A Winnipeg family may finally get some answers about what happened in the police-shooting death of a First Nations man.

Manitoba's chief medical examiner has just called an inquest into the death of Craig Vincent McDougall.

The 26-year-old man was shot in August 2008 by officers who responded to a disturbance call at a house on Simcoe Street, in the city's West End. Police said he refused repeated demands to drop a knife.

Officers tried zapping him with a Taser stun gun but that failed to subdue him so they had to resort to a gun, police spokeswoman Const. Jacqueline Chaput said at the time.

Family members, however, have refuted that claim, saying police had been called to deal with a fight between two young women.

McDougall had just arrived home and was talking on a cellphone to his girlfriend as the situation unfolded, family said at the time.

He posed no danger to police because he had been on one side of a metre-high fence, while the officers were on the other, they added.