In clearing the officer of possible criminal charges, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr.

The Washington Post


December 6, 2000, Wednesday, Final Edition


Police Sued by Victim's Family




The family of a Hyattsville man shot to death by an undercover Prince George's County police officer in Virginia filed a federal lawsuit against the county and the police yesterday.


The lawsuit--filed on behalf of the mother and estate of Prince C. Jones Jr. in U.S. District Court in Washington--states that rogue officers planned an act of vengeance that miscarried against an innocent man.


Jones, 25, was killed Sept. 1 after a detective trailed his Jeep Cherokee to Fairfax County. Cpl. Carlton B. Jones fired 16 shots after Jones rammed the officer's car. The men are not related.


In clearing the officer of possible criminal charges, Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert F. Horan Jr. said the detective fired in self-defense. He said the officer believed that the Jeep belonged to another man who had tried to run down police officers in two previous encounters.


But attorneys Ted J. Williams and Gregory L. Lattimer, who represent Prince Jones's family, said at a news conference yesterday that police plotted a violent confrontation with the ramming suspect from the outset.


Cpl. Jones and his supervisor, Sgt. Alexandre Bailey, set the confrontation in motion after spotting Jones and an unidentified friend leaving a District nightclub on Georgia Avenue near Jefferson Street NW about 1 a.m., the lawsuit alleges.


The lawsuit says police followed Jones until he was alone in a quiet, suburban neighborhood that would presumably have no witnesses. "We believe that they were going to teach the occupant of that vehicle a lesson," Williams said.


The attorneys also renewed their assertion yesterday that Cpl. Jones fired as Prince Jones scrambled to leave. Two witnesses contradict police accounts that Prince Jones had initiated the confrontation after the officer made a U-turn, the lawyers said.


The FBI is still conducting witness interviews and expects to forward the results to federal prosecutors by the first of the year, said Special Agent Susan Lloyd, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office.


The lawsuit filed yesterday seeks $ 145 million in punitive and compensatory damages.


Lt. Peter White, a Prince George's police spokesman, declined to comment, saying the department has not seen the lawsuit.


"I think they've always planned to sue. So I'm not surprised," said Michael T. Leibig, Carlton Jones's lawyer.