Their band, Future Prezidents, had finished their gig almost an hour earlier, so bass player Mathew Huntsberger was surprised to get a call from drummer Corey Jones, 31, around 1:45 a.m. on Sunday.
Jones told Huntsberger that his SUV had broken down and asked if he could help, so Huntsberger drove to find his bandmate, who was stranded north of West Palm Beach, Fla., on Interstate 95. He brought along some oil, but when that didnt work, the two decided to look up numbers for a tow truck.
I tried to help him the best I could, but Im not a mechanic or anything, Huntsberger said in an interview with The Washington Post on Monday afternoon.
Huntsberger said he called roadside assistance for his bandmate and then, about 2:30 a.m., left to head home while Jones waited for the tow truck.
About 45 minutes later, Jones was dead shot and killed by a police officer.
When I left him he was sitting in his car calling roadside assistance, Huntsberger said. I never would have thought that someone was going to come kill him.
Few details have been released about the Oct. 18 shooting which is one of more than 780 fatal police shootings so far in 2015, according to a Washington Post database of all deadly on-duty shootings by police officers in 2015.
In a statement issued Monday afternoon, the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department said that officer Nouman Raja was in plainclothes in an unmarked car when he stopped to investigate what he believed to be an abandoned vehicle on an Interstate 95 exit ramp.
As the officer exited his vehicle, he was suddenly confronted by an armed subject, the police department said in a statement. As a result of the confrontation, the officer discharged his firearm, resulting in the death of the subject.
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