SIERRA VISTA - The Cochise County Attorney's Office has determined that city officers involved in the July 8 shooting death of a man acted in "legally justified self-defense," according to a letter released Thursday.

Allan R. Lanham, 45, was shot and killed in his apartment at Casa De La Sierra, 500 S. Coronado Drive, just before dawn.

"Mr. Lanham's death is a tragedy," County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer wrote in a letter to Sierra Vista police dated Wednesday. "However, the officers were legally justified in killing him."

Police responded to the residence after neighbors saw and heard Lanham fire a handgun in the parking lot into the air in a southwesterly direction. Lanham was reportedly yelling and arguing with someone who wasn't there, before police arrived, according to eyewitnesses.

Officers observed handguns and rifles of various caliber, as well as a shotgun. Several of the guns were loaded, according to the police report.

The man lived in the apartment with his elderly mother, who likely had reason to fear her well-armed son at times for his paranoid and erratic behavior and apparent addictions, according to the investigative reports provided by city police with the assistance of the Cochise County Sheriff's Office and that were reviewed and approved by the County Attorney's Office.

Officers Jason Packer and Brian Sebastian have been reassigned to active patrol duty after having been on administrative leave since the incident.

Evidence of an excessive drug-abuse combination of marijuana, vodka and prescription pills was abundant at the scene of the shooting, according to police reports. Toxicology reports are still pending.

Because of multiple reports of Lanham being armed and exhibiting erratic behavior about 5 a.m. at the apartment complex, and considering that his mother was inside and potentially in danger as well as the neighbors, the officers entered the apartment in which Lanham was behind his closed bedroom door.

When an officer called out to him, Lanham opened the door rapidly and without speaking began to raise a .45-caliber handgun toward one of the police officers, according to the police report. Packer and Sebastian fired shots at Lanham, and a third officer hit Lanham with a Taser.

Lanham died at the scene.

"Mr. Lanham placed the officers in a situation where they reasonably believed that they had to kill or be killed," Rheinheimer wrote to the Police Department.

An incident at the Windemere Hotel and Conference Center in April 2006 led to Lanham's arrest by Sierra Vista police after he passed out in the lobby and hit his head while in possession of prescription pills, marijuana and multiple firearms.

At that time, Lanham possessed a valid Arizona Concealed Carry Weapons permit.

An Arizona Department of Public Safety spokeswoman last month was unable to comment whether Lanham's concealed weapons permit was still valid.