Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
New light cast on fatal shooting
Officer second-guessed his approach to victim’s vehicle
Just hours after gunning down Corey Jones along I-95, records show then-Palm Beach Gardens Police Officer Nouman Raja told investigators that he was “kicking himself ” about his initial approach to what became a fatal encounter.
Raja — driving an unmarked van and not in uniform on Oct. 18, 2015 — said he pulled over to investigate what he thought was an abandoned vehicle, when Jones emerged and pointed a gun at him.
“It’s just like, you know, your family flashed in front of you, your kids flashed in front of you,” Raja said, at times choked with emotion as he discussed seeing the gun, according to an FBI transcript of the interview. “I was like, ‘Drop the gun! Drop the gun!’ And he, and he didn’t, he was right there. And I remember pulling the trigger, I think two to three times, and he started running.”
Jones, a Delray Beach housing inspector and a church drummer from Boynton Beach, turned out to be a stranded motorist waiting for help with a broken-down SUV.
Raja’s account, given in the wake of the shooting of Jones, conflicts with evidence gathered in the weeks and months that followed, according to the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office.
Raja in June was arrested on charges of manslaughter by culpable negligence and attempted first-degree murder with a firearm. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.
On Tuesday, the State Attorney’s Office released a host of records including a recording and transcript of Raja dis-
cussing the incident with investigators at the scene about 4 1/2 hours after the shooting.
While Raja said he told Jones he was a police officer, a cellphone call recording later revealed that Raja didn’t identify himself as an officer before opening fire, according to the State Attorney’s Office.
The cellphone recording also showed that Raja fired three shots, waited 10 seconds, and then fired three more times, with at least one of those shots fired as Jones ran away, according to the State Attorney’s Office report.
The morning after the shooting, Raja met at the roadside scene with investigators from the Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office and his own department to explain his side of the encounter with Jones.
According to the transcript, Raja said this had been his fourth night of patrolling in an unmarked vehicle and wearing street clothes as part of a police effort to prevent burglaries.
On those patrols Raja said he drove a gold Crown Victoria sedan or the van he was driving that night — both of which were not marked with police identification.
That night, the van was loaded with riot gear, including eight shields, a loudspeaker and crime scene tape, according to the transcript.
Raja told investigators that, in addition to his burglary patrol, he was supposed to be ready to take that gear to officers that may have been needed to respond to any problems with a crowd expected at a hip-hop concert that night at the Lux nightclub in Palm Beach Gardens.
Because he wasn’t in uniform during these types of patrols, Raja acknowledged to investigators that he had been instructed not to participate in any “takedowns” and instead was supposed to call for another police officer to respond. In emergencies Raja said he was supposed to put on the police vest he kept in the van, which said “police” on it, according to the transcript.
“I’m supposed to call the (marked) road unit to come out to handle any situation,” Raja said, according to the transcript.
Raja said that night he was going eastbound on PGA Boulevard when he saw what he thought was an abandoned car on the I-95 ramp. Raja said he drove past it, made a Uturn and then went back to investigate.
“I was like, OK, I’ve got this vehicle on the side of the road, and you know, I’m gonna check out with it and make sure everything’s OK,” Raja said, according to the transcript.
Raja told investigators that if he had known the vehicle was occupied he would have handled his approach to the SUV differently.
“I’m kinda like kicking myself in the ass like, you know, it’s like thinking about hindsight,” Raja said, according to the transcript. “It’s like, you know, always act like a vehicle’s always occupied. Never take that chance of like, you know, this vehicle not being unoccupied.”
Raja told investigators that as he walked close to the vehicle, the door swung open and a man jumped out.
“I immediately said, ‘Hey, man, police, can I help you?’ And at which point that’s when he jumped back and I saw him draw the gun right at me right after I said the word police,” Raja told investigators. “I kinda got like caught with my pants down at that point.”
Raja said he saw a “silver muzzle” and that the gun had a red “Laser Max flashing at me.”
“He draws the gun on me, I said, ‘Drop the gun, drop the gun,’ and bang, bang, bang and he starts running and I start chasing him,” Raja said.
Police say that Jones that night had a gun, which he was licensed to carry. The State Attorney’s Office’s findings determined that Raja kept shooting, even after Jones no longer held his weapon.
Raja said he didn’t have time to show Jones the badge he had in his wallet, according to the transcript. Raja told investigators during the nearly hourlong interview that he didn’t remember if Jones fired a shot.
“I didn’t even hear my, uh, own gun go off. All I remember was just the motion of pulling that trigger,” Raja said.
Jones was face down on the ground when two other officers arrived at the scene, Raja said. He told investigators that after Jones didn’t respond to commands, he pulled Jones by the arm and turned him over, according to the transcript.
“I was covered in his blood, and I was like, ‘Uh, can you just get this off me,’” Raja said he told a Fire Rescue crew, “and they took like hydrogen peroxide and just started pouring it all over me, started washing me.”
Jones’ death sparked public outcry and protests, amid a national uproar over police use of force directed at black men.
Attorneys for Jones’ family have said that Jones likely didn’t know that Raja was a police officer.
The State Attorney’s office in a report issued in June echoed those concerns, saying Raja’s lack of police identification was “grossly negligent.”
“Raja chose to approach Corey Jones’ vehicle in a tactically unsound, unsafe and grossly negligent manner,” according to the prosecutors’ report. “Raja was driving an unmarked white cargo van, which no reasonable person would assume was a police vehicle . ... A reasonable person can only assume the thoughts and concerns Corey Jones was experiencing as he saw the van approaching him at that hour of the morning.”