Former Florida policeman convicted in shooting death of black motorist
(Reuters) - A Florida jury on Thursday convicted a former police officer for manslaughter and attempted first-degree murder in the fatal 2015 shooting of a black motorist who was waiting for his car to be towed off the highway.
Nouman Raja, 41, was charged in 2016 after a grand jury found he had used unjustified force when he shot and killed 31-year-old Corey Jones on a highway exit ramp in West Palm Beach.
Raja, who was seen in court wearing a blue-gray suit and blue tie, looked distraught as the jury read their verdict shortly after 9 a.m. local time (1400 GMT), following five hours of deliberations inside a judicial circuit court in West Palm Beach.
Judge Joseph Marx scheduled a sentence hearing for April 26. Raja faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Prosecutors on Wednesday told jurors during closing arguments that Raja, who is of South Asian descent, should not get a pass because he was a police officer when he killed Jones, according to reports by WPEC CBS12 News.
“When you make wrong decisions you don’t get a pass. What you get is to be held accountable,” said prosecutor Adrienne Ellis, according to the news station.
However, Raja’s lawyers said the shooting itself was not a crime and that their client had feared for his life when Jones pulled out his gun during the event, the news station reported.
“Corey Jones took out a gun and aimed it at Officer Raja’s head,” said attorney Richard Lubin, according to WPEC CBS12. “And everything changed.”
Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum
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