Las Vegas NowMother Accuses Metro of Murdering her Son

Mother Accuses Metro of Murdering her Son

LAS VEGAS, Nv -- Fifteen-year-old Tanner Chamberlain was a junior at Chaparral High School. He was an honor student and took part in poetry and drama clubs. But his mother says her son suffered from bi-polar disorder and was having an episode during Tuesday's confrontation with police.

Pictures of Tanner are all Evie Oquendo has to remember her son. He loved theatre and politics, but Oquendo says her son struggled with bi-polar disorder. "He refused to take medication because he didn't want it to alter his creativity because he was into poetry and writing," she said.

She says her son had an episode on Tuesday afternoon after she refused to let him go out with a friend. Chamberlain became physically violent. "He was choking me, punched me in the face and did pull my hair. He was just threatening me and then he just started busting the TV and computers and slicing up pictures," she said.

Family members out of state called 911 for help. Meanwhile, Oquendo says her son took several anti-anxiety pills and calmed down. She says they headed outside for a walk when her son heard the police cars. She says out of fear for his life, he grabbed her and stuck a knife to her throat thinking police would not open fire if he was holding his mom.

But police say Chamberlain was making threats and an officer fired. "They said, ‘Drop your weapon,' and they said it once. They did not try to talk or negotiate and I said, ‘Please don't shoot him,' and the next thing I heard was a gunshot. And they aimed to kill because they shot him in the left temple," she said. "Did they have to aim for his head? Couldn't they have shot at his leg? Shot at his arm?"

Oquendo says she doesn't know where to go from here. The one thing that mattered is gone.

Requests for more information on the case from Metro Police were declined.