Court hears Jones shooting audio
The last words of Corey Jones reverberated across a courtroom Monday as the officer who shot him dead in 2015 tried to get his criminal charges dismissed.
Former police officer Nouman Raja’s lawyers presented an audio enhancement of Jones’ call on the day Raja shot him in an encounter at a highway exit ramp.
Raja’s lawyers are asking a judge to toss Raja’s manslaughter and attempted murder charges under the state’s “stand your ground” self-defense law.
Prosecutors argue Raja’s negligence led to the fatal shooting, based on how the plainclothes officer drove the wrong way up a highway off-ramp, and left a van without his tactical vest, police radio and departmentissued gun.
“There is no way that Corey Jones would have known that the defendant was a law enforcement
officer,” Assistant State Attorney Brian Fernandes said at the start of a two-day hearing. Dozens of members of Jones’ family attended this mini-trial without a jury.
But the defense says Raja announced he was a cop, and the recording of the roadside assistance call made by Jones did not pick it up. Jones, 31, phoned for a tow truck after his Hyundai Santa Fe broke down at 1:30 a.m. Oct. 18, 2015, along a southbound Interstate 95 off-ramp in Palm Beach Gardens.
Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer put on headphones to hear a version of the call enhanced by defense expert Frank Piazza, a forensic audiovideo analyst.
When the operator begins speaking with Jones, he provides his phone number and other basic information.
The dispatcher asks, “What’s wrong with the vehicle?”
Jones replies in a calm voice, “Um, it won’t start.”
Soon after, loud chimes from an open car door are heard on the recording, and Jones can be heard saying, “Huh?” as Raja apparently approached him.
Piazza, based in New York City, testified there was a “human voice” before the first audible word “huh?” on the recording.
Piazza said there is at least a 50 percent chance the voice was Raja’s, but he “can’t be sure.”
“I know it was not Mr. Jones’ voice,” Piazza said in response to a question from the prosecutor.
The judge also watched a video of Raja at the scene, recorded about four hours after the shooting, when he offered his account of the encounter with Jones.
Raja, now 40, claimed Jones almost immediately pulled a gun on him.
“I said, ‘Hey, man, police, can I help you?’ and that’s when he ... jumped back and pointed the gun at me,” Raja told the investigators, raising his arm and closing his fist to demonstrate Jones’ posture. “I didn’t want to die.”
Prosecutors have the burden of proving that Raja is not entitled to immunity from prosecution. Fernandes said the evidence should convince the judge that Raja “does not have a right to come in here and have a case dismissed because of ‘stand your ground.’ ”
Prosecutors contend the recording contradicts Raja’s statements to investigators then, and his defense’s position Monday, that the cop identified himself as a police officer after he pulled his unmarked van next to Jones’ SUV at about 3:15 a.m.
Fernandes, with Chief Assistant State Attorney Adrienne Ellis, called Raja’s account an “inconsistent, unreliable statement that serves his best interest.”
Some of Jones’ loved ones wept in the courtroom as Jones’ recording was played over and over. After the hearing, Clinton Jones Sr., the victim’s dad, said, “It’s very hurting, you know, and sad.”
The day he was shot, Jones, a housing inspector for Delray Beach, was on his way home after a performance in Jupiter playing the drums in a reggae band.
On the call, after Jones said, “Huh?” Raja, asked, “you good?” “I’m good,” Jones replied. “Really?” Raja responded. “Yeah; I’m good,” Jones said. “Really?” Raja replied. “Yeah,” Jones said.
At that point, Raja begins screaming, “Get your f-----hands up! Get your f------ hands up!”
“Hold on! Hold on!” Jones insists.
“Get your f------ hands up! Drop!” Raja said.
Within the next two seconds, gunshots are heard on the recording. Jones never fired his licensed .380-caliber handgun, records show.
After about 10 seconds, Raja fired three shots at one shot every second. It is unclear from the audio what happened during those 10 seconds.
Raja fired a total of six shots from his personal .40-caliber Glock pistol, according to prosecutors. A medical examiner’s report states Jones died from a gunshot wound to the chest, and he also had bullet wounds in both arms.
Defense attorneys Richard Lubin and Scott Richardson have not said whether Raja will testify before the hearing concludes Tuesday.
On Monday, the defense called two crime scene reconstruction experts who said Raja did nothing wrong when he approached Jones on the highway off-ramp. But the most contentious moment came when prosecutor Ellis questioned the defense’s police use-of-force expert, Christopher Chapman, about his opinion that Raja’s actions were “objectively reasonable.” She challenged his statement that he didn’t assess Raja’s credibility based on the roadside assistance call.
“That is absolutely ludicrous,” Ellis told Chapman, a professor for the City University of New York.
The prosecutors plan to call a police practices expert to testify Raja’s actions were negligent. The judge will issue a written ruling at a later time.