WWL-TV

Local civil rights leaders asked for an investigation into the police shooting of Adolph Grimes in this early January photo.

Adolph Grimes, 22, was killed on New Years Eve.

Police said he fired first as officers approached what they believed to be a suspicious vehicle.

Robert Jenkins, an attorney for the Grimes family confirmed the suit.

The nine police officers were reassigned after the shooting, which is being formally investigated by the FBI.

The Grimes family contend police were overzealous in the incident. The police union disagrees.

The fact is, when confronted by police, he raised his weapon, fired it," said police union attorney Frank DeSalvo.

DeSalvo says Grimes was sitting in a parked car matching the description of one leaving the scene of a shooting outside a nearby nightclub and nine narcotics officers in two unmarked cars rolled up to investigate.

"When they pulled up an officer shined his flashlight in because as they pulled up he turned his dome light out," said DeSalvo. "They had their blue lights flashing on both vehicles. That's when he upped with his gun."

Police say that when Grimes shot at the officers, seven of them returned fire, hitting him 12-times.

Grimes' family attorney Robert Jenkins says there is no proof Grimes fired first or if the police identified themselves before the gunfire.

"If you're sitting in front of your house, there's no crime to sit in front of your house in a vehicle," said Jenkins. "So, where is the crime? Let's say it was even a traffic stop, how do you get shot twelve times?"

Jenkins said that from what hes seen the facts don't add up.

Police originally said Grimes had only one handgun.

Investigators later claimed they found two other fully-loaded weapons in his car.

"When he doesn't have a long history of arrests, he has no convictions, then all of a sudden you're trying to put him in a bad light we found other guns which we didn't find earlier, that smells real bad," said Jenkins.

DeSalvo says investigators found the additional handgun and shotgun two days later when they went over the car.

He said there was a delay because homicide detectives were called away on another case and manpower was stretched because of the Sugar Bowl.