The Independent Investigations Office (IIO) is following up on a tip from the public that Myles Gray possibly tried to hail down a vehicle or talk with passing motorists before he died following an altercation with Vancouver police on Aug. 13, 2015.
“As an investigator, you’ve got to go where the evidence leads you,” said Marten Youssef, acting director of public engagement and policy with the IIO.
“There’s been new information that’s [been] obtained by us. So as a result of that it suggests [Myles Gray] may have actually hailed down or tried to verbally engage with occupants of passing vehicles, and so we’re following that lead and we’re asking for witnesses to come forward.”
The IIO is seeking witnesses who may have been in the 8300 block of Joffre Avenue (near the intersection of Marine Drive and Joffre Avenue) in Burnaby on Thursday, August 13, 2015 between 3 and 4:30 p.m. If you or someone you know is a potential witness to what happened in the area during this timeframe, you’re asked to call the IIO toll-free witness line at 1-855-446-8477.
This is the first time the IIO has issued a public appeal for witnesses in the Myles Gray case, but Youssef said the IIO has spoken to “many witnesses” in the past through regular canvassing of the neighbourhood. “It’s just a question of we’re looking for a specific reference to that particular time, in hopes that we may be able to get someone.”
Reached for comment this week, Myles’ mother Margie said she was upset it was the first public appeal for witnesses in the case. “Things change, people move away, people die. Why didn’t they do this a year ago or 10 months ago?” Margie said.
She also questioned the timeline of events on Aug. 13, 2015, as she had previously thought her son was deceased by 3:50 p.m. on that day.
“So what really happened?”
She implores anyone who knows anything to call the IIO witness line to help shed some light on what happened to her son that day. “We need to know,” she said.
Gray, a 33-year-old Sechelt resident, died after an altercation with police in a wooded area of Burnaby. Police were responding to a complaint of a male causing a disturbance. Myles’ family maintains he was unarmed and that the disturbance complaint stemmed from Myles telling a woman in the area she shouldn’t be watering her lawn due to water restrictions.
The Gray family has filed a lawsuit against the seven officers involved in the altercation that day (as well as four other officers who dealt with the case but weren’t on scene when the altercation took place), the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Police Board and the Vancouver Police Department.
