A Torrance man shot to death by police after he set fire to his girlfriend’s apartment and mother’s house was a “stupid child” whose anger was fueled by alcohol, his dog’s death and court orders to stay away from his loved ones, his brother said.

Asa James Dolak, 19, was reportedly extremely drunk when he confronted his former girlfriend, Emily Barrett, with a knife early Thursday at the apartment he occasionally shared with her and their 2-year-old son in north Torrance. A friend might have given Dolak alcohol as a gift on Christmas, said his brother, Samuel Sanchez.

Dolak suffered from mental illness, including dramatic highs and lows, and took medication at times, Sanchez said in an interview Saturday.

“My mom said he was miswired since he was a little boy,” Sanchez said.

Police officers shot Dolak to death Thursday afternoon when they found him hiding in a girls restroom at Madrona Middle School across the street from his mother’s torched home. Police said Dolak was bloody and holding a knife.

About 12:15 that morning, Dolak attacked Barrett at her apartment at 167th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard, then set fire to it. Barrett escaped, pleading for someone to rescue her son. Firefighters raced into the flames to save the toddler, who suffered smoke inhalation.

In a phone call to his mother, Andrea Dolak, Dolak vowed she was next. He threatened to kill police officers and then set her house on Opal Street ablaze about 2:30 a.m.

Dolak ran when police officers discovered him in the bathroom. He was shot on the school’s athletic field near a baseball backstop. Neighbors heard six to 10 shots.

An autopsy report has not been completed, but Sanchez said a construction worker who witnessed the shooting told his mother and sister-in-law that his brother did not confront the officers.

“He kept using the words, ‘They gunned him down. They gunned him down,’ ” Sanchez said. “He said my brother was not trying to confront them. He said he was running away.”

Photographs taken by a Daily Breeze photographer showed Dolak lying face down, although it was unclear if police moved him when they handcuffed him after he collapsed from his wounds.

Sanchez on Saturday wrote a letter he wanted published in the Daily Breeze, saying he wanted his words to shame “the officers who killed my little brother.”

“I forgive you for shooting my little brother as he fled from you,” he wrote. “I forgive you for calling it a shoot-out. I forgive you for taking the life of a young, tormented child whom you knew to be disadvantaged. I forgive you for unloading your magazine into the back of the boy for whom I used to pour cereal. I understand why you had to finish the job to protect your brothers in blue. I forgive you for taking my little brother before I could tell him how I loved him.

“To my little brother: I am sorry. I will always love you Asa.”

Sanchez said in an interview that his brother always struggled with anger. Dolak suffered from highs and lows, but might not ever have been officially diagnosed with a mental illness. Following one arrest, the conditions for bail included a requirement that he take medication, his brother said.

Barrett became pregnant with Dolak’s son while she was a senior at North High School in Torrance. Dolak went to Shery High School, a continuation school in Torrance.

Barrett had lived with her family, but the couple eventually moved into the Crenshaw Boulevard apartment complex owned by Dolak’s mother.

Los Angeles County court records revealed the couple had a rocky relationship. Dolak was arrested in October 2012 on suspicion of spousal abuse, though the charges were dropped. Barrett eventually told Dolak to move out.

“It was his instability,” Sanchez said. “I think Asa was angry at that fact that my mom was helping her and kicking him out.”

Court records showed Dolak’s mother and girlfriend each filed for restraining orders to keep him away from them. Sanchez said that even he filed for a restraining order against his brother.

The tipping point, Sanchez said, came Dec. 20, the day Barrett went to Torrance court and filed for a temporary restraining order against Dolak that she hoped to make permanent. In her application, which was granted, Barrett described for a judge how Dolak had threatened to kill her for months.

“Asa Dolak came into my bedroom making threats to ‘put me in a grave’ if I did not let him stay at my apartment,” she wrote of a confrontation Dec. 19. “He also threw multiple objects around my apartment out of anger. I had to leave my apartment for the night because I was afraid for my son’s and my safety.”

Barrett wrote that Dolak had punched her on previous occasions, overturned furniture and threatened to destroy her life.

Commissioner John Slawson signed the temporary order to keep Dolak 100 yards away from Barrett and their son and scheduled a January hearing to decide whether to make it permanent.

Dolak had been living in his car for a few days before he confronted his girlfriend for the last time. His beloved dog, Sugar, had recently died.

“He was carrying the ashes around in his car,” Sanchez said. “With his anger, he started drinking and that escalated. I think once he started that first fire, he just … I don’t know, I’d like to know. I want him back so I can ask him.”

Dolak’s mother complained Thursday that police did not enforce the restraining orders when her son went to the apartment in the days before Dec. 26. She said officers did nothing after he set the first fire to protect her house.

A drunken Dolak called his mother and threatened to burn her home down, too, Sanchez said. She put him on speaker phone for police.

“The cop said, ‘Where are you?’ and Asa said, ‘Who’s this? The pigs?’ He was still drunk at that point,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez said he did not believe his brother wanted to kill his son. Dolak loved the boy and could not have been thinking clearly, he said.

“I don’t think the target was his son,” Sanchez said. “I think he was lashing out at his girlfriend and my mom. I honestly don’t think he was thinking about his son when he went there.”

Dolak had lost his welding job earlier this year. His mother was working on getting him a new job. He had been looking forward to it.

“The newspapers and the media keep calling him a man, but he was just a stupid child,” his brother said. “He hadn’t become a man yet.”