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Friday, October 30, 2015

Was Corey Jones Murdered By Cop Because He Open Carried?

After his car broke down on Interstate 95 and waiting several hours for a tow truck Corey Jones was shot and killed by a plainclothes officer in an unmarked car who never bothered to identify himself as a police officer simply because Corey, on his way home from a musical performance with his expensive drums packed in his SUV, brandished a gun in self-defense as a stranger stopped an approached his vehicle at 3am on the middl e of the highway.
Via Wapo.
In a statement issued Monday afternoon, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department said that officer Nouman Raja was in plainclothes in an unmarked car when he stopped to investigate what he believed to be an abandoned vehicle on an Interstate 95 exit ramp.
“As the officer exited his vehicle, he was suddenly confronted by an armed subject,” the police department said in a statement. “As a result of the confrontation, the officer discharged his firearm, resulting in the death of the subject.”
According to his friends and family, several of which are members of the clergy, Jones was "a good kid, just coming home from a gig",  That he was "just an all-around good guy who never got into any trouble, never had any record" and "as a really mellow, church-going guy."
Not a gang-banger.  Not a "Thug".  In a stand-your-ground state, shot on sight.  The NRA tells us that self-protection via firearm is our inherent "Right" and the Supreme Court via Heller at least seems to concur, yet we hear narry a peep from them about Corey Jones inherent right not to be immediately shot simply because he was attempting to keep himself safe.
More over the flip.
It's seems obvious doesn't it.  See a black man out on the road with a gun, well, he's got to a be a robber, or a killer, or a gang-member or some such, right? It's not possible he was simply a frightening man alone on the highway who simply carried a gun for his own self-protection and to protect his property.
Any cop in a non-open carry state like Florida would have of course done the exact same thing, right?  It's not possible that he could have made a different choice, or attempted to ID himself, or anything.
It's not like this situation here where police in Michigan immediately responded to a man brandishing a rifle by talking to him for ten minutes while he hurled obscenities at them, until he finally put the weapon down.
This man wasn't shot, he wasn't charged, he wasn't even arrested for publicly brandishing a loaded weapon in broad daylight.
And it's not like this situation here where a teenager walking down the street with a shotgun over his shoulder in Aurora Co. was immediately and viciously asked to come down to the police station where he was cited for the heinous crime of refusing to provide the officers his ID.
And he kept the shotgun.
So of course, what was this Officer to do?  Exactly what choice did he have except to simplystart shooting first and maybe ask a question or two later over this man's slowly cooling corpse?  Yet again, Florida, unlike Michigan and Colorado isn't an open-carry state, so maybe that is the crucial difference in police response here and not some other ethnic or demographic issue.
But then again some of our questions may soon be answered because Corey Jones was apparently on the phone to roadside assistance when he was shot.
Before Corey Jones was shot and killed by an officer, Jones repeatedly dialed #HELP for roadside assistance while stranded on the side of a highway, phone records show.
And Jones, whose vehicle broke down on Oct. 18, made his final phone call for roadside assistance at 3:10 a.m., according to the phone records. That's about five minutes before Palm Beach Gardens Officer Nouman Raja shot him during their encounter off an Interstate 95 exit ramp, authorities said.
Jones was on the phone with AT&T's roadside assistance when he was shot: Jones' final call was underway at 3:15 a.m. during the shooting. Although it's unclear if Jones still was holding the cellphone at the time, records show the final call started at 3:10 a.m. and ended at 4:03 a.m., for a duration of 53 minutes.
It's possible that Corey's phone call was recorded by AT&T and exactly what was and wasn't said before the fatal shots were fired are on tape.  Or perhaps not.
Either way it is quite ironic that a man who had been repeatedly calling for #HELP was ultimately shot and killed by someone who's paid to provide... Help.


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