On April 17, protesters in Burnaby, B.C., hold banners with a photo of Myles Gray, who died after a confrontation with several police officers in 2015.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Only one of the seven Vancouver police officers accused of using unnecessary force on Myles Gray testified that he noticed any injuries after the flurry of blows they gave the shirtless 33-year-old, according to the first week of an inquest into his death.
Each officer was asked by counsel in the Burnaby coroner’s court and only Constable Beau Spencer, who arrived on scene last with his patrol partner, testified that he noticed swelling around Mr. Gray’s eyes get worse throughout their struggle.
But, like all his colleagues who testified, Constable Spencer, a fourth-generation officer with the force who said he sprained his wrist throwing punches that day, did not recall seeing any blood or other injuries on the entrepreneur from Sechelt, B.C. Mr. Gray suffered a broken nose, eye socket, rib and voice box, as well as brain bleeding and a ruptured testicle that day in August, 2015.
Constable Derek Cain, his partner that day and a former paramedic who performed CPR on Mr. Gray, testified Friday that he never saw any injuries or blood on the man he helped try to arrest, but did notice a fine dirt appeared to be smeared into his sweaty face.
“If there was blood it could have been mistaken for sweat mixed with the dirt, but I don’t recall seeing any blood,” Constable Cain said.
Constable Nick Thompson testified that his baton strikes to Mr. Gray’s upper legs likely ruptured his testicle, but he did not see any injuries to his body.
Sergeant Stephen Jackel, who was in charge of the patrol squad that responded that day in south Vancouver and is not facing misconduct allegations, said he arrived to the shaded yard after three of the officers had been injured and were waking away from the scene.
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He testified that he then saw Constable Spencer and another officer holding a tensed Mr. Gray’s arms as he lay down on his side and a third officer holding the nylon strap tied around his feet, which police refer to as a hobble.
He said they were all careful to avoid putting pressure on his head or back and he did not notice any blood on Mr. Gray, who was wearing only shorts at the time, or other injuries.
Ian Donaldson, lawyer for Mr. Gray’s family, asked Sgt. Jackel if he remembers seeing Mr. Gray’s blood on the constable, who had been bearhugging him at the start of the encounter. After looking down at a paper copy of his statement he gave to the Independent Investigations Office hours after Mr. Gray’s death, Sgt. Jackel agreed he had said that, but didn’t recall how much of Mr. Gray’s blood his colleague had on him.
Each of the seven officers testified that Mr. Gray, who appeared to be in mental distress and had earlier that day harassed a nearby gardener and sprayed her with her own hose, seemed to possess superhuman strength.
Several said he felt no pain after they kneed, punched or hit him with their batons using all their force. Several mentioned being trained in the academy to identify a condition known as “excited delirium,” which the presiding coroner cautioned the jury on the first day of proceedings is no longer accepted by most forensic pathologists.
The term rose to prominence in North America in the 1980s as a way to describe an extreme state of agitation, exceptional strength, overheating and hostility as a result of drug use or a mental-health crisis, but it was almost exclusively used to describe people who died while interacting with police.
After Mr. Gray’s death seven years ago, the forensic pathologist who conducted his postmortem examination could not rule out the possibility he died from something unrelated to the severe beating he received at the hands of the officers. He noted that he had the drug kratom in his system or may have been suffering from excited delirium.
But the B.C. Coroners Service confirmed at the start of its inquest that it no longer recognizes excited delirium as a cause of death, noting its dismissal of the term is aligned with the World Health Organization, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The U.S. National Association of Medical Examiners rejected the term as a cause of someone’s death earlier this month, with its president Joyce deJong telling the Associated Press the group was concerned it might be used to justify excessive force by police, especially when Black people have died.
The seven officers who first responded to arrest Mr. Gray all remain on active duty but 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.
Mike Hager