The Aurora Police Department was served with a third lawsuit in relation to police uses of force Wednesday following a tasing incident in May 2024.

The lawsuit came on May 18, a year after the May 22, 2024 incident, and police body camera footage of the incident was released by attorneys Wednesday. The video shows Aurora officers holding LaDarius Butler, a father of two children who were in the car at the scene, at gunpoint and taking him into custody. 

Officer Adrian Arce-Cerda tased Butler, who was unarmed and had complied with all of the officers’ requests, according to a news release from attorneys Kevin Mehr and Tyler Jolly with Mehr Jolly PLLC and Jason Kosloski at Kosloski Law, PLLC.

Butler and his partner, Jayla Houston, took their 3-year-old son to the Children’s Hospital Colorado with shortness of breath earlier that day, according to the lawsuit. The family got conflicting medical advice and felt “pressured by the staff” to put their son through treatment they didn’t think was in his best interest, the lawsuit said, so they left the hospital legally. 

Hospital staff then called police, reporting concerns that the kid needed to return for treatment, and officers tracked the family to a local Walmart parking lot at 3301 Tower Road in Aurora, the lawsuit said.

Police had cellphone information for Butler and Houston, but tracked their phones to find them rather than calling them first, the lawsuit said, adding that a phone call to the family could have kept the incident from happening.

Officers surrounded Butler’s car with police vehicles and, when the car started to move, one of the officers pulled his car in front of Butler’s, “surprising” him, the lawsuit said.

In the video, Butler is heard asking officers, who pointed their guns at him, “what are y’all doing? I’ve got kids in the car” while standing in front of the car with his arms outstretched. He complied with officers and did not appear to be armed, but officers pulled him to the ground and Arce-Cerda tased him, the lawsuit said.

In the video, officers are seen handcuffing Butler while holding him down with their feet on his back. He was arrested and charged with misdemeanor obstruction, but the charges were dismissed, the lawsuit said.

“This entire incident could have been resolved with a simple phone call,” Mehr said in the news release. “Instead, once again the Aurora Police Department chose violence with a SWAT-style ambush that risked the lives of a young father and his two children.”

An Aurora Police Department spokesperson said the department is unable to comment on pending litigation, adding that officers were responding to a “reported kidnapping” stemming from the hospital, which the spokesperson called a “reliable source.”

“Any call about a child’s safety will always be something we take seriously,” the spokesperson said.

The city is actively defending the lawsuit and can’t comment further at this time, City Attorney Pete Schulte said.

Two other lawsuits have been filed against APD this year involving uses of force incidents by APD officers.

In late May, the family of Kilyn Lewis, 37, sued the department, claiming that Officer Michael Dieck’s lethal use of force against Lewis was not reasonable, was “willful and wanton,” and deprived him of his legal rights.

Lewis was unarmed while shot by Dieck on May 23, 2024, while officers were attempting to arrest Lewis on a warrant for attempting to commit first-degree murder in the shooting of a blind man.

Internal and external investigations done after the Lewis shooting deemed Dieck justified in the use of force. 

Aurora was handed another lawsuit in early August following the fatal police shooting of Rashaud Johnson, who was unarmed and experiencing a mental health crisis, according to his family, when he was shot and killed by an APD officer.

Police said Johnson tackled the responding officer and reached for his firearm, and an investigation into the use of force incident is ongoing.