![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792201691_680_indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\nSpencer is among seven Vancouver officers under investigation by British Columbia\u2019s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which called the hearing over whether they committed misconduct during the confrontation that ended with Gray\u2019s death or neglected their duties by failing to take notes in the immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
They have all denied wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Spencer, testifying for a second day, said Gray was the strongest man he had ever encountered in 15 years of policing, and the incident was \u201cbiggest moment\u201d of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very traumatizing to me,\u201d he said, adding that when he now saw someone who looked like Gray it would \u201cbring me back to that moment \u2026 it constantly stays with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spencer said his involvement began while he and his partner were having ice cream at a Dairy Queen, when they heard an \u201cunnerving\u201d call for assistance from a colleague who encountered Gray on a residential street in Burnaby, near the Vancouver boundary.<\/p>\n
The hearing was told earlier that Const. Hardeep Sahota had retreated to her vehicle, away from Gray, when she radioed for help.<\/p>\n
Spencer said he knew Sahota and her tone of voice on the call raised immediate concern, while an \u201canimalistic roar\u201d he later heard as he and his partner headed to the scene was like nothing he had ever heard on a police radio.<\/p>\n
Spencer, whose lawyer said he was over six feet tall and weighed more than 90 kilograms, or about 200 pounds, said that when he arrived he found other officers who appeared to be \u201cexhausted\u201d as they struggled to subdue Gray.<\/p>\n
Spencer testified that for the first time in his career he felt physically unable to restrain someone as he and another officer, Const. Joshua Wong, tried unsuccessfully to get Gray\u2019s arm behind his back to apply handcuffs and make sure he did not have a weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI needed to up my level of force,\u201d Spencer said. He recalled delivering three or four \u201cclosed-fist strikes\u201d as hard as he could to Gray\u2019s right shoulder while pulling on the man\u2019s wrist with his other hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach time there was nothing \u2026 (his arm) was not moving at all which was incredibly concerning for me,\u201d Spencer said, given his and Wong\u2019s size and strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the strongest man I\u2019d dealt with at that point and the strongest man I\u2019ve dealt with\u201d in 15 years of policing, he said.<\/p>\n
Spencer said he held onto Gray\u2019s arm \u201cwith all my might.\u201d<\/p>\n
No charges have been laid over Gray\u2019s death, which a 2023 coroner\u2019s inquest ruled was a homicide, a term that does not assign legal blame.<\/p>\n
The commissioner\u2019s notice of public hearing said an earlier disciplinary process had dismissed misconduct allegations, but the discipline authority found the process \u201cstrangely lopsided\u201d and had to decide the case despite \u201cdiscrepancies and inconsistencies in statements made by (Vancouver Police Department) members.\u201d <\/p>\n
The earlier inquest heard Gray was left with injuries that included a fractured eye socket, crushed voice box and ruptured testicles, while a paramedic said Gray\u2019s bruising was so severe, he initially thought Gray was not a white man.<\/p>\n
Spencer told the hearing on Friday that Gray passed out, but when he came to he exhibited a \u201ccrazy change of behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked at me and said \u2018what\u2019s going on,’\u201d Spencer said, adding the moment of apparent lucidity from Gray gave the officer an immediate sense of relief.<\/p>\n
Spencer recalled telling Gray he had been involved in a fight with officers and an ambulance was on the way. Gray was like someone in \u201cthe dead of sleep\u201d who had woken up and said \u201cwhere am I,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But the moment only lasted seconds, before Gray went into a \u201crage\u201d again, throwing the officer onto his back and \u201cmanhandling\u201d him despite the officer\u2019s larger stature, Spencer said.<\/p>\n
When Gray fell unconscious a second time \u201che went from pure strength, pure power, to no flex in his muscles,\u201d and going limp, Spencer said. <\/p>\n
That was when Spencer said he stepped back from the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not a person I believed could help in a medical sense,\u201d thinking he would be in the way, he said.<\/p>\n
Gray died at the scene, which was by then attended by paramedics and firefighters.<\/p>\n
Spencer said he was in a state of \u201cshock or disbelief\u201d at what had occurred, as officers involved in the arrest were called to meet at Vancouver police headquarters on Cambie Street that day.<\/p>\n
There, he said he found out he was under investigation by B.C.\u2019s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, and the officers met union representatives.<\/p>\n
A moment \u201csoaked in\u201d when one or more union representatives told him \u201cdon\u2019t write anything down, don\u2019t write notes, we will tell you when to write something,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was odd,\u201d Spencer said, although he believed it made sense in the context of not having legal representation.<\/p>\n
He later wrote a statement on his personal laptop before it was entered into the police data system Prime around March 2016. He said he did not consult other officers.<\/p>\n
The ongoing public hearing started in January but has experienced repeated delays.<\/p>\n
Const. Eric Birzneck was the first of the seven officers to testify earlier this week. <\/p>\n
He likened Gray\u2019s strength to \u201cthe Hulk\u201d and said the man appeared \u201cimpervious to pain\u201d as police tried to subdue him.<\/p>\n
Adjudicator Elizabeth Arnold-Bailey has adjourned the hearing until Nov. 16.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2026.<\/p>\n
Canadian Press Staff, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spencer is among seven Vancouver officers under investigation by British Columbia\u2019s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,2465,2466,82,55],"class_list":["post-935858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-breaking-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-sports","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}