Coroners inquest into Myles Gray death continues Monday

A coroner’s inquest into the death of Myles Gray resumes Monday for the sixth of 10 days of testimony.

Gray died in 2015 after a beating by several Vancouver police officers who were trying to arrest him, leaving him with injuries that included a fractured eye socket, a crushed voice box, and a ruptured testicle.

Vancouver Police Const. Derek Cain told the inquest in Burnaby on Friday that “time was standing still” as he waited for advanced life support paramedics to arrive and help revive Gray.

Cain described to the jury their efforts to resuscitate the 33-year-old, who stopped breathing twice in the minutes after police handcuffed him.

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• Vancouver officer testifies about efforts to resuscitate Myles Gray after beating

A day earlier during the inquest, another office, Const. Kory Folkestad, said a senior member of the force who was acting as a union representative told him not to make any handwritten notes about the confrontation that resulted in Gray’s death.

Gray’s sister, Melissa Gray, told the inquest on the day it started that her brother had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder while he was in high school, but he’d been stable ever since.

She alleged officers with the Vancouver Police Department lacked the skills or knowledge to handle vulnerable people in distress, or at least did that day

Several additional Vancouver police officers are expected to testify at the 10-day inquest, which began last Monday.

The jury won’t be able to make findings of legal responsibility at the inquest but may make recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.

While the Independent Investigations Office of BC (IIO) recommended criminal charges against the officers involved, the BC Prosecution Service announced in 2020 that charges would not be approved, saying police were the only witnesses to the incident and the Crown couldn’t prove any offence had been committed.

Check back for updates.