The family of Stephen Perkins, the man shot and killed in September by a Decatur officer, alleges in a new federal lawsuit that the city incentivizes aggressive policing.

“At the heart of the lawsuit and everyone’s action is policy change to ensure that something like this never happens in the city of Decatur again and prevent this kind of violence throughout the country,” said Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Perkins family.

The family is suing the city and four police officers who were involved in the shooting. The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday and appeared in federal court records today, names the officers as Bailey Marquette, Christopher Mukkadam, Joey Williams, and Vance Summers. The lawsuit says Marquette fired multiple rounds and killed Perkins outside his home in southwest Decatur on Sept. 29.

Efforts to reach the officers for comment for this article were not successful.

“We do intend to pursue an outcome that will be crippling for the city of Decatur,” Merritt said on Tuesday at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “We plan to go after a historic number, not only for Decatur or for Alabama, but for the country. And so that is our goal, to maximize the recovery for this family.”

He said the family also hopes the lawsuit will force the city to enact police reforms.

The lawsuit also names towing company AllStar Recovery, LLC and Pentagon Federal Credit Union, which financed Perkins’ vehicle, as defendants. AllStar and Pentagon Federal did not respond to requests for comment.

On the night of his death, police said, Perkins had a gun and threatened a tow truck driver who was trying to repossess his vehicle. The tow truck driver left but returned later with police, who shot and killed Perkins, a 39-year-old husband, father and gym enthusiast.

Tab Bowling, the mayor of Decatur, said the city will respond to the lawsuit in court.

“Once we are served, it will be reviewed and a timely response will be filed,” he said in an email to AL.com after the family’s press conference on Tuesday.

The mayor last week announced that he fired three of the officers and suspended a fourth without pay. The city has not publicly identified the officers who are named in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges excessive force, wrongful death, civil rights violations, and unfair debt collection practices.

“At no time did Stephen Clay Perkins pose a threat of death or great bodily harm to” the officers or anyone else, the lawsuit says.

Video footage released by the family and posted to social media showed Perkins come out of his home with a bright light about 2 a.m. and tell the tow truck driver to put down his vehicle. On the video a police officer appears to emerge from a dark corner near the house, shouting “Hey, hey, police, get on the ground.” The officer immediately fired multiple rounds, the video shows.

Police said that Perkins had threatened a tow truck driver with a gun. The driver left but later returned to Perkins’ house with police.

The lawsuit alleges that even though Decatur’s written policies say officers should de-escalate confrontations with the public, its unwritten policies, customs or practices incentivize officers to be more aggressive. It alleges that officers’ pay and promotions are tied to how many tickets and arrests they rack up, but says that arrests are valued more than tickets.

“Under this policy, practice, or custom, the police officers who engaged in more invasive citizen interactions were given preference in pay, promotion, and assignment decisions, to those officers who engaged in less invasive citizen interactions,” the lawsuit said.

As the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency continues to investigate whether the police committed any crimes, the Perkins family continues to call for the officers to be arrested.

“We just want justice,” said Billy Kennedy, Perkins’ father-in-law. “That was my son-in-law, and we just want the police to be arrested, and we need them to be indicted and pay for this horrible thing that they did to my grandkids.”

Angela Kennedy, the mother of Perkins’ widow, said what happened to her son-in-law was unjustifiable.

“I think that what happened was cruel for any person, not only just a Black man, just in general, because that’s what the devil’s out to do is to steal, kill, and destroy, and that’s what they are trying to do, but we serve a God that sits high and look low, and God got our back.”

“It’s very hard,” she added. “It was distressful. I have a 7-year-old granddaughter. She’s going through turmoil because that was her dad. They were best friends. And at night she screams out for her dad, asking why did he leave her, ‘please come back, just for a little while.’ And it just tears the whole family up.”