The common-law wife of Chase McKay told a coroner's jury looking into the Saskatchewan man's death that she and McKay had a drunken quarrel shortly before police arrived and fatally shot the 21-year-old.

McKay was shot by an RCMP officer on June 14, 2008, on the White Bear First Nation.

Arissa Shepard testified that in the hours before the shooting, she and McKay had been attending some parties.

Just after 5 a.m., they went to go pick up their infant daughter from a babysitter and go home.

Shepard said McKay had consumed a lot of alcohol, and they started to argue. When they got home, Shepard didn't want to talk anymore, but McKay was upset, and the argument escalated.

They started shouting, and McKay shoved her, Shepard said.

He wasn't acting like his normal self, she said. Continuing her testimony, she said she told her cousin to phone the police and then took her daughter upstairs.

After that, she packed a bag for her husband and threw it into the yard.

She said McKay threatened to hurt himself, and she saw blood on his neck.

When police arrived, they told Shepard to wait in the police truck. A short time later, McKay was dead.

On Monday, Const. Glenn Walter testified he and his partner Const. Chris Hanson ran after McKay. Walter said he saw McKay facing Hanson and holding a knife.

Walter testified that Hanson repeatedly told McKay to drop the knife. When he didn't, Hanson fired two shots.

McKay was also known as Chase Standingready. The full name provided at the inquest was Kenneth Chase Wilfred Standingready-McKay.

The inquest into McKay's death, which began Monday, is scheduled to last five days and is taking place at the town hall in Carlyle.