Vancouver Police Board accepts department's report on inquest into Myles Gray's death

The Vancouver Police Department is committed to adopting the recommendations from a coroner's inquest into the beating death of Myles Gray, it says in a report submitted to its board on Thursday. 

But advocates say key concerns remain unaddressed.

In a statement released by Pivot Legal Society, the policy director for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association says the police report "leads the reader to believe that everything is fine at the (department) short of implementing body-worn cameras."

Meghan McDermott says the department "insists that its approach to crisis de-escalation is fine and dandy," though she says police are using the same practices they did at the time Gray died in August 2015 after a beating by several officers.

The initial 911 call on the day the 33-year-old died was about an agitated man who was behaving erratically and who had sprayed a woman with a garden hose.

Gray died after a beating by police that left him with injuries including ruptured testicles and fractures in his eye socket, nose, voice box and rib.

The jury at the coroner's inquest made two recommendations for Vancouver police, with expediting the use of body-worn cameras for all patrol officers at the top of the list, followed by enhanced crisis de-escalation training for officers, especially in situations where someone is experiencing a mental-health disturbance.

The department's report to the Vancouver Police Board, which accepted the report at a meeting on Thursday, says the force is committed to implementing the jury recommendations.

It says a pilot project is set to launch this fall, during which about 100 uniformed officers will wear body cameras with video and audio capabilities for six months.

After that, the report says the department will assess the results with the intention of implementing the cameras for all front line officers over the longer term.

Speaking to media on Thursday, Chief Const. Adam Palmer said the inquest recommendations "align with work that we've already been doing."

The report also outlines crisis intervention and de-escalation and use-of-force training, as well as courses focused on mental health introduced in 2020.

It says the crisis intervention and de-escalation training course that's been mandatory for front line officers and supervisors since January 2015 is the property of the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety and the department cannot alter the content.

Supt. Shelley Horne told the board Thursday that the department "continually builds" on its use-of-force training, including consultation with mental health professionals.