Sergio Bichao

@sbichao

Dixon Rodriguez, 32, was shot and killed Dec. 2013 by two Perth Amboy cops.

Police said Rodriguez attacked them with a knife.

Authorities cleared the cops of wrongdoing, but the family says cops planted the knife on his body.

PERTH AMBOY – The family of a mentally ill man shot dead by city police officers a year ago have accused cops of planting a knife on his body after the shooting.

The bombshell allegation was offered by the family for the first time in a lawsuit filed last month in Superior Court in New Brunswick.

Dixon Rodriguez, 32, was killed Dec. 4, 2013, by officers responding to a call by his mother, who told the 911 operator that he had not been taking medication and was acting violently. The complaint says Rodriguez's mother, Asela, often called Perth Amboy police in order to get help calming down her son and transporting him to his doctor "in order to obtain the necessary prescription medication" and that the department "provided this service."

Police said that Rodriguez, who had schizophrenia, attacked the officers and was armed with a large knife, which investigators said they recovered from the scene.

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But the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained Wednesday by MyCentralJersey.com and the Home News Tribune, claims that police entered the family's Hall Avenue home after the shooting without a warrant or permission and "removed a knife and placed the knife on or about" Rodriguez's body.

SCROLL DOWN to read copy of the full lawsuit.

"We have reliable information that Dixon Rodriguez was unarmed at the time of the incident," Rodriguez family attorney Gary J. Chester said Wednesday. "After the shooting, the police roped off [the family's] building and officers who responded to the scene had access to the kitchen."

A city spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.

In April, the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office cleared officers Rafael A. Puntiel and Gina Fontan of any wrongdoing, saying their actions were "justified under the law, and therefore, a grand jury investigation and/or review is not required."

The Prosecutor's Office has denied the Home News Tribune's request to review autopsy records.

Authorities declined to identify the officers, who were named publicly for the first time by the Home News Tribune in March after the newspaper obtained the officers' use-of-force reports, which stated that they did not know how many shots they fired or how many times Rodriguez was shot.

Chester said Wednesday that county and state officials have denied his requests for autopsy findings, which he said should become available as a result of the lawsuit.

The wrongful-death lawsuit says the city did not provide enough training and supervision and seeks an unspecified amount of damages for the death and emotional distress.

Staff Writer Sergio Bichao: 908-243-6615; sbichao@mycentraljersey.com