Officer Nouman Raja crossed the line from cop to criminal

A Palm Beach County jury concluded Thursday that no one is above the law – not even a law enforcement officer.

By convicting former Palm Beach Gardens police officer Nouman Raja of attempted first-degree murder and manslaughter, the six jurors did more than deliver justice to the family of Corey Jones 1,236 days after his killing. They delivered the message that society will hold accountable even those who wear a badge and carry a gun.

Prosecutors made a simple but persuasive argument: Raja lied when he claimed that Jones pointed a gun at him. So he didn’t kill Jones in self-defense. For reasons we never may know, Raja panicked when speaking with Jones in his disabled van and fired six shots. His actions crossed the line into criminal behavior.

When Raja invented that cover story during his interview with investigators, he didn’t know about the audiotape of Jones speaking with a roadside assistance dispatcher. That tape undercut every element of his defense, from the moment Raja approached the van to when he claimed that he called 911.

Juries often give police officers the benefit of the doubt. Raja’s attorneys played to that sentiment. They cast Raja as the victim, not the 31-year-old Jones, who worked for the Delray Beach Housing Authority but whose real love was playing drums for the reggae band Future Prezidents.

As the charging documents stated, however, Raja approached the van “in a tactically unsound, unsafe and grossly negligent manner.” Working in plainclothes, Raja parked his unmarked van in front of Jones on the southbound exit ramp of Interstate 95 at PGA Boulevard, blocking the young man’s escape. Raja did not wear a vest identifying himself as a police officer, though he had been instructed to do so. And he carried no radio, so he couldn’t have called for backup.

Even before the verdict, Raja had been exposed as a liar. He tried to claim selfdefense under Florida’s “stand your ground law.” In ruling against him, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer wrote, “The court finds the defendant's sworn statement testimony unreliable and not credible, primarily because his sworn statement during the walk-through was inconsistent with the physical evidence.”

Feuer added that the officer “is unable to choose which of his statements are inaccurate due to perception distortion (on the recording) and which are accurate for the sake of his argument.” His attorneys argued that Raja saw a red laser from Jones’ gun. It did not have a laser.

Of Raja’s claim that Jones drew the weapon, Feuer said, “Defendant's unreliable testimony is all that supports that proposition.” The 4th District Court of Appeal upheld her ruling.

We disagreed with Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg when he first took the case to a grand jury, charging Raja only after the indictment. But credit goes to Aronberg and the prosecution team. They made even the murder charge stick by persuading jurors that Raja fired at a fleeing Jones for no reason other than to kill him.

What happens now? Judge Joseph Marx set sentencing for April 26. Raja faces 25 years to life. He likely will appeal, but Marx ran the trial even-handedly and nothing will change the damning evidence on the recording. Raja’s case provides another example of why the Legislature should revisit “stand your ground” and at least narrow the 2005 law. As Raja’s trial ended, the Florida Supreme Court was hearing oral arguments in a Miami-Dade case related to the law’s 2017 expansion, which shifted the burden of proof to prosecutors, not defendants, in self-defense cases.

Because Raja might not even have been charged without the audio, some might argue that body cameras would be a reliable backup. Palm Beach Gardens approved them three months after Raja killed Jones.

As noted, however, Raja was in plainclothes, working surveillance. Even departments that have embraced body cameras give them only to uniformed officers. Officers also can turn off the cameras.

Ultimately, cities and counties must hire qualified candidates and give them constant training. The public then must depend on the officers to exercise good judgment – as the great majority of them do.

But if they don’t, society can’t excuse them, given the life-and-death power we invest in them.

Corey Jones’ father said Raja could have walked away from his son, but “but you decided to take his life. Because of that, you’re in the predicament you’re in now.”

Raja didn’t make just one mistake. He made many. He deserves whatever punishment comes.