The family of Raymond Silverfox is not satisfied with the results of a coroner's inquest into the 43-year-old man's death.

They want a Yukon Supreme Court judge to take a second look at the evidence and the decision which flowed from it.

"I think it's unbelievable,” Susan Roothman, the family's lawyer, said today of the jury's conclusion Silverfox died of natural causes on the evening of Dec. 2, 2008.

"No reasonable jury would have made a decision like this in light of the circumstances.”

The family is looking at requesting a judicial review of the jury's decision, she told the Star.

"At least what we were looking at is unnatural and accidental, so at least then you give some indication that there were other factors involved,” Roothman said.

She was referring to the fact the jury members were given the option to label Silverfox's death natural or unnatural. Had they found it to be unnatural, they would have then decided if Silverfox's death was accidental, suicide or homicide.

"I think in the family's opinion, it was homicide,” Roothman added.

In a coroner's inquest, a ruling of homicide does not lay blame on anyone, but it is a recognition the person died at the hands of another.

Over seven days of testimony, the six-person coroner's jury learned that Silverfox, a member of the Little Salmon-Carmacks First Nation, died after spending 13 hours violently vomiting in the cells of the Whitehorse RCMP detachment.

He had been brought there after staff at the Salvation Army shelter called the ambulance because Silverfox was throwing up on the floor of the shelter's dining room and could not get to the toilet, or even use a bucket provided for him.

When the paramedics arrived, Silverfox indicated he did not wish to go to Whitehorse General Hospital, so the police were called to take him to the so-called "drunk tank”.

According to evidence given at the inquest, Silverfox was not a regular drinker, but had been binge-drinking for about six months before his death.

Once in police custody, Silverfox continued to be sick, throwing up 26 times in the 13 hours he was in RCMP care.

Silverfox was never offered clean clothes nor moved to a cell that was not covered in vomit, as RCMP policy requires. Instead, he was left to lay in the filth covering his cell floor.

The one communication he had with an officer after his arrest was to ask for a mat to lay on. The officer responded: "You can sleep in your own shit,” while the other guards and RCMP members present laughed.

Another officer was recorded as saying, "Poopy, poopy, McPoopy,” when he looked in Silverfox's filthy cell, but in his testimony, denied the comment.

It was not until the watch commander came down to the cells to do her end-of-shift check that someone called for an ambulance.

By that time, Silverfox was not breathing and had no pulse.

"He essentially died in the cell,” said pathologist Dr. Charles Lee.

Silverfox was killed by a fast-acting blood and lung infection likely caused by inhaling his own vomit, Lee told the jury.

"I've dealt with things like this under apartheid in Africa where there is a complete indifference to the people police are dealing with,” Roothman said of the case.

"... I'm not saying it's racism as such, it's almost a culture of indifference in the RCMP .... It almost comes down to mob behaviour, when one person is starting, everyone else is just joining in and no one has the common sense to realize something is wrong there.”

The jury made four recommendations:

• Firstly, that the RCMP "establish a community consultative group which will include first nations, medical community, Yukon government and Salvation Army (to) review the issue of public intoxication and provide possible alternatives to incarceration and speak to the medical care of intoxicated persons in the Yukon”;

• Secondly, for the RCMP "to ensure regular joint health and safety committee meetings are held monthly and include a guard representative”;

• Third, that the RCMP increase the number of guards in cells; and

• Fourth, that the company which contracts guards to the RCMP review guards' compensation and training requirements.

The jury deliberated for just over three hours before returning with their decision late Friday evening.

Neither the RCMP nor the commissionaires had any comment on the recommendations before press time this afternoon.