The family of Zane James alleges the Cottonwood Heights police and city leaders shut down their demonstration and used excessive force in retaliation for their yearslong criticism of the police department.
COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS Zane James family felt almost entirely alone after his death in 2018.
Few others had the same experience of losing a child to a police shooting, and their push for reform in their own city, Cottonwood Heights, seemed to be going nowhere, his mother Tiffany James recalled.
That shifted last year after the murder of George Floyd spurred national outcry and widespread demonstrations. With new momentum, the James family organized a march calling for justice and honoring their son s life over the weekend of what would have been his 22nd birthday.
The group of about 100 set out walking and dancing in their neighborhood on Aug. 2, but didn t get far. Patrol cars arrived and blocked the street in a scene that rapidly turned violent, with officers using batons, Tasers and chokeholds on Zane James father, Aaron James, and brother Gabriel Pecoraro.
Family of man shot by police sues Cottonwood Heights, alleging they were brutalized at protest
Traffic concerns were used as a pretext to target protesters, leading to the assault of the brother and father of Zane James, a lawsuit alleges.
(Rick Bowmer | AP) Aaron James is arrested by Cottonwood Heights Police during a march Sunday, Aug. 2, 2020, in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. James was among eight people arrested by Cottonwood Heights Police in August. He is the father of Zane James, a 19-year-old white man who was shot and killed by a Cottonwood Heights Police officer in 2018 as he fled the scene of a robbery. Now, they are suing the city, claiming officers attacked the teen’s father and brother at a peaceful protest over his death last year.
| Updated: 3:34 p.m.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) (Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Protesters dance through the neighborhood in Rose Park, during the Dance Dance for Revolution protest for racial equality, on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2020. The protest was in memory of Jovany Mercardo who was shot last August by Ogden police by four officers, hitting his body sixteen times.
Rania Ahmed was at home in Sugar House one Sunday in June when she heard what sounded like a block party moving through her neighborhood.
What she found outside was a protest, one of many organized this summer in Utah and across the nation by people rallying against police violence after George Floyd was killed by an officer in Minneapolis.