The mother of an Irish man shot dead by a police officer in the US state of Oregon has said her son was unarmed at the time of the killing.
Dorothea Hanlon was speaking on RTE's Livelinethis afternoon.
Andrew Hanlon (20), who is believed to be from Dublin, was shot by a police officer responding to a call about a burglary in the small town of Silverton on Monday night. He died at the scene.
Witnesses reported hearing five or six shots.
Ms Hanlon said she was getting no information from US police, accusing them of closing ranks.
“We are getting no information whatsoever from the States, either from the police or the DA’s office. No-one will speak to me, no-one will tell me anything,” she said.
“A US reporter has said no weapons were found at the scene and the indication that something is wrong is the fact that they will not release any information whatsoever. They are closing ranks on us. All the signs are pointing to an unlawful killing.”
Ms Hanlon said her son was on his way to his sister’s house when the shooting happened.
“The spot where he was shot is a few 100 yards from my daughter’s house. He had called from a friend’s house to tell her he was on the way to visit her. He never arrived,” she said.
The officer involved, who has been on the force since 2006, has since been placed on paid administrative leave. Ms Hanlon said an outside agency was being brought in to conduct an investigation into the shooting.
“Silverton is a very small place with only 20 police offIcers so they can’t do an internal investigation themselves,” she said.
She claimed she was being left completely “out of the loop” and was “finding things out” through the media.
“I want a copy of his autopsy. But I will probably need legal representation in the States to do so. I don’t know how to go about doing this.”
She said the Department of Foreign Affairs had not provided her with any direction. “No-one is taking us into consideration. We are being left aside. It’s like we’re invisible.”
“I cannot believe I will never see my son again,” she said.
Earlier Deputy District Attorney Doug Hanson declined to say whether Mr Hanlon was armed or give further details of the incident, citing a pending investigation.
Mr Hanlon had been visiting his sister Melanie Heise in Silverton, which has a population of around 7,000. He arrived in the US last summer and was staying on illegally after his visa expired.
Ms Heise said this morning her brother was suffering from bouts of paranoia and delusion in recent months. She said arrangements were being made to send him home to Dublin to receive treatment.
“He definitely thought about going back to Ireland in the very beginning but I think he was just so afraid to go back. Everything had become so familiar and everybody he loved and knew and all his best friends were here," Ms Heise told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
"A bunch of different people saw him just before it happened and he seemed fine," she added. However, she doubted he would have been carrying a gun at the time he was shot. "He’s not that kind of kid," she said.
Around 100 people held a protest in Silverton yesterday over the shooting.
"There's an awful lot of anger," Ms Heise said. “It’s a quiet environment and people are appalled because they want to know why there was such excessive force used. They are wanting to know why there wasn’t Taser used, which police officers have available to them here, instead of a gun."
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said it is working closely with Mr Hanlon’s family, both in Ireland and the US. Assistance is being provided to the family through the Honorary Consul in San Francisco.
“We are also liaising with the District Attorney’s office in Oregon and understand an internal investigation is ongoing, which may take some time. The Department will keep the family informed of any developments,” she said.