{"id":14125,"date":"2019-03-08T07:08:08","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T12:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=14125"},"modified":"2019-03-08T07:08:08","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T12:08:08","slug":"florida-ex-officer-nouman-raja-convicted-in-fatal-shooting-of-black-motorist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/03\/08\/florida-ex-officer-nouman-raja-convicted-in-fatal-shooting-of-black-motorist\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida ex-officer Nouman Raja convicted in fatal shooting of black motorist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">A Florida ex-policeman has been found guilty of manslaughter and attempted first-degree murder in the 2015 shooting death of a black musician.<\/p>\n<p>Nouman Raja, 41, faces a minimum of 25 years in prison for the killing of Corey Jones, whose vehicle had broken down in 2015 when he was shot.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say Raja lied about crucial details of the fatal encounter.<\/p>\n<p>A recording of Jones calling tow truck operators proved in court that Raja had not identified himself as police.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say that the call, placed by Jones at 03:15 local time on 18 October 2015, captured Raja pulling up to the scene at the Palm Beach Gardens motorway exit ramp.<\/p>\n<p>The call, which was played to jurors during the eight-day trial, begins with Jones calmly requesting a tow truck, then continues with Raja and Jones exchanging words before six shots are fired from Raja&#8217;s personal Glock pistol.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/1E55\/production\/_86256770_be0bf437-8d37-4e1a-b246-b0f9d9fd565a.jpg\" alt=\"Corey Jones, 31, a professional drummer, is shown in this photo released by Florida State University National Black Alumni, Inc on 20 October 2015\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Jones had been performing at a local bar hours before he was killed<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As the tone of a car door sounds, Jones is heard saying &#8220;huh?&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Raja replied: &#8220;You good?&#8221; and Jones says that he is.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Really?&#8221; Raja said twice, before he began shouting for Jones to put his hands up, using an expletive.<\/p>\n<p>Jones replied: &#8220;hold on&#8221;, before gunfire broke out.<\/p>\n<p>Raja fired his weapon three times then waited about 10 seconds before firing off three more shots.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators say Jones had pulled out his legally owned handgun, which he had purchased only days earlier to protect the nearly $10,000 (\u00a37,600) in drum equipment that he had in his broken-down SUV.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say he feared that he was being robbed after Raja drove his vehicle within feet of where Jones&#8217; vehicle was stranded.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/C9DB\/production\/_86257615_18ef59cf-3e2a-4515-b527-797d82f0a960.jpg\" alt=\"Officer Raja (second from right) was fired shortly after the shooting\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Officer Raja (second from right) was fired from the police force shortly after the shooting<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Raja, who was on duty at the time and driving an unmarked van, was wearing plain clothes. His vehicle did not have a dash camera and he was not wearing a body camera.<\/p>\n<p>During the trial, Raja&#8217;s police supervisor testified that he did not put on a police vest to identify himself, as he had been told to do for any encounters with civilians.<\/p>\n<p>He also did not show the police badge that he had in his pocket.<\/p>\n<p>Hours after Jones&#8217; death, a video was made of Raja walking detectives through how the shooting unfolded.<\/p>\n<p>He claimed he identified himself as a police officer and asked Jones if he needed help, but the tape appeared to disprove that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I identified myself as a police officer,&#8221; he told detectives, adding &#8220;this guy&#8217;s trying to kill me and I was, and I, I didn&#8217;t want to die&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In court, Raja&#8217;s defence lawyers argued that Jones&#8217; &#8220;huh&#8221; from the tape proves that earlier words were exchanged that were not picked up by the iPhone&#8217;s mouthpiece.<\/p>\n<p>They argued that Raja should be protected under Florida&#8217;s &#8220;stand your ground law&#8221; because he feared for his life.<\/p>\n<p>Jones&#8217; family members who sat through the trial cried at times when images of his body was shown lying in the grass on the highway embankment, CBS reported.<\/p>\n<p>After the verdict was read, one family member told the Associated Press that the &#8220;the sweetest sound was the click of those handcuffs&#8221; on Raja as he was led away from the courtroom.<\/p>\n<p>Palm Beach Gardens police fired Raja days after the shooting. He has been under house arrest since charges were filed in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>According to US media, Raja is the first Florida officer to be convicted of an on duty shooting in 30 years.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-47475563\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">A Florida ex-policeman has been found guilty of manslaughter and attempted first-degree murder in the 2015 shooting death of a black musician. Nouman Raja, 41, faces a minimum of 25 years in prison for the <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/03\/08\/florida-ex-officer-nouman-raja-convicted-in-fatal-shooting-of-black-motorist\/\" title=\"Florida ex-officer Nouman Raja convicted in fatal shooting of black motorist\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[6055,417,5105,4208],"class_list":{"0":"post-14125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-corey-jones","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-nouman-raja","12":"tag-police-shooting","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14126,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14125\/revisions\/14126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}