Report clearing Vancouver police in Myles Gray beating death ‘flawed,’ lawyer says

VANCOUVER — A disciplinary report that did not substantiate misconduct allegations against seven Vancouver police officers involved in the 2015 beating death of Myles Gray was based on a “flawed” process, the lawyer for the man’s family says.

Ian Donaldson said Friday that the report by former Delta police chief Neil Dubord didn’t consider key evidence that came out of a coroner’s inquest into the violent beating death of Gray.

“I don’t accept that these people were cleared,” Donaldson said. “This event and the result of the discipline authority’s work has not contributed, in my opinion, to respect for the police in any way.”

Donaldson said Dubord’s report, which isn’t publicly available, shows how the procedure to review police misconduct is “flawed and imperfect and incomplete,” and the findings undermine public confidence in police due to a “lack of respect for accountability.”

Gray, 33, died after being beaten and subdued by officers shortly after they were called to a report of a dispute between the man and a resident near the Burnaby-Vancouver border.

He suffered injuries including a ruptured testicle and fractures of his eye socket, nose, voice box and ribs.

The initial 911 call on the day he died was about an agitated man who was behaving erratically and who had sprayed a woman with water from a garden hose.

Donaldson said he doesn’t fault Dubord as the report’s author because the process and rules he had to follow were “puzzling,” and the findings based on a record Dubord found “to be incomplete.”

“In order to hopefully try to prevent this happening again, it would be nice to see something occur,” Donaldson said. “It is not in the public interest that there’s zero discipline for any of the officers involved. I say that’s not a good thing.”

The Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner said on Thursday it was reviewing Dubord’s decision over Gray’s death, which was classified as a homicide by the coroner’s inquest last year.

“The Police Complaint Commissioner will now decide whether to arrange a further review by a retired judge, and whether to make recommendations to address any concerns arising from the actions of the police officers or about the disciplinary process more generally,” the statement said.

On Friday, the commissioner’s office said Dubord’s report is not publicly available “due to confidentiality provisions contained in the Police Act.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press