An exasperated family looking for answers in the death of an unarmed man shot by police last week retained high-profile Baltimore attorney A. Dwight Pettit to represent them in a possible lawsuit against the city.

Pettit, who has a history of large, monetary victories against the Baltimore Police Department, said he would be sending notice to the city that the family was preparing to sue over Edward Lamont Hunt’s death.

As Hunt’s fiancé, Lakia Jeter, 25, prepared for a Wednesday evening memorial service, she said the father of two — and love of her life — was needlessly killed.

“More people are coming forward who said they want to testify that what the police officer did was wrong,” she said in a phone interview. “He didn’t have to shoot him.”

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Hunt, 27, was shot after an altercation with a Baltimore police officer on Jan. 30 around noon at a shopping plaza in Northeast Baltimore.

Witnesses told The Examiner that Hunt was shot at least twice in the back after pulling away from the yet-to-be identified police officer during a “field interview.”

Police would say only that Hunt was shot in the torso. Hunt was unarmed at the time of the shooting.

Last week, investigators discovered a bullet lodged in the wall of a nearby grocery store, leading them to conclude that the officers fired three shots — two of which struck and killed Hunt, according to a source familiar with the case.

Police indicated Hunt had still-unidentified drugs on him when he was shot.

“They are still being tested,” police spokesman Sterling Clifford said Wednesday.

“The assertion that he had drugs on him is bogus,” Pettit countered. “Witnesses indicate he was thoroughly searched prior to the shooting.”

Several witnesses told The Examiner that police frisked him numerous times before he was shot.

Pettit said surveillance cameras at a nearby gas station where Hunt was allegedly frisked prior to the shooting were not working.

“The tape was blank,” he said.

The officer who shot Hunt was suspended with pay last week pending the outcome of the investigation.

In 2004, Pettit won the largest single police excessive-force lawsuit in Maryland history, when a jury awarded his slain client’s family $105 million. Pettit has several major lawsuits pending against Baltimore police: a $40 million suit over the arrest of a 7-year-old boy, a $20 million suit over the firing of former police Commissioner Kevin Clark, and a $25 million suit over the shooting of a 39-year-old man in 2006.

For more information on lawsuits Dwight Pettit has won against Baltimore police, visit examiner.com.

sjanis@baltimoreexaminer.com

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com