It’s been nearly four months since 19-year-old Zachary Anam fatally shot himself while handcuffed in the back of a police car in downtown Austin. But his parents said they don’t understand why investigators still haven’t spoken to them since the shooting or explained how he had a gun on him in the first place.

On the day of the Jan. 8 shooting, Zachary’s father, Sayeed Anam, said he first found out that something had happened to his son at 4 p.m.

"I got this call from Brackenridge saying, ‘Zachary Anam is in the ICU, and we need to have family over. We’re sorry,’" he told the American-Statesman. When Sayeed Anam pressed the caller for more information, he was simply told that he and his family needed to come to the hospital.

"It just shattered my whole life right there," he said.

The incident is still under investigation, but the officers involved are back on duty. Interim Police Chief Brian Manley called Anam’s parents last week and offered his condolences, but their only other contact with investigators was when a detective questioned them at University Medical Center Brackenridge as Anam was dying in the emergency room.

Only a few hours earlier, at Barton Creek Square mall in Southwest Austin, Macy’s employees had summoned Austin police to pick up Anam, who they suspected was shoplifting, officials have said.

Anam’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he was placed into the back seat of a police car driven by officer Iven Wall.

As the two headed to police headquarters downtown, Anam told Wall he was suicidal. They were nearing Fifth and Lavaca streets when Anam retrieved a Glock semi-automatic pistol from the back of his waistband and brought the gun to his head by bringing his cuffed hands around to the right side of his body, Manley has said.

Wall radioed to dispatchers that Anam had a gun, pulled over and got out of the car, Manley said. Anam pulled the trigger five minutes after he first produced it, he said.

Manley said the in-car camera captured all of this on video, but it hasn’t yet been released to the public or to the family.

"Maybe he was in a bad place, but he deserved to be protected," Sayeed Anam said.

Zachary Anam had experienced some run-ins with the law before — all of them recent enough that his cases were still pending in court. Zachary Anam and three others were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity last year after a rash of vehicle and residential burglaries in Southwest Austin in the spring of 2016. He also faced an earlier charge of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon after police said he robbed a man during a handgun purchase in February 2016.

"You’re in custody, you’re in a police car. It’s supposed to be safe," Sayeed Anam said. "I don’t know what happened there. Is there a training issue? We don’t know."

Police have yet to confirm whether the Macy’s personnel or Austin officers frisked Anam. But sources familiar with the investigation have told the Statesman that Wall didn’t conduct a thorough pat-down of Anam because he had already been handcuffed by mall security.

Macy’s didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.

‘Ball was dropped, my son is dead’

Austin Police Department policy is straightforward on this matter: Officers must frisk people before they’re placed in a police vehicle to ensure they’re not armed. This applies even if mall employees searched the person beforehand.

"A young man took his life because he was in possession of a weapon in the back seat of our car," Manley said in a Statesman interview last week. "This is tragic he took his life, and we’re fortunate no other life was lost that day, had he been so inclined."

The Statesman has reported that police and deputies have missed a reported 46 weapons in the past four years. Most of those weapons were knives, and only one of them was a gun.

"Obviously, if he searched (Anam), it appears not to have been an adequate search," Manley said.

His parents said they don’t understand how something so basic — finding a gun on a teenager before he’s placed in the back of a police car — was botched, especially considering that both mall personnel and police were supposed to have searched Zachary Anam.

"I’m not a police officer, but that’s the first thing that everybody always does," said Cara Anam, Zachary’s mother and Sayeed’s wife. "Two times, they could have found (a gun). … In two places, the ball was dropped, and in the end my son is dead."

Austin police officials have said the criminal investigation is over but an internal investigation is pending. Wall and officer John Ricker, who had been following Wall and Anam from the mall, have already returned to duty, police said.

SEE ALSO: Parents of teen who died in police custody testify for change in law

"We do take as much time as needed to feel comfortable that … from a legal perspective, we feel like we’re OK to put the officer back in the field at that point," Manley said.

Suicides committed while in Austin police custody are rare. According to the Custodial Death Report database, which the state attorney general’s office launched last year, at least 13 people have committed suicide while in Austin police custody since 1991. The majority of those involved incidents in which a person wasn’t yet under police control or detained, and was armed, such as in a standoff with officers.

None of those Austin police custodial suicides listed in the database, except for Anam’s, happened in a police car or while handcuffed.

The day the Statesman sat down with Manley last week to discuss Anam’s death, Manley said he had called Sayeed Anam to set up a conversation with him. The two have since spoken, but Manley told Sayeed Anam he couldn’t share details that were still under investigation, the father said.

"That conversation should have taken place months ago," said Jeff Edwards, the Anams’ attorney. The Anams plan to eventually file a lawsuit in this matter, he said.

Edwards said he is also unhappy with the little information that police have shared with the Anam family. Edwards argued that if Anam had been shot by an officer, for example, police would only have 45 days to complete the investigation.

"It’s the same as saying ‘no comment,’" Edwards said. "At some point, Chief Manley has to step up."

The Anams said it’s upsetting that they can only follow the investigation through local media reports.

"We have no answers. … We just don’t know what happened, other than what’s being reported in the news," Cara Anam said.

Legislation is moving through the Texas Capitol that would require law enforcement agencies to release investigative documents in cases in which the suspect died. But House Bill 3234, which was left pending in the Committee on Government Transparency and Operation on Monday, likely wouldn’t help families like the Anams because the investigation into their son’s death isn’t over.

‘Is he alive? I need to see him’

Late in the afternoon of Jan. 8, Sayeed Anam called his wife and his daughter and planned to meet them at UMC Brackenridge. But Sayeed found himself paralyzed in front of the hospital, scared to go in, he said. He stood outside the emergency room until his family arrived.

Officers inside told the family to sit in a waiting room, where they waited for almost two hours before they saw Zachary, Sayeed Anam said. Nobody would talk to them about what happened, he said. Cara Anam frantically looked up local Austin news on her phone, and they started to dread that the person who had reportedly shot himself in the back of a police car was their son.

At that point, it had been five hours since the shooting.

A detective took Cara Anam into a waiting room and told her she couldn’t see her son until she answered some questions.

"I didn’t understand," she said. "I’m just like, ‘Is he alive? I need to see him.’"

Eventually the family was allowed to see Zachary, and Sayeed Anam said seeing his son lying in the hospital bed was "devastating." Cara Anam said that her "world ended, to see him there."

Zachary died the next day, but his donated organs have saved four people, his parents said.

Their attorney has sought details from police, but officials have asked the Texas attorney general’s office to keep them under wraps while the investigation is still ongoing.

"I still, to this day, have to follow it on the news, and now I feel like he’s just fading away," Cara Anam said.

Manley said the department’s civilian Victims Services counselors — who did reach out to the family the day of the shooting — are available to the Anams any time. But the Anams say they want to hear from investigators who can share details about the case.

"I have a great respect for the police," Cara Anam said. "But I’m just shocked at how cold they can be to us."

Cara Anam said if she could go back and talk to Zachary before his death, she would tell him "there is nothing in this world that is so bad that you would ever have to resort to this. Everything’s going to be better the next day."