VPD officers haven't spoken at Myles Gray death hearing. Here's what the exhibits say

A police baton and a canister of pepper spray are seen in this undated photo that is an exhibit in the public hearing into the Aug. 13, 2015, death of Myles Gray in Vancouver. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout — Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (Mandatory Credit)

VANCOUVER — None of the seven Vancouver police officers involved in a violent encounter leading up to the death of Myles Gray more than 10 years ago has yet testified at a public hearing that is scheduled to resume on Wednesday.

But a story of what happened on Aug. 13, 2015, emerges in a series of exhibits released by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which is conducting the weeks-long hearing.

Much of that story is depicted in recordings of interviews of the seven officers by investigators between 2016 and 2021. There are also transcripts of 911 calls about Gray’s behaviour that preceded the incident, recordings of police radio chatter as it spiralled out of control, and photographs of the scene and the officers’ injuries in the aftermath of Gray’s death.

A police disciplinary process previously determined that the seven officers did not commit misconduct, and no charges have been laid over Gray’s death, which a 2023 coroner’s inquest ruled was a homicide.

The inquest heard that Gray was left with injuries that included a fractured eye socket, a crushed voice box and ruptured testicles. A paramedic told the inquest that Gray’s bruising was so severe, he initially thought he was not a white man.

The only respondent officer named on the witness list is Const. Eric Birzneck. It is not yet known if any of the other six officers — constables Kory Folkestad, Derek Cain, Josh Wong, Beau Spencer, Hardeep Sahota and Nick Thompson — intend to testify at the next stages of the hearing in Vancouver.

Here’s what the exhibits in the hearing depict:

‘He’s just gone’

Myles Gray’s mother, Margie Gray, was the first to call 911 about her son on the afternoon of Aug. 13, 2015, telling the operator he had travelled from the Sunshine Coast to the Metro Vancouver area to deliver goods to a floral shop, but had disappeared, leaving his keys, wallet, ID and backpack in the vehicle.

“He’s just gone,” she says in a transcript of the call.

Gray describes her son as a 33-year-old, five-foot-10, white man with light brown hair who “body builds” and has a “known mental illness.”

When the dispatcher asked if he was physically or mentally disabled, Margie Gray clarified he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and that was why she was “very concerned.”

“I don’t want to say mentally disabled but he has snapped in the past, like with bipolar, he has been psychotic back in his late teens,” the transcript reads.

A transcript of a second 911 call from a man named Daniel Rasmussen, who worked for the company where Myles Gray had been delivering a shipment when he wandered off, is included in the evidence folder.

Rasmussen tells the operator that Gray had not finished delivering the shipment when an employee saw him walking away, heading east, around 12:50 p.m.

A short time later, a third 911 call is made by a man named Muhammed Reza, who reports a man that he believed was drunk or high had harassed his mother, taken a garden hose she was using to water her plants and began “spraying her for absolutely no reason.”

Reza says the man appeared intoxicated, yelling and at one point began hitting his own head, while holding his shoes.

“He looks like he’s — like, he has his hands down maybe like he’s going to, like, pass out, or something,” he said.

Radio chatter

A 15-minute recording of police radio chatter captures events as police converge on the scene and try to restrain Gray, at one point capturing someone letting out a loud roar in the background.

As police arrive on Joffre Avenue, just on the Burnaby side of the boundary with Vancouver, an officer tells a dispatcher that they were speaking with Gray.

“He’s challenging us to fight with us. He seems very intoxicated or very high,” the officer says.

One officer says he’s heading to the scene and will be “the bean-bag”, an apparent reference to a less-lethal firearm used by police.

When a dispatcher asks for an update from the scene, the responses become breathless — and urgent.

“Hey, hey, hey,” says one voice. “We have him here, he’s not in custody,” says another, before a loud roar lasting a few seconds cuts her voice off.

There is a call for ambulances, and a reference to people being pepper sprayed. A couple minutes later another officer tells dispatchers, “We’ve got a plan; we’re going to hobble him first, and then we’re going to pull him out” from under something.

Just over seven minutes into the recording, an officer reports that Gray is “still fighting,” but less than a minute later he is reported to be in custody.

Then a few seconds later, a panting officer requests “code 3, EHS,” meaning an ambulance with sirens and lights. “The male is unconscious. He’s not responding.”

Ambulances are dispatched as an officer reports: “We also have two (police constables) that are injured here. One with a punch to the jaw, and the other one is bleeding from the head.”

The dispatcher is warned “if this guy comes to, we’re going to need a sedation protocol.”

‘Something just snapped’

The encounter is described by the officers in recordings of interviews with the Independent Investigations Office of B.C., conducted long afterward.

