The people of Little Salmon-Carmacks want everyone in the Yukon to know that Raymond Silverfox deserves better than what he got.

"He was not a violent man," Chief Eddie Skookum told the Star this week of the 43-year-old Carmacks man who died in Whitehorse RCMP custody on Dec. 2.

"He was one of our better workers around here. I don't want people to think this was some drunk off the street."

Silverfox died at Whitehorse General Hospital 2 1/2 hours after being found unresponsive in his cell at the Whitehorse RCMP detachment.

He had been arrested that morning for disturbing the peace after ambulance attendants called the police for assistance at the Salvation Army shelter.

An autopsy has been done, but the Yukon's chief coroner has not yet determined how or why he died.

"Obviously, you can't stop people from drinking and you can't stop people from getting arrested," Skookum said, but what can be prevented is more people dying after being picked up by police.

To that end, Skookum and the Silverfox family want to see a public inquiry into the man's death.

"I don't think it's the right situation for police to be investigating police," the chief said of the investigation that

The fact it is being done by officers from outside the territory (British Columbia) gives him little comfort.

The family has questions they want answered. People in the community have done their own asking around, he said, and have come up with some troubling information.

"We want to look at the two cellmates who were next to him," he said.

"They were telling (the guard on duty) that 'Raymond needs help,' and he said, 'Don't waste my time.'"

Skookum said that as long as the police are the ones investigating, those men will be reluctant to come forward for fear of being targeted by the Whitehorse RCMP.

"Globally, during serious incidents, investigators immediately identify all potential witnesses," RCMP Sgt. Mark Groves said in response to that information.

"And in such cases that occur in cellblocks, we would certainly ask anyone in adjacent cells for their statements."

He would not say if the men Skookum referred to had been interviewed, or if they had, what evidence they gave.

"The RCMP has ethical standards: intergrity, honestly, professionalism compassion, respect and accountability, and those are the core values that the RCMP stand by and the officers work under," Groves said.

"If those are our core values, there would be no fear of coming forward in any case."

Skookum said the case of Arthur Joe, who was arrested and allegedly beaten up by police shortly after launching a complaint into his wife's death while in police custody, is an example of what others are afraid of.

He also wants to see police and other agencies implement the recommendations coming from coroners' inquests relating to other in-custody deaths.

After Madeleine Henry, Joe's wife, died while under arrest in 2000, a jury advised the RCMP, the Salvation Army, Yukon Alcohol and Drug Services, the Department of Health and Social Services and Whitehorse General Hospital to work more closely together to help addicted people who have regular run-ins with the law.

"There should be better communication between ambulance, RCMP and the Salvation Army," Skookum said.

Such a group was never formed.

"What is Alcohol and Drug Services doing in Whitehorse?" Skookum wanted to know.

"Are they open 24 hours, or is it just a nine-to-five job? There should have been a counsellor (at the detachment)."

There is a 24-hour detox centre run by Alcohol and Drug Services, "but that's for them to come to us, not for us to go to them," Health and Social Services spokeswoman Pat Living explained.

"We can advise counsellors to go to the cells, but only during business hours."

"It's just a farce really, the drug and alcohol services," Skookum said.

In the case of a person arrested on a minor offence related to drinking, the police or a counsellor should simply call the person's family, the chief said.

"A family member could have come to Whitehorse and picked Raymond up. He would be alive if someone had just brought him home."