The mother of a man shot by an Adams County sheriff’s deputy said Friday that the deputy should have used his Taser instead of a gun to control her unarmed son, who panicked and ran when he saw a law enforcement officer because he was wanted on a minor crime.

“Now he’s dead. In a blink of an eye he is gone. At 19 my son lost his life,” said Andrea Feltman, 37, referring to her son Kyler “KyKy” Grabbingbear. “Native American lives matter.”

By all accounts, including by the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, the confrontation that led to Grabbingbear’s shooting death was a matter of chance.

A deputy had responded to an emergency call to an apartment next to where Grabbingbear was at 3:34 a.m. Thursday.

Feltman said 20 minutes earlier her son had been at her home. He walked to his girlfriend’s apartment in the 8700 block of Galen Court. Grabbingbear and his girlfriend were in the process of breaking up.

“He was hungry and tired,” Feltman said. “He was yelling because he was upset.”

His girlfriend’s mother told him to leave or she would call 911.

“It just so happened that a (expletive) cop was in the hallway,” Feltman said.

Just as her son walked out of his girlfriend’s apartment, he saw the officer. Grabbingbear took off running down the apartment hallway. The deputy gave chase, Feltman said. Sgt. Jim Morgen of the Adams County Sheriff’s Office verified this sequence of events. The deputy caught Grabbingbear in a small courtyard, she said.

“They started scuffling,” Feltman said.

Morgen said the deputy suffered neck and head injuries in a confrontation. Feltman and Morgen agree that at that point, the deputy pulled out his gun and shot Grabbingbear.

Feltman said her son doubled over and crawled under a balcony. She said the deputy pulled her son out by his arms under the balcony. Both the deputy, who has not been identified, and Grabbingbear were taken to a hospital for treatment, Morgen said. The suspect was later pronounced dead.

“Why couldn’t you use your Taser?” Feltman said, sobbing. “Why couldn’t you use your baton?”

Feltman said the reason she believes her son began running when he saw the deputy was because he had slept in after working a graveyard shift and missed a court hearing on a misdemeanor drug possession charge. He didn’t have $100 to pay his bond so he didn’t want to go back to jail until he got a second job and earned enough money, Feltman said.

Feltman said Grabbingbear was her only child and they had a very close relationship.

“He wasn’t a troublemaker. My son is an overall good kid. He’s very caring, loving. He has tons of friends who care about him,” she said.

The Adams County Critical Incident Team is investigating, Morgen said. The deputy has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending the outcome of the investigation.