College student fatally shot by Pennsylvania police was at 'the wrong house': Mother
Glenwood "Bubba" Pysher "was the kindest, sweetest person," his mother said.
A college student was fatally shot by a Pennsylvania police officer early Sunday after apparently ringing the doorbell of a residence he mistakenly thought was his friend's house, the man's parents told ABC News.
Glenwood "Bubba" Pysher, 22, was killed around 12:30 a.m. ET on Sunday when an Upper Pottsgrove Township police officer encountered him on the back porch of the home, his parents said they were told by their son's friends.
Pysher's mother, Erin Pysher, told ABC News on Tuesday that before the shooting, her son had been out bar-hopping with a group celebrating a friend's 21st birthday.
The mother said that when the group decided to move the celebration to a friend's house, her son walked to what he wrongly thought was the correct address.
"He was walking down the road to what he thought was his friend's house. And after some drinks, he ended up walking in the dark at night. I guess he got mixed up, and he made a wrong turn and went to the wrong house," Erin Pysher said in a phone interview with ABC News.
She said her son was a student at Saint Elizabeth University in Morris Township, New Jersey, and was expected to begin the new school year this past Monday.
An Upper Pottsgrove Township police spokesperson referred all questions about the shooting to the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele announced in a social media statement that his office is investigating the shooting, but released few details on the circumstances surrounding the incident.
"Upper Pottsgrove Township Police responded to a 911 call for a possible attempted break-in at a residence on Snyder Road. The police arrived to find a male, Glenwood Pysher IV, in the rear of the residence. An encounter ensued and police fired at Pysher, fatally striking him," Steele said.
In keeping with protocol for officer-involved shootings in Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Detective Bureau is leading the investigation, Steele said.
Surveillance cameras in the backyard of the home where the shooting occurred recorded the deadly encounter, and the footage is being reviewed as part of the investigation, sources told ABC Philadelphia station WPVI.
Erin Pysher told ABC News that police have shared very little about the shooting with her and her husband, Glenwood Pysher Sr.
The couple said they have tried to piece together what happened to their son by speaking with the friends he was out celebrating with.
She said some of the information they have gleaned came from the call log of her son's cell phone, which her daughter had access to.
"We have that he was on his phone from 12:32 a.m. to 12:33 talking to his friends. I believe that by 12:35, the dispatch had already come in saying there was a shooting," Erin Pysher said.
Erin Pysher said that it appears that when her unarmed son arrived at the house, he rang the doorbell, went to the back of the house and knocked again, and yelled for his friends to let him in.
She said that when no one answered the door, her son called his friends and even sent them a video of his location.
The friends told her son that he was at the wrong address and they would drive over to pick him up, according to Erin Pysher.
"His friends were on the way to pick him up when the cops, they said, went flying by them," Erin Pysher said.
She said two officers arrived at her house around 2 a.m., asking if a Glenwood Pysher lived there. She said she went upstairs to wake up her husband, thinking they were looking for him.
"When I was coming back down the stairs, that's when I saw that the guy had the word homicide on his shirt. And I looked at him, and I'm like ... I kind of knew at that point because everyone but my son was accounted for," Erin Pysher said. "So, I looked at him, and I said, 'Is it Glenwood?' And they told me he was shot twice by an Upper Pottsgrove police officer and killed."
She described her son as a "fun-loving kid" who "loved to hang out with his friends," and enjoyed playing and watching baseball.
She said he was in his senior year in college and was studying to be a history teacher.
She and her husband told ABC News that, except for a speeding ticket he received when he was 16, their son had never been in trouble with the law.
"He was lovable," Erin Pysher said. "He was the kindest, sweetest person."
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