Ex-Florida policeman gets 25 years in prison for killing black motorist [View all]

[erronis]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting/ex-florida-policeman-gets-25-years-in-prison-for-killing-black-motorist-idUSKCN1S11UI

A former Florida police officer was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday for fatally shooting a black motorist who was awaiting a tow truck in October 2015.

Nouman Raja, 41, was fired from the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department shortly after he killed Corey Jones, 31, while on plainclothes duty, and was convicted last month by a jury of manslaughter and first-degree murder.

The conviction was unusual in a country in which police officers kill roughly 1,000 people each year, a disproportionate number of them black men, usually without facing prosecution, according to a Washington Post database on police shootings.

Jones’ relatives asked Judge Joseph Marx to give Raja the maximum sentence of life in prison during the sentencing hearing. The judge said it was a “heartbreaking” case before handing down the sentence of 25 years, the minimum required under state law, for both counts, to run concurrently.

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“Today we can tell many of those families that there’s hope for America,” Crump said, “because a jury in Palm Beach, Florida, looked at all the evidence and said a black man killed by the police can get equal justice.”