Protesters hold banners with a photograph of Myles Gray, who died following a confrontation with several police officers in 2015, before the start of a coroner's inquest into his death, in Burnaby, B.C., on Monday, April 17, 2023. The five jury members at the British Columbia coroner's inquest have begun their deliberations after hearing 11 days of testimony about a beating by Vancouver police officers and the death of Myles Gray.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
BURNABY, B.C. – The jury at a British Columbia coroner’s inquest has begun deliberations following 11 days of testimony about the death of Myles Gray after a beating by Vancouver police officers nearly eight years ago.
Coroner Larry Marzinzik reminded jurors they are not to make any findings of legal responsibility when they form their possible recommendations.
Gray, who was 33, died in August 2015 after a beating by several officers that left him with injuries including ruptured testicles and fractures in his eye socket, nose, voice box and rib.
Marzinzik tasked the jury with classifying Gray’s death and explained the five categories: natural death, accidental death, suicide, homicide or undetermined.
He said homicide refers to a death due to injury intentionally inflicted by another person, but it’s a neutral term that doesn’t imply fault or blame.
An accidental death is due to unintentional or unexpected injury and a natural death is due to disease, not resulting secondarily from injuries or environmental factors.
Dr. Matthew Orde, the forensic pathologist who performed an autopsy on Gray, testified last weekthat a “perfect storm” of factors led to his death, including his extreme physical exertion and the actions of police to restrain him.
Orde concluded that Gray died as a result of cardiac arrest complicated by police actions to hold him as he experienced an acute behavioural disturbance.
Testifying as an expert witness, Orde pointed specifically to police actions, including “neck compression,” blunt force injuries, the use of pepper spray, forcing Gray onto his stomach and handcuffing him behind his back.
“In the context of someone who’s extremely fatigued, (whose) body is fully ramped up … I think these issues would be enough to tip him over the edge,” Orde told the jury on Thursday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2023.
