After 19-year-old Tyler Comstock quarreled with his father and drove off in his truck, the elder Comstock decided to teach him a lesson by reporting the truck to the police as stolen.
Soon after, cops chased down Tyler and shot him to death — despite receiving orders from dispatch to cease their pursuit.
Now the Comstock family is furious — and demanding answers.
“Why? Why did they kill him?” asked Shari Comstock, Tyler’s mother, in a statement to The Des Moines Register.
On Monday, an argument broke out between Tyler and his father, James Comstock, who refused to buy his son a pack of cigarettes. Tyler stormed off and left in his father’s truck, which is owned by a lawn care company.
James decided to teach his son a lesson by alerting police to the stolen vehicle. Cops pursued Tyler to the nearby Iowa State University campus in Ames, Iowa. During the chase, Comstock rammed a police vehicle at least once, according to reports.
Still, a recently released audio file revealed that dispatchers twice instructed police to stop following Comstock. The officers did not obey.
The truck eventually came to a stop in the middle of campus property, at which point police ordered Comstock to turn off the engine. Instead, the 19-year-old revved it, prompting Ames Police Officer Adam McPherson to fire six shots into the truck. Two of them hit Comstock, killing him at the scene.
“It was over a damn pack of cigarettes,” said James Comstock. “I wouldn’t buy him none. And I lose my son for that.”
Comstock is believed to have been unarmed, though he may have endangered pedestrians on the campus, according to The Huffington Post.
The family told reporters that Tyler had anger issues, and had spent a few days in jail for disorderly conduct. Still, they maintained that he was trying to turn his life around by attending daily Bible study.
“He called me every night, trying to straighten his life out,” said Comstock.