The public hearing into the death of Myles Gray continued Thursday as the 33-year-old’s former doctor testified about his medical history.
A coroner’s jury concluded in 2023 that Gray’s 2015 death was a homicide after hearing that he died shortly after a beating by several officers, leaving him with injuries including a fractured eye socket, a crushed voice box and ruptured testicles.
On Thursday, the court heard from Gray’s family physician, Dr. Christoffel Mentz-Serfontein, about his condition leading up to the events of his death.
When questioned, Mentz-Serfontein said Gray had admitted to having injected “black market” steroids, which can cause a variety of side-effects. But the doctor says his patient never displayed any behaviour that caused concern about Gray being violent toward anyone and described him as “always pleasant and courteous.”
Gray family lawyer Ian Donaldson says he suspects the officers’ counsel want to “cement the idea that [Gray] was using anabolic steroids” in the mind of the court.
“Therefore [implying] what they did wasn’t an excessive use of force,” explained Donaldson.
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In an interview conducted for the Police Act investigation into the incident, one of the officers involved, Const. Eric Birzneck, recalled some of the events.
The interview includes Birzneck admitting to using a baton on Gray.
“I don’t recall how many times. We did manage to get a handcuff on him. He’d go from being calm to like, the Hulk, he had an incredible amount of strength,” said Birzneck.
Donaldson decried Birzneck’s claims.
“There’s a limit to how strong you can be when you’re only 190 pounds, and you’ve got 800 pounds of police officers restraining you,” said Donaldson.
“He may have fought back, and all that is true, but this inquiry is only partly about that. Because it’s really about the police reaction to these things.”
In the coming days, other officers who attended the scene of Gray’s death will be questioned, as well as Tom Stamatakis, who was the President of the Vancouver Police Union at the time of the incident.
Multiple officers have said Vancouver Police Union reps instructed them not to make notes after the beating, despite that being standard practice.
The hearing will continue through March 13, with dates set aside in April and May for the officers’ counsel to respond.
Retired B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Arnold Bailey will then decide if the officers committed misconduct under the police act.