A Vancouver Police Department use-of-force instructor testified at the hearing into Myles Gray’s death

John Roberts, a retired Vancouver police officer who now works as a use-of-force instructor for the department, testified Thursday at the public hearing into Myles Gray’s death. He was the first witness at the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner hearing, called by Vancouver Police Department Chief Constable’s counsel David McKnight. Roberts told McKnight the department had implemented recommendations made by a jury at the coroner’s inquest into Gray’s death, including expediting body-worn cameras for all patrol officers.

Hearing counsel Brock Martland asked whether officers are trained to pause and reassess certain situations before acting. Roberts said they should do so when possible. He said officers often face rapidly unfolding violent situations that require split-second decisions about how to respond to someone in crisis. Ian Donaldson, who represents Gray’s family at the hearing, asked whether de-escalation is paramount in police interactions. Roberts said it is always the goal and desirable, adding that the aim is to resolve a situation with less force.

Gray died in August 2015 after a violent altercation with seven Vancouver Police Department officers in a Burnaby backyard. Police had initially been called about a man who sprayed a woman with a garden hose in southeast Vancouver. Gray’s injuries included a crushed larynx, a broken eye socket and nose, a dislocated jaw, and ruptured testicles. Just before the first three responding officers entered the yard, one radioed dispatch: “He’s gone up into housing here…We’re just going to go up there and challenge.” Donaldson criticized their approach, saying it did not sound like de-escalation and that they had no plan to address someone who might have been in crisis.

Gray’s mother, Margie Gray, told CTV News she believes her son might still be alive if officers had approached the encounter through a mental-health lens. Martland showed Roberts a document titled “Vancouver Police Mental Health Strategy Document,” which sets out considerations for responding to someone in mental-health crisis. It advises officers to assess whether specialized resources, mental-health professionals or people with specialized crisis-intervention training are needed.

Margie Gray said she had visited the backyard where her son died and described it as a small, confined space where he could have felt trapped and cornered. She said there was nowhere for him to go before multiple officers swarmed him. She added that officers did not need to rush in and pepper-spray him twice; they could have backed off and given him space.

The public portion of the hearing has adjourned until mid-October. When it resumes, four of the seven officers involved will testify about what happened in the backyard the day Gray died.