Family of black man killed by Florida police officer demands answers

The family of Corey Jones, a black man killed by a plainclothes police officer in Florida early Sunday, is demanding answers about the circumstances of his death, saying Jones, who was found with a gun at his side, never fired his weapon and would never have drawn it against a police officer.  

His tearful relatives and their lawyer held a press conference on Thursday in front of the Palm Beach County courthouse, where they described their anguish after meeting with the Palm Beach Beach County state attorney.

Though Jones was armed at the time of his death, his family’s lawyers said, he had proper permits to carry a concealed weapon and never fired his weapon during the encounter. “I raised my children to be respectable and to respect the law,” said Clinton Jones Sr., Corey Jones’ father. “Today I need some answers. I need to know why my son is gone today." 

Clinton Jones Jr., Corey Jones’ older brother, told reporters that his sibling “would not ever, ever, ever pull a gun on a policeman — never,” the Associated Press reported. 

Corey Jones, 31, was waiting for a tow truck early Sunday in West Palm Beach when an unmarked police van pulled up behind him. What happened next is not entirely clear, but so far police have said only that Nouman Raja, the officer who shot Jones, was “suddenly confronted by an armed subject,” police chief Stephen Stepp said. Raja was searching for burglary suspects at the time, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department said in statement. 

Jones family lawyers stressed that Jones, a public housing inspector and part-time musician without a criminal record, likely never knew the van’s driver, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and baseball cap, was a police officer. 

“He never displayed a badge to Corey,” said Benjamin Crump, the family’s lawyer. “At some point, Corey was running away. His body was found 80 to 100 feet away” from where the incident started.

The family lawyers said Jones was fired at six times, with three bullets striking him, the fatal one lodging in his chest near his aorta, citing a preliminary autopsy report.

“If Corey had his gun out, he never made any kind of offensive action,” said Daryl Parks, another lawyer for the Jones family.

The lawyers defended Jones’ having a weapon on him. He was a drummer and carried a gun because he feared theft of his expensive musical equipment or cash he took home from gigs, Crump said.

“That’s your Second Amendment right,” said Crump, who has represented the relatives of other black Americans killed by law enforcement. “As an American citizen, are people going to come and support Corey’s right to protect himself? We have to make sure that all Americans have all the rights that all Americans have.”

Lamenting the lack of body or dash camera video, Crump said that the Jones family wants to know whether officer Raja acted unlawfully.

“They want answers. They want justice. And if [the officer] did improper things, if he used excessive force, we want him to be held accountable to the full measure of the law, because they know Corey was not supposed to be shot on the side of the road by someone who was supposed to protect and serve.”

Several hundred people attended a rally protesting Jones’ death after the press conference, the local Sun Sentinel newspaper reported. 

Family members described Jones as happy and friendly. “He was very responsible with his gun,” his sister Melissa Jones told USA Today. She said he thought guns were a reliable means of protection.

With The Associated Press