The family lawyer of the Christchurch-born man who was shot dead by US police after calling for help says police falsely represented the series of events that led to his death.
Christian Glass, 22, was tasered and shot five times by US police after he found himself stuck on a small pile of rocks in June.
Lawyer for his family Qusair Mohamedbhai told AM on Monday Glass was having a mental health crisis when he was shot.
"He was calling for help, he was requesting law enforcement to take him to a hospital, he was asking for his car to be pushed out."
Mohamedbhai said most importantly Glass told police how scared he was after crashing his car in the middle of the night in a rural area.
On the night of Glass' death, he called 911 and disclosed he had weapons inside the vehicle but said he would throw them out the window once officers arrived.
Glass was an amateur geologist and the weapons he had included rock knives, which Mohamedbhai said aren't against the law.
"It's really important to emphasise that having knives, and very small knives in your vehicle is not unlawful, it's not a crime," he said.
"This is not any type of legal justification to shoot and kill somebody who is very safe and contained in their vehicle."
He said Glass' family has been "forced" to hire lawyers to investigate their son's death.
"They were living with this very dishonest and false sort of presentation that had been put out in a press release by these police officers basically blaming Christian for everything."
He said the false representation police were giving created a "cloud" over Glass' funeral's in the UK and Aotearoa.
Glass' family has also reached out to the US Government and met with their district attorney in a bid to have the police officers involved charged.
Mohamedbhai said the family are hopeful those involved will be charged.
