A Vancouver police officer testified at a public hearing that radio calls from the scene during Myles Gray’s 2015 fatal arrest “continued to escalate” and were “very concerning.”
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Const. Beau Spencer told a public hearing into the fatal arrest of Myles Gray in 2015 that a radio call from a colleague he knew, Const. Hardeep Sahota, sounded immediately alarming. He said Sahota’s tone of voice raised “immediate concern” as she encountered the man.
Spencer said he also later heard an “animalistic roar” as he and his partner headed to the scene, adding it was unlike anything he had heard on a police radio. He testified on his second day that he and his partner were “quite anxious” to get there as radio calls from the location “continued to escalate.”
He told the hearing that another call came when three officers were already on scene and did not sound as though the person they were dealing with was “under control,” describing it as “very concerning.”
Spencer is one of seven Vancouver police officers facing the public hearing set by British Columbia’s Police Complaint Commissioner, which is examining whether the officers committed misconduct during the confrontation. The commissioner’s notice said an earlier disciplinary process had dismissed misconduct allegations, but the discipline authority concluded the process was “strangely lopsided” and had to decide the case despite “discrepancies and inconsistencies” in statements by Vancouver Police Department members.
The hearing relates to Gray’s death following a confrontation with several officers in 2015. No charges have been laid. A coroner’s inquest in 2023 ruled the death was a homicide and did not assign legal blame. The earlier inquest heard Gray sustained injuries that included a fractured eye socket, a crushed voice box and ruptured testicles, and a paramedic said his bruising was so severe the paramedic initially thought Gray was not a white man.
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