NEW YORK — The sisters of a woman who was fatally shot in Washington after trying to ram her car through a White House barrier say she was not a criminal and police should not have shot her.

“We’re still very confused as a family why she’s not still alive,” Amy Carey-Jones said late Friday, speaking of her 34-year-old sister, Miriam Carey. “I really feel like it’s not justified, not justified.”

Another sister, retired New York City police officer Valarie Carey, said there was “no need for a gun to be used when there was no gunfire coming from the vehicle.”

The sisters spoke outside Valarie Carey’s home in Brooklyn Friday night after traveling to Washington to identify Miriam Carey’s body.

Attempts to reach the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington for comment early Saturday were unsuccessful. The department said in a statement Friday that its Internal Affairs Division is investigating the circumstances that led to the shooting. The Secret Service, Capitol Police and FBI are assisting, the department said.

A federal law-enforcement official said earlier Friday that Miriam Carey had been under the delusion the president was communicating with her.

Her family said she had been suffering from postpartum depression with psychosis but was not dangerous.

Carey-Jones said her sister had been on medication for postpartum depression but was being taken off the drugs under medical supervision.

“They told her she could get off medication,” Carey-Jones said. “There were no indications she was unstable.”

Police have said they’re confident Carey’s actions weren’t an accident.