Though the emotions in the room were thick on Tuesday at the James Smith Cree Nation inquest, that didn’t prevent lawyers or jurors from questioning the first witness.

Keith Brown is the co-counsel representing the James Smith Cree Nation.

He said the questions from the room aimed to fill in some information gaps from RCMP Staff Sergeant Robin Zentner’s presentation on Monday and Tuesday.

Brown asked Zentner about Myles Sanderson being unlawfully at large and the officers who unknowingly saw and questioned Damien Sanderson hours before the rampage began.

One juror also asked about Damien’s interaction with the police that day.

People comfort each other during a lunch break at the public coroner’s inquest into the mass stabbings that happened on James Smith Cree Nation in 2022 in Melfort, Sask., Tuesday, January 16, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

However, Zentner deferred some of those questions to upcoming witnesses with more first-hand knowledge.

“He is a bit of higher-level witness. He provides the kind of thousand-foot view of what was happening from the perspective of a homicide investigator,” said Brown of Zentner at the end of the day.

“We are going to be hearing from a more detailed witness in the days to come that were the boots on the ground, so to speak, in terms of the first officers on the scene, the people that were entering houses and things like that.”

“I think that will really be something to look for (Wednesday), what those specific officers that were on the scene have to say about what steps they took to attempt to identify Damien, who, of course, had given them a fake name that day,” he explained.

Brown added that self-administered policing for first nations will be a theme to his future questions.

More witnesses from the RCMP will present evidence Wednesday.