Family of Dion Johnson filing civil suit after no charges against officer who shot him

The family of Dion Johnson, a Black man killed by police in Phoenix, will pursue a civil lawsuit after county prosecutors said the trooper who fatally shot him would not be charged.

“It’s a little bit disheartening … but it’s par for the course” that Trooper George Cervantes will not be charged, attorney Jocquese Blackwell said Monday.

Blackwell added that a notice of claim regarding Johnson’s death is forthcoming. Such notices are required under Arizona law before filing a lawsuit against a public entity, according to KTAR, a Phoenix-area ABC News Radio affiliate.

Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel announced that Cervantes would not be charged earlier Monday. Cervantes has said Johnson lunged for his gun while he arrested him on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. However, police have said no body or car camera footage of the incident was taken.

Adel said available evidence backed up Cervantes’s account and the incident was determined to be self-defense.

“I still feel George Cervantes is a monster and needs to be arrested for my son’s murder. Period,” Johnson’s mother Erma said during the Monday press conference. “Yes, my son may have resisted arrest, but does that give him the right to shoot my son? I have no trust in the judicial system right now.”

While Adel has said Cervantes’s version of events was corroborated by witnesses, Blackwell said Johnson’s death meant “it’s a one-sided story.”

Cervantes shot Johnson on May 25, the same day George Floyd died in Minneapolis after a police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes. Floyd’s death sparked nationwide protests against racism and police brutality in every U.S. state and major city. Protesters in the Phoenix area have frequently invoked the Johnson case as well.