Vancouver police officers involved in fatal 2015 beating were told not to take notes, hearing exhibits show
CBC
Vancouver police officers involved in a beating death in 2015 were told by their union not to take notes, according to newly-released exhibits in an ongoing public hearing.
The public hearing into the death of Myles Gray, called by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, resumed Tuesday after a month-long pause.
Gray died in a Burnaby backyard, near the border with Vancouver, on Aug. 13, 2015. He suffered extensive injuries after being beaten by police, including a fractured eye socket, a broken nose and rib, a crushed voice box and a ruptured testicle.
The hearing is examining whether Vancouver Police Department constables Kory Folkestad, Eric Birzneck, Derek Cain, Josh Wong, Beau Spencer, Hardeep Sahota and Nick Thompson abused their authority by recklessly or intentionally using unnecessary force in Gray's death.
On Wednesday, exhibits released to media as part of the hearing included interviews from previous inquiries into the case, including the Police Act investigation into Gray’s death conducted by RCMP Sgt. Robert Nash.
In their own words, the officers recounted both the confrontation with Gray, who one officer described as having “superhuman" strength, and the decisions they made around note-taking after the incident.
Cain said Gray was easily "the strongest person I’ve ever dealt with," capable of lifting him up in the air while another officer clung to Gray’s back.
"I was convinced he was under the influence of a drug and in a state of excited delirium," he told Nash.
Birzneck said he responded to Sahota’s call for help, when he heard she had locked herself in the police van after arriving on the scene.
He described Gray as going from being calm to being like "The Hulk" as officers tried to subdue him.
"He's grumbling, mumbling, a lot of mumbling, like, he was growling," Birzneck recalled.
A number of the officers said they were injured and shaken after the confrontation, which lasted several minutes.
Cain, a former paramedic, was emotional as he described his attempts to revive Gray when he stopped breathing, applying life-saving techniques in an attempt to restart his heart.
In their interviews, the officers noted that the case was one of the first investigated by the Independent Investigations Office (IIO), established to provide civilian oversight of police.
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