In November 2008, a Minneapolis man named Quincy DeShawn Smith got the good news that an appeals court had reinstated his lawsuit accusing city police officers of excessive force.

Three weeks later, he was dead. The 24-year-old former disc jockey died after he was chased and subdued by five Minneapolis police officers who allegedly punched him, kneed him in the ribs, hit him with the butt of a shotgun and zapped him with a Taser at least seven times.

Smith's mother is now suing the city and the five officers. She claims her son's death stemmed, in part, from officer Timothy Devick's retaliation against Smith for suing him in the excessive-force case.

"Defendant Devick's retaliatory conduct was intentional, deliberate, willful and conducted in callous disregard of, and gross indifference to, Smith's constitutional rights," says the wrongful-death and civil-rights suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

The suit says that because of the retaliation, Smith suffered "embarrassment, emotional distress, humiliation, loss, indignity and, ultimately, he lost his life."