Myles Gray’s mother condemns ‘atrocious’ decision not to charge VPD officers
Posted December 17, 2020 10:01 pm.
Last Updated December 17, 2020 10:27 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SECHELT (NEWS 1130) — Myles Gray’s mother says the Crown’s decision not to criminally charge anyone in connection with her son’s 2015 death comes after “five-and-a-half years of absolute hell.”
Margie Reed says the news is just the latest instance of the criminal justice system failing her family.
“We were not expecting it — however — I am not surprised,” she says.
“We miss him so much. The system, the system violently traumatizes a family. It’s absolutely unbelievable.”
Reed’s 33-year-old son died during an altercation after police responded to complaints about someone behaving erratically in Burnaby.
During the arrest, Gray suffered extensive injuries but the BC Prosecution Service announced Wednesday that they would not be approving charges because the cause of death could not be determined.
The only witnesses were attending members of the VPD, according to the prosecution service.
Reed says the officers who were the have never had to account for what happened, leading to an “incomplete and inconsistent” picture of what happened in her son’s final moments.
“There continue to be no witnesses. There is no video. Myles’ injuries were so vast — a multitude of things could have killed him. Myles didn’t do this to himself. It is absolutely atrocious that these officers are still working.”
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The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) says it can now resume its investigation into the officers’ use of force, which is not restricted to just the evidence gathered in the criminal investigation.
Reed thinks there’s still a lot of information that has yet to be uncovered.
“Somebody knows something, somebody’s going to break, somebody saw something. Somebody will step forward one day. When is that day? I don’t know. I can’t tell you that. This story is not over. This story is not over,” she says.
“I’m not convinced this is where it ends.”
Her family’s faith in the police and the justice system has been shattered, she says. But she understands why some people insist her son must have provoked police.
“People do want to psychologically, they want to believe they’re safe. Of course, people want to believe they’re safe, so when they hear this, they go to that place, ‘Well, he must have done something wrong.’ Well, I can tell you he sure didn’t because it could have been any one of us.”
With files from Ria Renouf, Kathryn Tindale and Mike Lloyd
