Man beaten by Vancouver police kind, loyal: sister

BURNABY, B.C. - The sister of a man beaten to death during a confrontation with Vancouver police says the officers involved should lose their jobs.

Melissa Gray says the death of her brother, Myles, more than seven years ago has devastated their family members, who have been waiting for accountability from the officers and the police department.

Myles Gray, 33, died on Aug. 13, 2015, following a beating involving seven officers that sent him into cardiac arrest and left him with a broken eye socket, a partially dislocated jaw, a crushed voice box and a ruptured testicle and other injuries.

His sister told the media on Monday as the coroner's inquest into the man's death began that those officers "stole her brother's life" and don't deserve to continue in their jobs in policing.

British Columbia's Prosecution Service declined to approve criminal charges against the officers in 2020, saying they were the only eyewitnesses to the man's death and offered accounts described as incomplete and sometimes inconsistent.

Gray was the first to testify at the inquest, telling the jury her brother was goofy, kind and loyal. He made friends and made people laugh wherever he went, she said.

"We take comfort knowing that Myles was innocent," she said.

The decision by the Crown not to pursue charges against the officers involved in the beating left the family feeling “broken and hopeless,” Gray told the inquest.

She said her brother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after an episode in high school around 1999, but to her knowledge he was stable after that and was never unemployed.

Officers had originally been called to a report of someone in a mental health crisis, and Gray says police need to learn to recognize those situations and be able to verbally de-escalate such an event.

"If someone is having a mental health crisis and they aren't wearing shoes and they aren't wearing a shirt, they should be able to identify that and they should treat them more humanely," Grey told the media before testifying.

The inquest's witness list indicates coroner Larry Marzinzik and a jury will hear testimony from 41 people over 10 days, including the officers directly involved in the beating.

The BC Coroners Service said the jury can't make findings of "legal responsibility," but can only make recommendations to prevent future deaths under similar circumstances.