The constables often refer to their notes to answer questions in the interviews between 2016 and 2021.

Const. Hardeep Sahota, who had been working alone that day, was dispatched around 3:05 p.m. after Reza’s 911 call. After locating Gray, she says she rolled down her vehicle’s window to talk to him.

“I then exited my vehicle at one point, and at that point he was very aggressive, very getting into my face, and even at one time nearly touched my pin number, which is on my uniform shirt,” Sahota said in the July 18, 2016, interview.

“He was agitated, seemed very frustrated, very disoriented, he was sweating, he appeared to be on some sort of substance.”

She said that when he refused to comply with her command to sit down, she returned to her wagon for her “safety.”

“My window was half down and he clenched onto the window and tried to attempt to pull it down or break it,” she said.

He eventually walked away and disappeared up a nearby stairwell.

Sahota said she left the police vehicle and saw Gray at the top of the stairs. “He looked at me and he grabbed both of his fists in a clenched manner downward and said, ‘welcome to the jungle’ — screamed really, really loud,” she told the investigator.

“At that point, I was very frightened for my life, so I ran back into the police wagon and I decided to wait until cover came, which was Eric Birzneck and PC Kory Folkestad.”

Birzneck said in August 2021 that Gray was topless, wearing shorts and had dog tags and a bullet on a chain around his neck. He described him as “ripped” and said he immediately suspected Gray had “done a cycle” of steroids.

He said Gray was “talking to himself and pacing and shirtless and sweating.” Birzneck said he had his baton out but concealed from Gray.

Folkestad likened Gray’s demeanour to that of a hockey player getting ready to fight, in his January 2020 interview.

“He had this arrogance, like he wanted to see how many police would come and respond to him,” Folkestad said.

Birzneck said the confrontation began quickly.

“Something just snapped in him and his whole demeanour changed; his face changed,” he said of Gray. “He dropped his head, kind of basically charging me … the next thing you know, as far as I recall, we are basically in it.”

He said Gray said their “badge doesn’t mean anything” as Birzneck pepper sprayed Gray’s eyes. Sahota, Folkestad said, tried to cuff Gray, but was only able to get one wrist secured.

“There’s this powerful movement, and he ripped himself off of me like nothing and he squared up to us, and the fight was on,” Folkestad said. “I was extremely scared at that point. I knew it was a fight for my life.”

Birzneck reported striking Gray in the left leg with his baton about three times, saying Gray went “from being calm to like ‘The Hulk,’ so he’d have an incredible bout of strength.”

Folkestad said he thought they may have to shoot Gray. “I remember I (was) punched in the face and my thought was that I’ve got to punch him as many times as I can, as hard as I could, in order to create some sort of window of control where other tactics could be used to get control of him.”

He said he remembered feeling grass on his face, “choking on blood and mucus,” and Sahota calling out his name before asking him to grab Gray’s legs.

“So, I’m trying to process how bad I’m injured, if I’m going to pass out again,” Folkestad said, adding that he grabbed Gray’s legs as he continued “kicking and thrashing.”

It was “like a nightmare,” he said.

‘Weirdest’ moment of calm

Constables Josh Wong and Nick Thompson arrived next, around 3:23 p.m.

Thompson said in an April 2017 interview that as they approached, he heard screaming, like “someone experiencing psychosis,” and a “terrifying roar.”

Wong said he reached the top of the staircase and saw three officers struggling to control the man, “who was face up on his back” and continued to fight. Folkestad looked “severely injured” in a crouched position, Wong said, with red, watery eyes and a “dazed and confused” look on his face, “as if he had just woken up.”

Thompson said he could feel the pepper spray in the air.

“I just remember that split moment where I looked at them, they were — they looked worried and I’ve never seen that from, from anyone in a use-of-force scenario,” he said.

Thompson said Gray “lunged up so hard” in a “violent outburst” that the officer ended up cutting his head on the tree, “gushing blood.”

Wong said he began to hobble the man’s ankles while Sahota struggled to control his arms despite being “visibly exhausted.”

Wong said he delivered several knee strikes to Gray’s upper body. He also reported using “close hand strikes” to Gray’s face, and told Thompson, whose face was covered in blood, to hobble Gray’s legs as Wong put his “head in something similar to a headlock.”

Wong said his belt was being pulled at and believed Gray was pulling at his baton, so he “delivered several baton strikes to the upper arm and shoulder area.”

More pepper spray was deployed to Gray’s face, allowing the officers to handcuff him, Wong said, noting he continued to hold him down by his right elbow.

Thompson said it felt “like an eternity” before ambulances showed up.

Constables Derek Cain and Beau Spencer arrived at the scene at 3:26 p.m. to see several officers on top of Gray, who was lying face down, said Cain in a 2021 interview.

