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Mother of K.I. man who died in Thunder Bay wants answers

Roland McKay died while in police custody
Police station
tbnewswatch file photograph

THUNDER BAY -- The mother of Marlon Jerry McKay is still waiting to hear what caused him to die in police custody last week.

The 50-year-old resident of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, known to family and friends as Roland, died after he was lodged in a cell at the Thunder Bay Police Service headquarters on the night of July 19.

Sarah Jane McKay learned of his passing in a phone call from a doctor at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, according to a news release issued Tuesday by K.I. leadership which quotes her as saying "I want to see the report on my son's death...I want to know how my son died."

The incident remains under investigation by the province's Special Investigations Unit.

In a statement last week, the SIU said Thunder Bay Police and paramedics had been called to an address on Fort William Road to deal with an individual, and paramedics medically cleared the man before he was taken to the Balmoral Street police station.

In the news release, Chief James Cutfeet describes McKay as having gone into "medical distress" before being declared medically fit on-site and being handed off to the police by paramedics. McKay was found not breathing and unresponsive in his cell around midnight.

Cutfeet said a post-mortem was conducted in Toronto but the cause of death "is still undetermined."

The chief also noted that McKay had travelled to Thunder Bay for a medical appointment. 

McKay is the second member of K.I. to die in the city while accessing medical services in the last two months after the body of 14-year-old Josiah Begg was found in the McIntyre River on May 19 nearly two weeks after he was reportedly last seen.





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