Shirley Brown, center, with daughter Leslie Brown-Hogan, left, and son Maurice Brown, Jr., right, view a funeral program for son and sibling Rodney, who died after a traffic stop with Cleveland police in 2010.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Four years ago, few seemed to care when Rodney Brown uttered, "I can't breathe" after being tased 11 times by Cleveland police officers during a New Year's Eve traffic stop – at least that's how his family felt.

Now the phrase has become a powerful symbol of civil unrest, a rallying cry represented on T-shirts and chanted during marches protesting police use of force cases across the country, like the one involving Eric Garner, who repeated it 11 times while lying face down on a Staten Island sidewalk.

Like Garner, Brown was dead less than an hour after a confrontation with police over a relatively minor infraction. Garner was accused of illegally selling cigarettes. Brown, police said, was driving with his headlights off.

Cleveland's "I can't breathe" case is punctuated with an audio exchange that, in hindsight, seems representative of the "us-against-them" mentality detailed this month in a 58-page Department of Justice letter calling for sweeping police reforms.

After hearing Brown's plea, Patrolman Erick Melendez is captured on police radio responding, "So. Who gives a f---?"

Brown, who was handcuffed, wheezed again, "I can't breathe."

By the time paramedics arrived, the 40 year old had no pulse.

"It just breaks your heart to hear someone you love say they can't breathe," Brown's sister Leslie Brown-Hogan said this week.

Brown's mother, Shirley, said her son, the youngest of eight children, was on his way to her home on East 113th Street to ring in the New Year with family when he was pulled over.

"Then he's just gone for no reason, no reason at all," Brown said.

The family hopes that Brown's death, which attracted little attention in 2010 might be looked at differently against the immediate backdrop of the Tamir Rice shooting, the Department of Justice findings against Cleveland police and other national police use of force cases, like Garner's.

Attorneys who represent the family in a federal civil rights lawsuit want a resolution in Brown's case – which has been in limbo for about a year as a judge has yet to rule on a motion by the city asking that the case be dismissed – and for it to be part of wider change in light of the Justice Department's strong findings, which mirror a number of issues raised when the Brown lawsuit was filed in mid-2011.

Including that:

· Officers in Brown's case escalated violence during what should have been a routine traffic stop.

· Officers were not adequately trained on when and how to use Tasers – including an alert put out by the company months before Brown's death that warned of dangers related to shooting the probe into a person's chest.

· Officers were never disciplined or re-instructed after Brown's death.

"You can't have civil rights lawsuits being the risk management for the city," said Al Gerhardstein, who represents the family along with David Malik.

But just as in many of the high-profile cases being picked apart by cable news experts, bloggers and the masses on social media, even the most basic details of what led up to Brown's death are disputed in statements by Cleveland police officers, witnesses and experts weighing in on the case.

Cleveland officers Michael Chapman and Belal Ilain pulled Brown over while he was driving his mother's car around 8:45 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2010.

The officers said the car's headlights were off.

Neighbors, who witnessed the stop, later swore the lights were on all along.

In the city's version, Brown is the aggressor from the beginning asking officers, "Do you know who I am?" After being told to step out of the car, he balls his fists and pulls away from the officers, refusing to follow their orders and running after he is tased in the sternum. He later wrestles with up to a half-dozen officers and tries to hit one with a folded pocketknife. He doesn't cease, despite being hit with Tasers again and again.

In his family's version, Brown is elbowed in the back by a police officer after he dares to ask why he is being pulled over. When he backs away from the officer, he is tased in the sternum and then flees. Other officers swarm the scene, using physical force and repeatedly stunning him with their Tasers until he is finally handcuffed. Brown's pleas for help are ignored as he is shoved into a police car, where he stops breathing.

Read court documents with the city's version of events here and the Brown family's version here.

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's office determined Brown died after exerting himself in the struggle.

Expert Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist hired by Brown's family, said the repeated Taser strikes also played a role in his death.

Replaying the incident over and over is not what Shirley Brown wants. She wants closure.

"I just want to put it to rest," Brown said. "I was angry about it for awhile. Now I just don't trust the police at all."

Officers, she said, didn't even bother to come down the block and tell her what happened. They sent her son's body to the morgue as an unidentified man, she said, and had her car towed away.

Brown's brother, Maurice, a Cuyahoga County Corrections officer, is mostly silent, until he recalls watching the parade of depositions officers gave as part of the ongoing federal civil rights lawsuit over his brother's death.

Melendez, when confronted with his statement more than a year after Brown's death admitted to his remarks and that he did nothing to respond to Brown's medical distress as he stood by chatting with fellow officers. "He was arrogant. He had no remorse at all," Maurice Brown said.

A Cleveland spokesman said that a review of Brown's death by city prosecutors found the officers committed no crimes. The city, in defending the lawsuit, has denied claims that the officers lacked proper Taser training. It asserts that when Brown, who was driving without a valid license, fled from police he committed a felony and officers had a duty to pursue and arrest him for the safety of the officers and the public.

A police spokesman said no officers were disciplined as a result of this case or re-instructed on the use of their department-issued Tasers.

Malik also represented Edward Henderson, who was paid $600,000 in the wake of a police beating on New Year's Day 2011 -- the day after Brown's death. He said some Cleveland officers feel they have license to treat citizens like they did Henderson and Brown. The city has paid out at least $10 million in settlements and judgments related to police conduct in the past decade.

"The culture, it's a bullying culture," he said. "The attitude of 'I don't give a f---' is such a callous and unnecessary attitude, it has no place on the Cleveland police."

Malik said the department historically has shown no interest in properly investigating deaths like Brown's. The Justice Department report went a step further, indicating Internal Affairs investigators may sometimes intentionally skew use of force probes in a light most favorable to officers.

"What they need to realize is every time they don't do a proper investigation, it perpetuates the next event," Malik said.