A woman on the Mistawasis First Nation says she has a pretty good idea of what an upcoming inquest into her son’s death is going say.
But Sherry Bird says she’s still hopeful it will give the family some closure.
On July 2nd of 2010 she gave her son, 19 year-old Brandon Daniels, some money to go to Saskatoon and buy a suit for his brother’s wedding.
However he went missing and the family couldn’t find him.
She later learned he had gotten lost in the city and wound up outside a movie theater where he got sick to his stomach.
Bird says her son wasn’t on his regular medication and had taken some acetaminophen.
She believes officers mistook his behavior for someone who was intoxicated.
She insists Brandon never drank:
“They said he was drunk. They kept telling us that was the reason. So then we finally got the autopsy report and the toxicology report and everything back…and no drugs, no alcohol but I knew that.”
Daniels was taken to a Saskatoon holding cell where he later died.
She says Brandon was actually trying to convince other youth on the reserve to stay away from drugs and alcohol.
Bird says the past three years have been ones of pain and heartache for her entire family.
She says she’s not sure what she hopes the inquest brings them but she wants to be able to grieve Brandon’s death properly.
The inquest begins on October 28th in Saskatoon.