“Officers were yelling at the subject to stop fighting. It was very apparent to me that officers did not have control of the subject and for everyone’s safety, including the subject’s.”

Cain recalled trying to get hold of Gray’s left wrist using a wristlock, but he “showed no pain compliance.”

Meanwhile, Spencer said he assessed the scene, saw Gray in a hobble, and believed his “main goal” was to get Gray’s arm behind his back to handcuff him.

Cain described a moment where it appeared Gray was doing a pushup with an officer on his back.

“I positioned myself near the subject’s head and placed one knee on his shoulders and the other on his right temple as his face was turned away from me,” Cain said. “The subject proceeded to lift me up in the air with another officer on his back. I repositioned again and delivered multiple knee strikes to his upper left arm.”

Cain said it took “at least four officers,’ including himself, to handcuff Gray, two sets being required due to Gray’s “muscular build.”

Cain said Gray then let out a big sigh and his face started turning red. “The subject was not breathing and his pulse was weak and thready at approximately 180 beats per minute.”

The officer said he gave him a “sternal rub” and Gray began breathing again but within seconds of being revived, “the subject began flailing about, trying to stand up,” Cain said.

Spencer, who said he is six-foot-four and 200 pounds, said Gray was on his stomach, so he knelt on his upper right arm and shoulder area.

“He was bucking me off like I was a child. He’s again displaying levels of strength I’ve never seen from somebody and he’s causing me to fall onto my back and onto my onto my butt and legs, continuously with me just kneeling on his arms,” he said.

Spencer then described a moment he called the “weirdest part about the entire interaction.”

“While I was doing that, he was bucking me off (and) at one point he completely stopped resisting and almost became calm and a different person. He looked towards me and asked me what was happening,” he said. “At that point, I said, ‘you’ve just been involved in a fight with about eight officers. We got an ambulance coming. You’re going to be OK.’”

Spencer said he looked “almost scared,” in a complete demeanour shift.

“And then all of a sudden he snapped back into a very aggressive and angrier state. I’ve never seen it before, I don’t know how to explain it to you, but it was like two people, one person came and then they left.”

Spencer said Gray then “went completely limp,” while Cain said his “face went red and he stopped breathing again.” Wong said Gray “became unresponsive and his face and lips appeared blue and white.”

“The handcuffs were removed and first aid was applied by several police constables,” Wong said.

Another officer, Const. Chris Bowater, a former paramedic who is not a subject in the inquiry, arrived and began assessing Gray, Cain said.

“Firefighters were gathered at the top of the stairs, so I yelled at them to grab their defibrillator, their automated external defibrillator, and medical jump kit and bring it over,” he said.

Cain said Gray was uncuffed, and he and Bowater attempted to resuscitate him, including using a defibrillator, chest compressions and bag ventilation until paramedics arrived.

Spencer said he watched CPR efforts before deciding they needed to give medical staff more room.

“We went down to the road toward my squad car, at which point we were told that he’d passed away,” Spencer said.

The photos

Photos of the scene show signs of a struggle — yellow evidence markers alongside apparent blood stains on patches of grass and wooden garden bed retainers. There are close-ups of various items — a watch, sunglasses, a police baton and a pepper spray canister — strewn across the lawn.

One photo shows a yellow garbage bag of medical equipment, including masks and gloves, and a red hazardous materials bag.

The black, strap-like hobble restraint referred to in the police interviews is shown loosely coiled on the ground.

Photographs of the officer’s injuries are also disclosed. Most depict surface marks, grazes, scuffs, abrasions and scrapes to officers’ necks, legs, arms and toes. One shows a deeper laceration on the head of one of the officers, blood showing through black hair, while another depicts a bandaged cut to an officer’s jaw.

Other photos attached are a pair of grey pants or shorts, two bloodstained dog tags in the name of Walter E. Kurtz, from the film “Apocalypse Now,” and a UCLA Athletics shirt and badge with a broken neck tie.

There are two images that depict Gray.

One of them, redacted with black bars, is taken after his death. It depicts his left hand and arm, which is swollen to a purple hue. His arm has a small cut, still bleeding, and a piece of medical tape is near his elbow. A medical tube is lodged between Gray’s middle and ring fingers, while two tightly bound handcuffs remain fastened to his swollen wrists. The Canadian Press has chosen not to publish the image.

Muhammed Reza, the 911 caller, supplied what appears to represent the only full photo of Gray on the day of his death.

It is taken from a distance, blurry and washed out.

Gray sits shirtless in the shade of a tree, on a short set of concrete stairs leading down to a townhouse complex.

His elbows rest on his knees and his head hangs low, as if lost in thought.

This report by Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press, was first published April 27, 2026.