Prince Jones was an affluent, 25 year-old 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
Prince Carmen Jones Jr., born as Rocky, was the son of Prince C. Jones Sr. and Dr. Mabel Jones, a physician and the daughter of a sharecropper. He attended Howard University, was a personal trainer at a suburban Washington D.C. gym, and was set to enlist in the Navy. He had an infant daughter, Nina, with his fiancé Candace Carson. He was described as upstanding, religious, and a health food fanatic.
Killing by Police
On 1 September 2000, Prince Jones was unarmed and driving his Jeep Cherokee to meet his fiancé. Undercover police officer Carlton Jones of Prince George’s County, Maryland, followed Prince Jones for 15 miles in an unmarked vehicle and then, while not in uniform and not displaying a badge, shot him six times in the back during a confrontation in Fairfax County. 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. This decision aggrieved Prince Jones' family, friends, and local civil rights leaders, who noted Price George’s County's documented history of police brutality and decried the continued failure of the criminal justice system to hold police accountable for serious misconduct. The county prosecutor's inaction was tantamount to "legitimizing murder", they said. The Prince George'sFraternal Order of Police lauded the prosecutor's decision, and of Officer Jones said "it's clear that he was defending himself." A memorial service for Jones was held at Howard University. In January 2006, a Prince George’s County Circuit Court civil jury determined that Prince Jones's death at the hands of the Prince George County police was wrongful, and awarded $2.5 million in damages to Prince Jones' daughter.
