A man has sued the city of Denver and five police officers claiming that he was shot in the back and in the finger while lying on the ground with his hands above his head in surrender even though he was an innocent bystander during the arrest of a friend.

Michael Valdez filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver against the city of Denver and officers Peter Derrick III, John McDonald, Robert Motyka Jr., Jeff Motz and Karl Roller, after he had to be resuscitated in a hospital emergency room.

A finger in Valdez’s left hand was partially amputated, he underwent a small bowel resection and suffered multiple fractures in his back, which left bone fragments in his spinal canal. Valdez was in a wheelchair for a year, suffers constant pain and has regained only partial use of his legs and feet, the lawsuit says.

“Tragically, as if his physical injuries were not enough, the Denver Police Department and the defendant officers fabricated criminal charges against Mr. Valdez,” the lawsuit filed Thursday says.

He was charged with five counts of attempted first-degree murder and five counts of first-degree assault in one case and two counts of first-degree murder in a second case even though officers knew he wasn’t involved, the lawsuit says. Denver prosecutors held him in jail long after learning that Valdez was innocent, the lawsuit says.

“Defendants recklessly, knowingly, intentionally, willfully and wantonly arrested and imprisoned Mr. Valdez with no probable cause or reasonable grounds for believing that Mr. Valdez attempted to kill, injure or menace any police officer,” the lawsuit says.

Ron Hackett, Denver police spokesman, said Friday he could not comment about the case because it is in litigation.

The Denver District Attorney’s Office dismissed 19 felony counts against Valdez on March 19, 2013. He was then released after he spent two months in the jail “in agonizing pain and without the use of his lower limbs,” the lawsuit said.

Valdez is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorneys’ fees, according to the lawsuit filed by Laura Menninger of the Denver law firm Haddon, Morgan and Foreman.

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of complaints in which Denver law enforcement officers have been accused of excessive force, including a case in which Denver paid $6 million to the family of homeless street preacher Marvin Booker.

“Defendant Denver exhibits deliberate indifference to or tacit approval of its police officers’ misconduct, which is Denver’s official custom, policy and practice,” the suit says.

Motyka, a sergeant, and three other Denver police officers were sued in 2011 after they entered a home and arrested the wrong people, members of a family Mariachi band and not drug-dealing brothers who had previously moved from the rental home. A jury awarded the family $1.8 millionfollowing a September trial.

On the afternoon of Jan. 16, 2013, Valdez accepted a ride in a red Dodge pickup truck driven by his friend John Montoya. Valdez didn’t know that his friend had been involved in an incident in which the same pickup was used in a crime, also that morning, the suit says.

Police tried to pull the truck over, but Montoya sped away and led police on a chase until he crashed into a tree at West 39th Avenue and Osage streets.

Valdez and another woman exited the truck several minutes later with their hands in the air and lay down on the ground several feet from the truck.

“While prone on the ground with his face in the grass and his hands extended overhead, Valdez was shot by the defendant officers, once in his back and once to his fourth finger as he tried to shield his head from gunshots,” the lawsuit says.

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, kmitchell@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kirkmitchell, denverpost.com/coldcases