DETROIT—Events leading up to the shooting death of a 7-year-old girl at the hands of a Detroit officer may have been videotaped by a crime-reality series camera crew that was with police as they searched a family home for a homicide suspect.

What's on the video could reveal if Aiyana Jones was fatally shot by an officer whose gun mistakenly discharged inside the house, as police say, or if claims by a lawyer for Aiyana's family of a “coverup” are true.

Police have said officers threw a flash grenade through the first-floor window of the two-family home early Sunday and that an officer's gun discharged during a struggle or after a collision with the girl's grandmother. The crew for the A&E series The First 48 was with police during the weekend raid.

Aiyana's family filed state and federal lawsuits Tuesday against the department, claiming police knew there were children in the home but conducted the raid with guns drawn anyway.

Geoffrey Fieger, the attorney for the family, said police had no legitimate reason to throw a flash grenade into the home. He said police, who were looking for a murder suspect whom they later found in the apartment upstairs, had the home under surveillance for hours.

Fieger said the other children were ages 3 months, 2 and 4 years.

Aiyana's cousin, Mark Robinson, said Tuesday he was walking the family's dogs when police grabbed him and threw him to the ground.

“I told them, ‘There are children in the house. There are children in the house,'” Robinson told reporters.

The federal lawsuit claims police violated Aiyana's constitutional rights and seeks an unspecified cash award of more than $75,000. A lawsuit filed in state court seeks damages of more than $25,000. The amounts the family is seeking in both suits are likely much higher.

Fieger said he viewed three or four minutes of video footage of the raid, and that it shows an officer firing into the home from the porch after the flash grenade was tossed through the window.

The footage shows a group of black-hooded officers approaching the house before the flash grenade was thrown through the window and the shot being fired, he said.

“We know there's only one shot. It's vividly depicted in the videotape ... right after the throw and the explosion of the bomb. At that point the officers rush into the home,” said Fieger.

Fieger, who represented assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, wouldn't say what video he viewed, adding he didn't keep a copy.

The First 48

A&E spokesman Dan Silberman spokesman declined to comment about the case and denied AP's request to view the footage.

Michigan State Police are investigating the raid.