HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - A Florence lawyer is calling for an independent investigation into the death of a Harvest man earlier this month.

In a letter sent today to Madison County Sheriff Blake Dorning, Henry Sherrod III said that the death of Jason Klonowski is suspicious.

Sherrod wrote that because Klonowski held a rally protesting "deputy brutality" a few weeks before his death, the sheriff's department had "an obvious potential motive for someone in or connected to your department to want to harm (Klonowski)."

At the rally, Klonowski was highly critical of the sheriff's department and the deputies involved in an incident with Robert Bryant, a friend of Klonowski who was arrested in 2012 and charged with assaulting a deputy, Sherrod wrote.

Dorning and Madison County attorney Jeff Rich were not immediately available for comment today.

Sherrod wrote that he met with investigators from the sheriff's department on Saturday and provided them with "information relevant to the investigation of Mr. Klonowski's death, including information concerning a death threat." Sherrod said he also formally requested an independent investigation into Klonowski's death.

Klonowski became a potential target for deputies, Sherrod wrote, because he staged a rally weeks before his death in support of Bryant, a Tennessee man who was arrested in August 2012 and charged with second-degree assault of a police officer following a traffic stop.

Sherrod wrote in the letter to Dorning that deputies assaulted Bryant, whom Sherrod said he represented, after Bryant "embarrassed" a deputy in a bar a month before Bryant's arrest.

According to court records, charges against Bryant were dropped on Nov. 14. Klonowski's body was found in his yard on Nov. 3 by a neighbor, the sheriff's department announced on Nov. 7. The sheriff's department said at the time the death was under investigation and it requested anyone with information regarding the death to contact investigators.