The parents of Myles Gray say they’re glad an Independent Investigations Office (IIO) court action against a Vancouver police officer has made more details of their son’s death public, but they remain frustrated and angry that the investigation has dragged out for 27 months with no resolution in sight.
The IIO is asking the B.C. Supreme Court to order Vancou-ver Police Department (VPD) constable Hardeep Sahota to attend a second interview with investigators. The court documents say Sahota was the first officer on the scene Aug. 13, 2015 after Vancouver police received a call about a man spraying a woman with a garden hose at an address on South East Marine Drive.
In a statement of background facts, the IIO says, “Constable Sahota reported an aggressive confrontation between her and [Myles Gray] and requested further backup support,” the statement says. “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.”
The IIO is treating Sahota as a key witness, and not a subject of the investigation. This is the first time any of the officers involved in the incidents that led to Gray’s death has been publicly named.
The IIO statement also made public for the first time a list of serious injuries suffered by Gray, including: a broken nose, fractured voice box, dislocated jaw, fractures around the eye socket, a broken rib and sternum, “hemorrhagic injury of one testicle” and bruising of the legs and arms. It also says the coroner has not yet determined a specific cause of death.
The Gray’s own lawsuit against the VPD and the officers involved, filed last February, claims that “officers beat the deceased to death by inflicting massive physical traumas upon him through repeated grievous, violent assaults and batteries, including after they had detained and restrained him.”
Myles Gray’s mother Margie Gray told Coast Reporter this week that the family knew the details of the injuries Myles suffered, but had been asked not to discuss those details publicly. She said she’s glad more of that information is now public. “I think people really need to learn what they did to him.”
The shocking list of injuries Gray suffered is just a small part of the IIO court submission.
The rest deals with the actions of officers after the incident and allegations that they’ve violated both a memorandum of understanding between the agency and the province’s police forces as well as the Police Act.
According to the IIO, investigators found that none of the officers made any notes about the incident – a violation of VPD policy – although seven of the eight filled out evidence pages in the PRIME computer database between January and April of 2016, months after the incident.
In a statement issued late last week, Vancouver Police Union president Tom Stamatakis said the union was disappointed the IIO is going to court over what he calls “the very reasonable concerns that we have raised on behalf of our members.”
“Unfortunately, this is a case where the IIO is choosing to litigate thru the court system to cover up for their own deficiencies as an investigative body,” Stamatakis said. “Investigations that drag on over two years are a disservice to the public, particularly family members who have lost loved ones, and their confidence in the accountability of law enforcement, as well as the police members themselves, who are kept under a cloud of suspicion unnecessarily.”
Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons has been working with the Gray family and has called on the previous Liberal government, and now his NDP colleagues, to expand the powers of the IIO to compel police to provide information to investigators.
“If the IIO doesn’t have the power it needs to investigate these cases to ensure transparency, then we need to look at changing the IIO’s authority,” Simons said. “I don’t think the current system is designed to allow for accountability of an important public service – the police force – and if the oversight doesn’t give confidence to the public, it’s not working.”
Simons said he has brought the issue of the Gray case, and others that have been taking a long time to resolve, to the attention of Attorney General David Eby, and he hopes that under newly appointed director Ron MacDonald, the IIO will be getting more resources.
Gray agrees the IIO needs to have more authority so investigations can move along faster and families like hers can get the answers they deserve. “If you’re going to oversee such a powerful organization, you’re going to have to be an agency with equal power,” she said.
Gray also said they’re frustrated because it could be many more months or even years before the IIO’s petition is dealt with by the courts or the family’s lawsuit is heard.
“This situation continues to be tortuous for the whole family. We have lost our Myles by the hands of those who are sworn to protect us. We want answers. We want the truth.”
None of the claims in the Gray’s lawsuit or the IIO petition has been proven in court.
