Police use-of-force training hamstrung by budget constraints, Myles Gray inquest hears

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The expert who helped write B.C.’s policing standards on using force says most departments lack the resources to run fake scenarios – complete with actors portraying individuals in crisis – to best model the responses needed in such tense situations.

Michael Massine was testifying at the inquest into the 2015 death of Myles Gray that occurred after a handful of Vancouver police officers were trying to arrest him in a secluded backyard. During his career, Mr. Massine has worked in this field across Canada, Britain and the United States, and said B.C.’s forces are global leaders in this type of “reality-based training.”

But Mr. Massine, who helped create the provincial police course on de-escalation mandated by the Braidwood Inquiry into the 2007 tasering death of Robert Dziekanski, said this kind of intensive training comes “at a very big dollar cost” that stops most forces from doing more of it.

The Gray inquest heard that Vancouver has had a standalone training facility, owned by the city, for more than a decade that has a gun range, a classroom and two “simulation rooms” that can be rearranged to mimic a coffee shop or some other public place.

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However, most departments skimp on hiring outside actors or renting facilities, with instructors having to search out abandoned warehouses “with asbestos falling down,” according to Mr. Massine, who worked as a patrol officer in Victoria while training that department in use of force.

“Speaking with training sections and managers with every police department in the province and the RCMP, that was a constant theme that I heard,” he said.

Mr. Massine, who now teaches new municipal police recruits from around the province at the Justice Institute of B.C., agreed when asked by Gray family lawyer Ian Donaldson whether someone is likely to struggle more if their airway was closed off in a chokehold. Mr. Massine testified that officers are trained to squeeze the arteries on the side’s of someone’s neck to slow down blood flow to their brains and gain better control of someone – not put pressure on the airway at the front of their neck.

Earlier in the inquest, one of the first three officers to confront Mr. Gray testified that he held him in a bearhug for a long period and twice applied that technique, known in police jargon as a vascular neck restraint. The forensic pathologist who performed an autopsy on Mr. Gray testified Thursday that his larynx was fractured.

The start of Friday’s hearing, the penultimate day of testimony, was delayed as the inquest debated the application by the lawyer for Mr. Gray’s family to have the five jurors see a photo of his bloody and beaten face.

Inquest counsel and lawyers for the Vancouver Police Department urged presiding coroner Larry Marzinzik to bar the jury from seeing this graphic evidence. Mr. Marxinzik agreed that this photo could have added value to the proceedings. But, he rejected the application saying it wasn’t fair to introduce the picture as an exhibit this late, with 23 constables, firefighters and paramedics already testifying to the physical condition they noticed Mr. Gray in that day.

“I’m torn between the complete transparency and proper procedure,” Mr. Marzinzik said before making his ruling.

The coroner’s inquest will look into the death of the 33-year-old business owner, who also suffered a broken nose, eye socket and rib, 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.”