The family of a 37-year-old Black man, Rajon Belt-Stubblefield, killed by an Aurora police officer last year, is suing the Colorado city and that officer.

The lawsuit accuses Officer Matthew Neely and the city of Aurora of wrongful death, excessive force and federal civil rights violations.

Neely is already facing criminal charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter. Now the family has hired prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump to file the 144-page federal civil rights complaint against Neely and the city of Aurora.

Advocates, community members and family of Belt-Stubblefield gathered at the federal courthouse in Denver to discuss their pursuit of accountability.

“We want to make sure that Rajon gets full justice, not partial justice, not half justice, not three-fifths justice, but Zion, your father deserves full justice,” said Crump outside the courthouse.

Belt-Stubblefield was shot and killed after Neely attempted to stop him following a crash.

Body camera footage released by the Aurora Police Department shows Belt-Stubblefield tossing a handgun and pursuing a physical altercation with Neely moments before he pulled the trigger multiple times.

“He didn’t de-escalate after the first shot,” Crump said of Neely. “He didn’t de-escalate after the second shot. No, he went to the kill shot.”

The civil suit filed exactly one year after Belt-Stubblefield’s death includes information about the city receiving and recording citizen complaints alleging Neely engaged in racial profiling or racially selective traffic enforcement in 2014, 2020, 2022, and six weeks before the shooting in 2025, all of which were ultimately dismissed.

The suit also calls the shooting a “predictable product of the Aurora Police Department’s longstanding customs and practices of unnecessary escalation, excessive force, and racially biased policing.”

“It’s also about something bigger,” said co-counsel Milo Schwab. “It’s about addressing the systematic racism, the systematic use of excessive force in the Aurora Police Department.”

CBS Colorado reached out to APD for comment on the suit, but they said they can’t comment on pending litigation.

Family members of Belt-Stubblefield are asking for “all relief allowed by law and equity” rather than a specific dollar amount for claims such as economic losses and damages for loss of life including grief and suffering.

“We want full justice,” said Crump. “Because oftentimes, and I mean this sincerely, oftentimes when marginalized people of color are killed unjustly and unnecessarily and unconstitutionally by police, there’s this belief that well, if they get a criminal indictment, not a conviction, that’s enough. That’s not enough.”

Within a wrongful death claim in the suit, the family is also asking the courts to find the killing  “felonious” which would remove a $2.125 million statutory cap on noneconomic damages.