Plainclothes Cop Kills Man Stranded on Roadside

Police say Corey Jones, 31, was armed during confrontation
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 21, 2015 7:36 AM CDT
Plainclothes Cop Kills Man Stranded on Roadside
Corey Jones is shown playing the drums.   (Twitter)

A Florida police officer fatally shot a black man who was having car trouble early Sunday. Nouman Raja of the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department was in plainclothes and an unmarked police cruiser when he arrived at Corey Jones' broken-down car off Interstate 95 around 3am, reports NBC News. Police Chief Stephen Stepp says Raja, 38, believed the car was abandoned but was "suddenly confronted by an armed subject." Raja—who was in "good standing" with the Atlantis Police Department before joining the force in April—shot and killed Jones, 31, police say, adding there's no dash-cam video of the incident. A handgun purchased by Jones days earlier was found outside his vehicle, Stepp says. "Something seems really wrong here," says a friend of Jones. It's a sentiment echoed by family members who say Jones, a drummer in the band Future Prezidents, chose to wait for a tow truck when his car broke down after a show, per the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Jones carried a gun for protection as an inspector with the Delray Beach Housing Authority, but relatives say he wasn't violent and must not have known that Raja was a police officer. "Corey Jones was a God-fearing man who dedicated his life to doing the right thing," his family says in a statement through lawyers Benjamin Crump and Daryl Parks, who've worked with relatives of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown. "Rest assured, we are working diligently with our legal team to determine exactly why this plainclothes officer in an unmarked car would approach Corey." Stepp says there were no previous complaints against Raja, though the Guardian reports he was threatened with suspension in Atlantis for keeping prescription drugs taken from a suspect; he's currently on paid leave. (More police shooting stories.)

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