Family demands answers after church drummer killed by officer
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- Early Sunday morning, a car broke down on a Florida highway. The driver called for help. As he waited, an undercover police officer pulled up. The motorist wound up dead, shot by the cop.
Corey Jones wasn't confrontational, his family says. He was practically raised in church.
"Anything you need, Corey would be right there. If you needed his shirt, he would give you his shirt. He would be cold just to keep you warm," Dale Banks his aunt said.
Jones needed a tow truck early last Sunday morning. The 31-year-old city employee moonlighted as a drummer, and was returning home from a gig when his car broke down on an exit ramp along I-95.
He called bandmate Matt Huntsberger for help.
"When I left him he gave me a high-five," he recalled.
Sometime after 3 a.m., 38-year-old officer Nouman Raja arrived.
"...Nouman Raja, on duty in a plain clothes capacity, in an unmarked police vehicle, stopped to investigate what he believed to be an abandoned vehicle...," The Palm Beach Gardens police department said in a Facebook statement it has since deleted. "As the officer exited his vehicle he was suddenly confronted by an armed subject. As a result of the confrontation, the officer discharged his firearm resulting in the death of the subject..."
Officer Raja was not wearing a body camera and his cruiser had no dashboard camera. He joined the force six months ago.
Police said on Tuesday they found a handgun at the scene where Jones was killed and records prove he had bought it three days earlier. The officer is on administrative leave and a separate police agency is investigating the shooting.