about the aftermath and what police did afterwards. There's this pretty shocking bit of testimony from one of the officers involved about some advice he was given in the aftermath of Miles Gray's death by someone from the police union. So what did this police union representative tell him? Yes. representative tell him? Yes. So, Constables Josh Wong, Derek Kane, Bo Spencer, three of them, three of the seven, told the inquest that a senior union representative told them not to take handwritten notes about the fight after Gray died. Wong says he was taken to police headquarters

after Gray died, you know, to wait for lawyers, union reps, the IAO. He says he was sitting there in this red leather chair with a pen and notebook ready to go when a senior rep came up to him and told him not to write any notes. So don't leave a paper trail. Don't leave a paper trail. He doesn't remember the exact words, but something to the degree of, you know, don't write that down. And he says he thought it was odd, but he listened and then went home and typed up some notes later and saved them on a USB stick and uploaded them to the police database months after that. This is pretty crucial testimony to be hearing.

And yet this is the first time we've heard from any of these officers nearly eight years after Miles Gray's death. Why is this the first time? So, and this is a question a lot of people are asking. Why is this the first time? So, and this is a question a lot of people are asking. In BC, witness officers are supposed to attend interviews with the police watchdog under the Police Act it's required. But that didn't happen in this case. Some of the Vancouver police officers refused to sit down with the Independent Investigations Office, the IIO,

unless the watchdog gave them access to evidence like recordings, transcripts, other documentation. The IAO actually petitioned B.C. Supreme Court twice to try and compel the officers to cooperate. And when I say cooperate, I mean sit down for interviews, hand over the notes, that kind of thing. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Miriam Gropper actually sided with the IAO and said officers do have a duty to cooperate. And that was upheld on appeal, but of course, not after years of delays. Okay. So back in 2020, after BC's independent police watchdog had investigated, the Crown prosecutor decides not to press criminal charges against the officers involved. Can you explain the rationale to me why there were no charges? So the IIO forwarded a report to Crown and they believe that there were grounds to charge some

of the officers charges like manslaughter aggravated assault assault causing bodily harm but as you said prosecutors didn't lay any charges at all they say they couldn't establish a clear picture of what happened because of contradictions between the statements of the officers involved and again as i mentioned nobody else saw what happened here. The only witnesses to Gray's death were the officers who were involved. There's no photo, there's no video, there's no other evidence to work from. So with the inconsistent testimony and the inability to pinpoint an exact cause of death, Crown didn't believe that they'd be able to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. And prosecutors, as we know, they don't bring cases they don't think they can win. And the evidence here, in a formal sense, they didn't have the substantial likelihood of conviction that's required here to meet the

standard for charges being approved. And again, you mentioned they're surrounded by trees. It's just, it's the only witnesses are these officers. And you explained how some of these officers didn't cooperate with that watchdog investigation. What made this coroner's inquest different? So a coroner's inquest can actually summon people. It's like a subpoena. You can essentially force them to come and testify. But in exchange, anything that is said in their evidence or their testimony can't be used against them in a criminal trial or civil proceedings in the future. That's kind of why coroner's inquests in BC go last. They go after the criminal cases dealt with or after a civil case is dealt

with. So I'll say here that there is a separate investigation happening right now into the officer's conduct from a misconduct perspective. The office of the police complaints commissioner in BC is investigating this, and the police chief in charge of that file found the officers might have abused their authority by using a necessary force on Gray. My colleague, Bethany Lindsay, has done quite a bit of reporting on this. And he found, the police chief found, six of the seven officers might have neglected their duty. Also, on top of the abuse of authority allegations, they might have neglected their duty by failing to take any written notes about what happened to Gray. Now, the discipline for abuse authority could be as severe as being fired if the allegations are proven, and for a neglect of duty, it could be suspension without pay for 30 days. And there will be a disciplinary hearing on all of this

potentially later this year. Okay, so all these years later, we're not just looking at a fact finding exercise at an inquiry being where this ends. There is the potential for some sort of discipline. Going back to the inquest, what do you expect to hear in the coming days and weeks? What witnesses would we expect to see called upon? So this week we're going to be hearing from other first responders who came to the scene after Gray died. People like firefighters and paramedics and they'll be speaking about what they found. We'll also be hearing from toxicology expert, which is interesting given how much police have said about their belief that Gray was intoxicated. And we'll also hear from a forensic pathologist who can speak to what the autopsy found, the difficulty in determining a cause of death and things like that. I'd like to

finish where we started with Miles Gray. His family, what do they hope to see out of this process? What's their goal in this inquest? Yeah, they want to see someone take responsibility or ownership, I think, of what, you know, an explanation, more of an explanation about what happened. As I mentioned, you know, officers are all clear on why they were called to the scene and what happened, but none of them say they saw the injuries that might have killed him. None of them say they saw any blood. None of them say anything to that degree that might shed light on how he died

or what happened in the last seconds of his life. So his family has said they want answers, they want honesty, they want the truth about all of those things. And Melissa Gray said she wants the officers involved to lose their jobs. For eight years, we keep having to talk about his injuries and what they've done and keep having it thrown in our faces that they're just still working. And again, that's more of a question for the disciplinary hearing. If allegations are proven, as I mentioned, that's not something that's likely to come out of a coroner's inquest, but I think they're still very much looking for some accountability. Brianna, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

That's all for today. I'm Alex Panetta, in for Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.