Prince Jones

Prince Carmen "Rocky" Jones Jr. (1975 – September 1, 2000) was an African-American man killed by a police officer in September 2000 in Virginia. Author Ta-Nehisi Coates attended Jones' memorial service, and later wrote at length about Jones' life and death in his 2015 book Between the World and Me, noting that the tragedies of racism are impossible to escape for Black people, even those well-off.

Biography Jones was the son of Prince C. Jones Sr. and Dr. Mabel Jones, a physician and the daughter of a sharecropper. He attended the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science in Denton, TX, Howard University in Washington, D.C., was a personal trainer at a Washington metropolitan area gym, and was set to enlist in the U.S. Navy. He had an infant daughter with his fiancée Candace Carson.

Killing by police On 1 September 2000, Jones was unarmed and driving his Jeep Cherokee to meet his fiancée. Undercover black police officer Carlton Jones (no relation) of Prince George's County, Maryland, followed Jones for 15 miles in an unmarked vehicle into Fairfax County, Virginia. Officer Jones displayed his gun and announced he was police, though he was not in uniform and did not display his badge. According to the officer, Prince Jones rammed the police vehicle with his Jeep, leading the officer to shoot at Jones' Jeep 16 times, striking him six times, including five times in the back. Two witnesses in the 2006 civil trial contradicted the officer's account; one testified that Jones' vehicle was not moving when the shots were fired.

Carlton Jones later explained the killing as a case of mistaken identity, and in October 2000 the county prosecutor, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr., declined to file criminal charges against Officer Jones.