VANCOUVER — A public hearing into the 2015 police beating death of Myles Gray that got underway in Vancouver this week has been adjourned because a lawyer used a strong obscenity to describe someone in a remark captured by a microphone.
The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner says it understands that “obscene language” was broadcast over the public audio stream of the long-awaited hearing, forcing a halt in the proceedings until Monday.
The office says in a statement about the unscheduled adjournment which came midway through Wednesday’s testimony that the use of inappropriate language during a public hearing is “serious and unacceptable”
It says hearing adjudicator Elizabeth Arnold-Bailey is considering the matter and the office is urging “caution” against trying to identify the source and subject of the remark.
The live public audio stream of Wednesday’s proceeding captured a lawyer whispering that another person was “stupid,” calling them an obscenity sometimes used to describe a woman.
The remark came amid a discussion between lawyers and Arnold-Bailey, a retired B.C. Supreme Court judge, about the need to play a series of police recordings at the hearing.
“At this stage, and as the adjudicator has this matter before her, we would urge caution in anyone attempting to identify the source of the comment and at whom it was directed,” deputy police complaint commissioner and hearing spokeswoman Rachel Huggins says in the statement, declining to comment further.
The hearing was originally scheduled to last 10 weeks, was closed to the public on Wednesday afternoon while the adjudicator dealt with a matter in-camera, before being adjourned.
Gray died after a violent altercation with a group of Vancouver police officers in August 2015. The seven officers have denied misconduct at the hearing, which was requested by Gray’s family, and none of the officers has ever been charged or disciplined over the deadly incident, which left Gray with injuries including ruptured testicles and fractures in his eye socket, nose, voice box and rib.
Several lawyers involved in the hearing declined to comment on the reason for the adjournment, while Margaret Gray, the mother of Myles Gray, declined to comment on advice of her lawyer.
The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner has previously called the hearing one of the biggest it has ever held.
“This public hearing will be one of the largest in terms of the numbers of officers and legal counsel involved, the volume of documentary evidence disclosed, and its projected length of ten weeks,” it said in a statement last week.
But the adjournment threw the hearing schedule off track after less than three days.
Witnesses who were tentatively scheduled to appear this week but whose testimony has now been postponed include three Vancouver Police forensics officers and other VPD officers who attended the scene where Gray died, near the boundary of Vancouver and Burnaby.
RCMP Sgt. Robert Nash, who investigated the officers, is now set to continue testifying on Monday
More police witnesses, Vancouver Police Union representatives, as well as three firefighters and a paramedic who attended the scene were due to testify next week.
They are among more that 30 witnesses expected to testify over the course of the hearing, the first of whom was Margaret Gray on Monday. A recording of her 911 call reporting her son missing was played as well, after she testified about his mental health.
Other witnesses who testified this week included civilians who observed the 33-year-old before the fatal altercation.
On Tuesday, the hearing heard another 911 call from witness Muhammed Reza, who testified that he came upon Gray after he’d sprayed Reza’s mother with a hose outside their housing complex.
Andreah Pilgrim, another civilian witness, testified on Tuesday that she’d seen Gray near her workplace on the day of the altercation, pacing up and down the street and acting strange.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 22, 2026.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
