HALIFAX - Interviews gathered by a Nova Scotia native band about the fatal RCMP shooting of a Cape Breton fisherman shows an investigation by Halifax police missed key evidence in the case, the band's lawyer said Thursday.

Gary Richard, a lawyer for the Wagmatcook First Nation, provided transcripts of the interviews to the Commission for Public Complaints About the RCMP, saying they provide information the Halifax police passed over.

"The investigation that led to critical decisions on whether charges would be laid, or disciplinary action taken, was incomplete and even in some respects indifferent," Richard said during a news conference where he unveiled the thick binder of transcripts.

The submission included full transcripts and summaries of interviews conducted by the band's private investigator -- former RCMP investigator Robert Martell -- about the shooting of John Simon by Const. Jeremy Frenette in December 2008.

The RCMP and Halifax police declined to comment on the material handed over to the complaints commission by the band.

Frenette was responding to a suicide call and entered Simon's home on the Wagmatcook First Nation through a window before shooting him three times.

The Halifax police report into the matter exonerated Frenette of criminal wrongdoing, concluding Simon had threatened the officer with a rifle. However, it has also criticized Frenette for failing to obey his superior's orders to stay out of Simon's residence.

The report by the Halifax police concluded Frenette shot Simon in self-defence. The report quoted Frenette as saying, "I felt he was gonna shoot me."

One summary of an interview released Thursday by the band with Charles (Chuck) Googoo says he saw Frenette pepper-spray Simon in a late-night encounter months before the fatal shooting.

Martell said Googoo called police to tell them Simon's truck was stuck late at night in the winter of 2008. The document says the truck's tires were spinning and that Simon had "passed out at the wheel."

Googoo told the investigator that Frenette and Simon struggled after Frenette arrived on the scene and asked Simon to come out of the truck.

"Frenette takes out pepper spray and sprays John," says the summary.

A transcript from Simon's wife, Patsy MacKay, also says Simon was pepper-sprayed by an RCMP officer about 10 months before the Dec. 2, 2008, shooting. However, she was not certain of Frenette's identity in her transcript.

RCMP declined to comment on whether the incident was included in the report by Halifax police, and said it is inappropriate to comment on evidence while the commission is investigating the matter.

Richard also said that a medical first responder from the reserve was among the first on the scene after Simon was shot, and that she told band investigators that she didn't see a rifle anywhere near Simon as he lay bleeding on the floor.

The lawyer says that observation should have been in the report.

"I was looking for a gun ... and I didn't see no gun anywhere at all," Elizabeth Googoo said in the transcript.

Googoo confirmed in a telephone interview that she made that statement, and also said she felt that the RCMP officers who interviewed her overemphasized that she had dated Simon 20 years ago.

However, Googoo also said it was possible the gun had already been removed from the scene.

The Halifax police report says two Lee Enfield rifles belonging to Simon were seized and that one of them had damage to its wooden stock "consistent with having been caused by a perforating impact from a bullet travelling from the right side to the left side of the rifle."

Kevin Brosseau, director of operations for the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, met with representatives from the band in Halifax on Thursday and said he'll consider their evidence.

"We'll want to get a look at all information that's relevant to this incident. Background could be relevant, it could be helpful. I'll have to look at their submissions," he said.

"I've just been handed a number of documents. I've yet to look at them. ... I'll consider them and I'll be able to report on that later on."

Brosseau's report will be submitted to the commissioner of the RCMP and the federal minister of public safety. Its recommendations are not binding.

Nova Scotia's justice minister also rejected a claim by the band on Thursday that he won't call a public inquiry into the shooting because he is a former Mountie.

The band's submission to the commission argues Ross Landry is biased given his background.

Landry said he doesn't see a conflict because his employment before he was elected is "in the past."