The father of a college baseball player shot dead by police after approaching the wrong house and being mistaken for a burglar has demanded to know exactly what happened.
Glenwood ‘Bubba’ Pysher, 22, was fatally wounded after officers responded to a reported break-in at a property in Upper Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, early on Sunday morning.
His family says that he was unarmed and had become confused while trying to find his friend’s home.
Pysher had spent Saturday night celebrating a friend’s birthday at a bar before the group decided to continue the party over at the friend’s house, his mother Erin told CBS News.
He set off on foot but ended up at another property on Snyder Road by mistake.
The couple living in the house called police to report a possible break-in to the property.
Erin said that her son was shot twice and was carrying only his phone and a book bag. Officials have not yet publicly explained what prompted the officers to use deadly force.
His mother believes that the wooded surroundings may have left him unsure as to which house belonged to his friend exactly. ‘He probably was knocking, “Hey, let me in, where are you at, what are you doing?” And the homeowners thought he was trying to break into the house and called the cops,’ she said.
The speed at which events unfolded on the night itself has become something of a central question for Bubba’s family. Erin said that call records showed that Pysher was speaking to his friends at 12.32am and that the shooting had happened by around 12.35am.
‘No Taser. No nothing. Automatic deadly force,’ she said. Her description of those final minutes has not yet been independently confirmed.
The district attorney’s office is investigating the police shooting and reviewing footage captured by surveillance cameras in the property’s backyard. No findings have been announced at this point, and the officers’ account of the encounter has not been made public.
Pysher’s family said they hadn’t heard directly from the police department following his death. His father, also named Glenwood, said: ‘I just want things to be done right. I want to know the facts.’
A talented ball player, the 22-year-old had recently transferred to Saint Elizabeth University in Florham Park, New Jersey, where he was due to continue playing baseball. His first classes should have begun on Monday.
Erin had planned to drive him to the university and help set up his dorm room. ‘It’s unreal. I don’t even know how to explain it,’ she said. ‘It’s a feeling of so much sadness in my heart. I can’t – it’s hard to breathe.’
Pysher played as a catcher and had been thrilled to secure a place at his new university. He also worked at a local Walmart while pursuing his sporting ambitions.
‘He was such a good kid,’ his father said. ‘The community here loved him, and nobody can believe this happened to this young man who wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Family friend Wendy Hasara recalled how Pysher would work until shortly before games, then drive to them in a car without air conditioning. He would put on his catcher’s gear despite the heat and ‘play his heart out’, she wrote on Facebook.
Hasara called for ‘justice’ and said Pysher’s death should ‘prevent this from ever happening to another person’. She described him as a ‘life with a bright future, stolen too soon’.
Another family friend, identified by CBS News as Kia, said the community wanted to understand whether the shooting could have been avoided.
‘What happened? Could it have been de-escalated?’ she asked. ‘We don’t know, but we want to figure that out.’
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