THE GOVERNMENT has expressed "deep concern" about the fatal shooting by an Oregon police officer of a young Irish man whose friends and family say he was unarmed.
Andrew Hanlon (20) died early on Tuesday after police in the small town of Silverton opened fire on him following a reported burglary.
Authorities have released few details pending the outcome of an investigation, but the police officer who fired the shots has been put on paid administrative leave.
Ireland's consul general in San Francisco travelled to Silverton in the northwest Pacific state yesterday to meet Mr Hanlon's family and local officials.
"The consul general has emphasised the Government's interest and deep concern about the case in her contacts with the district attorney and the chief of police of Silverton.
"The Minister has asked to be kept fully informed of developments," the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Mr Hanlon moved to Silverton in July 2007 to stay with his sister Melanie and her husband, Nathan Heise, and remained in the US illegally after his tourist visa expired a few months later.
Mr Heise told The Irish Timesthat local authorities had given the family no details about Mr Hanlon's death beyond informing them that he was deceased.
"There's a lot of speculation and rumours so it's difficult to know what to believe," he said.
Describing his brother-in-law as "very social, just an all-round, warm-hearted kid", Mr Heise said Mr Hanlon, whom he called AJ, had shown signs of mental disturbance in recent months but added that he would be "absolutely shocked" to learn that the dead man had been carrying a weapon.
"This woman said that AJ had come up and pounded at her door and said 'let me in, let me in' and it freaked the woman out.
"If that is the case, it kind of makes sense to me because over the last couple of weeks, AJ had got this habit of calling up when he was in a disturbed state and he'd actually come up to us in the middle of the night saying 'let me in, let me in'.
"And if you look at the layout of the town here, it almost looks like he was on the way up to our place and might have been confused and thought it was our house and was banging on the door there," Mr Heise said.
"She called the cops and she called her boyfriend who was just up the street. He came up with his friends and AJ ran down the hill. The police were at the bottom of the hill already and apparently AJ tripped when he got to the bottom of the hill and the police officer said 'stay down, stay down'.
"That's from an eyewitness on the scene. And AJ started to stand up and that's when the police officer shot him numerous times. I don't know how many times he was hit."
Mr Heise said it was clear that the police officer had failed to follow standard procedures such as using a taser gun or mace spray before opening fire but he was sceptical about the investigation being conducted by a neighbouring police force.
"They call that an outside agency. But whether you can have a truly impartial investigation is really questionable," he said.
Earlier, Mr Hanlon's mother accused the US police of closing ranks to limit information about the killing.
"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," Dorothea Hanlon told RTÉ's Liveline.
"They are closing ranks on us. All the signs are pointing to an unlawful killing."