Myles Gray built like bodybuilder, thrashed and yelled, arresting Vancouver officer tells hearing

Myles Gray, here holding a friend's baby, died after a six-minute interaction with police officers. Photo by Family photo

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A Vancouver police officer who was attempting to arrest and handcuff Myles Gray just before he died during the struggle said Gray was the strongest man he had ever encountered.

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Const. Beau Spencer, who described himself as a “decent-sized guy,” had arrived to provide “cover” to five other officers in the backyard of a house near the Burnaby boundary on Aug. 13, 2015, he told a hearing of the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner before adjudicator retired Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Arnold-Bailey.

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He had already heard on the radio that fellow officers were having trouble putting Gray, who had sprayed a resident with a water hose, into custody because of his resisting.

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“He was overwhelmingly built, I would say almost like someone in a bodybuilder magazine,” he told the hearing.

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Gray was wearing shorts and no shirt, and Spencer said, “I hadn’t seen somebody of that build other than in a magazine, to be completely honest. The (low) level of body fat … and the size of his muscles.”

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Spencer testified he had trouble holding onto Gray’s forearm to try to pin it behind his back to have another officer handcuff him because Gray was sweating profusely and his arm was slippery.

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He also said he remembered Gray’s muscles were flexed and his face was red and sweaty and that he was making loud “animalistic noises,” not speaking any discernible words, and thrashing his head from side to side as he was resisting restraint.

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He said he suspected Gray was in a state of “excited delirium,” a term used mostly by police to describe someone who exhibits superhuman strength, sometimes after consuming cocaine or other drugs, a condition that’s considered a medical emergency. Or he thought Gray might be on drugs or both, he said.

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Gray was on his stomach, with his arm underneath him and Spencer worried he may have been able to reach into his waistband to reach a weapon and worried also he could use his arm to push himself to a standing position.

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“When I did grab hold of his wrist, I experienced strength that I had never experienced before in my life,” he said.

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“It was the first time I wasn’t able to use my strength to my advantage to be able to manipulate his arm into a position I’d be able to cuff him.”

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That was “surprising and worrisome,” he said, which led him to escalate his level of force, as allowed through police procedure and policy, to strike him to get him to submit to repeated verbal commands to stop resisting.

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He testified he struck Gray with a closed fist “as hard as I could” on his deltoid on the opposite arm, while kneeling near Gray’s hip area. He said this would normally cause a detainee to momentarily lose muscle control, but with Gray it had no effect.

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“He appeared to be completely immune to pain,” Spencer testified.

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He was also trying to squeeze the muscle between his forearms “to get pain compliance.”