A father defended his son as a "hero" for bringing his gun on a hunt with his mother for a driver in an apparent road rage incident that turned deadly.
Tammy Meyers, originally from Glendora, California, ended up being gunned down outside her family's house in Las Vegas last Thursday after she and her son, Brandon, attempted to track down a man who was involved in an earlier altercation.
"My son is not an animal, my son is a hero in my book," Tammy's husband, Robert Meyers, said at a vigil Tuesday. "There were mistakes made like every one of us have made in our life, but this particular mistake was made to keep a bigger mistake from happening."
Before the fatal shooting, Tammy had been teaching her 15-year-old daughter how to drive in a nearby school parking lot, Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Steiber told reporters Tuesday. The girl didn't have a learner's permit.
The 44-year-old had been behind the wheel and driving slowly when she was involved in a near-collision with a vehicle that led to a verbal confrontation between her and the other male driver, police said in a statement.
In a change from earlier accounts, Steiber said Tammy Meyers had her teenage daughter run into their house to get her armed son, who then drove with her in the back seat to find the car involved in the near-collision. It was initially reported the victim had been followed after the initial road rage incident.
They tailed the car for 10 minutes before deciding to head home, though they ended up being followed and "there was a volley of rounds fired from that vehicle," Steiber said. Brandon shot back and after the gunfire was over he discovered his mother had been shot.
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Police said they believe she was struck by a gunman in the other car, which had three occupants total, according to NBC affiliate KSNV.
Brandon insisted he had only gone along on the trip to make sure his mother would be safe.
"I did what I had to do to protect my family. Everyone can think what they have to think; I did it for a reason. And I'd do it for anyone I love," Brandon said.
At a candlelight memorial for the nurse, mother and grandmother, relatives said the new information does not change the important facts of the case.
"She didn't go out on a hunt like they said. She took her daughter home to safety, she got her son, she took the chaos away from her home like any mother would," her cousin Susan Ramos said.
The family of Tammy Meyers is now offering a 1965 Chevrolet El Camino to anyone provides information that leads to an arrest, according to KSNV.
Tammy Meyers lived in the San Gabriel Valley and then Victorville before she and her family moved to Vegas.
