An Indian-American, who was fired in November from police force in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the fatal shooting of a legally-armed black musician, was arrested and charged with attempted first degree murder June 1.
Former Palm Beach Gardens Police Officer Nouman Raja, according to CNN and news agency reports, was charged with attempted first degree murder and manslaughter by culpable negligence in the shooting death of stranded motorist Corey Jones.
A grand jury found “that the use of force by Raja was unjustified,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg was quoted as having told reporters.
News reports said Raja, 38, who is a native of Pennsylvania and studied in New York before moving to Fla., was on a burglary detail and in street clothes when he came upon Jones whose car had broken down on a highway off-ramp early morning October 18. Jones, 31, was on the phone with an AT&T roadside assistance operator when Raja approached his car, reports said.
The CNN said the recording of the conversation outlined in the probable cause affidavit shows that Raja did not identify himself as a police officer before firing his gun six times, hitting Jones three time as he was trying to run away. His body was found in a grassy area 192 feet from his car.
Raja’s supervisor testified that he had instructed Raja to identify himself as an officer and to wear a police vest when working on burglary surveillance. According to the affidavit, the vest was found in Raja’s unmarked van.
“Jones was black. Raja is Indian-American. The case marked another in a series of controversial police shootings in the United States that have raised questions about race and policing,” the CNN report noted June 1.
Jones had legally bought a gun less than 72 hours before he was killed. It was found 41 yards from his body with the safety on and no shots fired, according to investigators.
Raja was heard saying “drop that (expletive) gun right now!” when he called 911 to report that he had shot a person, according to court documents.
Jones family members said they were relieved that Raja was arrested and will face charges.
The Sun Sentinel newspaper of South Florida shed light on the life of Raja based on its multiple interviews and records that the newspaper obtained.
Raja, according to the report, moved to Palm Beach County from New York just over a decade ago and that he was a Pennsylvania native who graduated high school from Mechanicsburg town. In his high school senior year he got into trouble after a fight in school. He allegedly smoked marijuana once in 1995, during a trip to Ocean City, Md., for Senior Week, according to paperwork he submitted when applying to work as an officer at the Atlantis Police Department.
He enrolled at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the College of Upstate New York. School officials told the newspaper that he attended classes sporadically between 1999 and 2003, but never graduated.
Eventually he moved to Florida and took several jobs, including working at a Jiffy Lube and installing security systems. In 2007, he enrolled in the Palm Beach Community College police academy for a six-month law enforcement program and obtained his certifications to become a police officer, including in a gun course and emergency medical technician certification.
He landed a job at the Atlantis Police Department in 2008, a force with just 14 full-time officers who serve a 2,100-person, 1-1/2-square-mile community west of the Palm Beach County Park Airport in Lantana.
“Raja became an asset to the department because he spoke five different languages, including Spanish, Hindi and Portuguese,” the Sun Sentinel report said.
About the same time, he began teaching courses in criminal justice at Palm Beach State College. He received positive reviews from his boss, Atlantis Chief Robert Mangold, in the seven years he was there. His file includes multiple letters of praise from community members and Atlantis officials.
The report said quoting former Atlantis Councilman Michael Dahlgren as saying that he heard from many residents that Raja was a good officer. He recalled working on some community programs with Raja before he left the department in April.
Despite his praises, on three occasions he was reprimanded for not filing reports and once for not filing a report or logging evidence in a drug case.
While Raja began as a police officer, working road patrol, he was promoted in 2014 to sergeant, reaching the highest rank available for him at Atlantis. After applying to a few other agencies in the county, including the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department hired him.
“He left here on very good terms,” Dahlgren said.
The newspaper could not reach Raja for comments. The president of the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association told the paper that he thinks Raja and his family relocated amid death threats.
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