Pubdate: Wed, 25 Oct 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Courtland Milloy
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1600/a11.html

OFFICER'S CLAIM OF SELF-DEFENSE DOESN'T FIT

Put yourself in Prince Jones's shoes: You've finished a day's work as a 
fitness trainer at the Bally's health club in Hyattsville, and you're 
heading to the home of your fiancee and 11-month-old child in the Seven 
Corners area of Fairfax County.

You've done nothing wrong.

Being mistaken for a dope dealer by a Prince George's County cop is the 
last thing on your mind. Just because you're a 25-year-old black man 
driving a black Jeep Cherokee with a Pennsylvania tag ought not make you 
the object of surveillance, harassment and, eventually, a killing by police 
who are looking for some other black man in some other black Cherokee--with 
Maryland tags, no less.

Little do you know that you're about to encounter a police department with 
a reputation for racial insensitivity and brutality, but with more than 
enough apologists in high places to tolerate misconduct and incompetence.

Including your wrongful death.

After botching the arrest of the man they were actually looking for--the 
suspect apparently used his car to ram a police cruiser and make his 
escape--"a decision was made by the Prince George's police that it was too 
dangerous to attempt another street arrest," said Virginia Commonwealth's 
Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. "They wanted to find an address where an 
arrest could be made."

Since when did it become "too dangerous" for police to make street arrests?

Nevertheless, a nervous cop has mistaken you for that suspect and is 
following you. At some point during the early morning of Sept. 1, 1999, you 
notice that someone is tailing you. Your heart is racing. Who is it? 
Carjackers? Skinheads? The Klan?

In self-defense mode, you cut into a driveway and turn out the lights. You 
see this strange car. You see this man you don't know. And as fear turns to 
rage, you leave your car to find out just what in the world is going on.

The man waves a gun at you. He says he's a police officer. But he's not in 
uniform. He's not in a police car. And he doesn't even have a badge. Worst 
of all, he's a young black man like you. And the rage turns to hate.

You can't believe it. All you want to do is to keep him from getting to 
you, to your loved ones. So you ram his car, hoping to at least trap him. 
But the man, Cpl. Carlton B. Jones, 32, fires 16 times, hitting you six 
times in the back.

Virginia law says that any right to a claim of self-defense depends 
primarily on whether you reasonably fear death or serious bodily harm. The 
law also says you can forfeit that claim if you are in any way responsible 
for causing the confrontation.

Prince Jones clearly met the criteria for acting in self-defense.

Carlton Jones did not.

Incredibly, in announcing his decision not to prosecute Carlton Jones, 
Horan managed on Monday to twist the law to the breaking point, concluding 
that the police officer shot in self-defense while implying that Prince 
Jones was to blame.

"It remains a mystery why Prince Jones rammed the police vehicle at least 
twice in a neighborhood he knew quite well," Horan said.

By Horan's reasoning, any action you take to protect yourself when being 
stalked and harassed entitles the other person to kill you in 
self-defense--as long as the killer turns out to be a cop, of course, and 
you are just another dead black man.

"On the other hand," said Ted J. Williams, an attorney for Prince Jones's 
family, "had Carlton Jones followed a young white man into Fairfax County 
from Maryland through the District of Columbia and shot that young white 
fellow in the back six times, he could have claimed self-defense from now 
until the end of time, but it would have been from a jail cell as he 
awaited a jury of the fine citizens of Fairfax County to decide his fate."

Horan, a commonwealth's attorney for 34 years, said he declined to 
prosecute because no jury in Virginia would have convicted Carlton Jones. 
If Horan is right, that says as much about the people of Virginia as it 
does about Horan.

"It is not a question of what the reasonable man would have believed, but 
whether the actual belief of the defendant was reasonable in light of the 
circumstances as he perceived them," Horan said. "In other words, a jury is 
told to put themselves in the shoes of the defendant."

But if you're in Prince Jones's shoes, you've still done nothing wrong. And 
the cop who killed you ought to answer for your murder.
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