Florida deputy fatally shoots Black airman Roger Fortson -

A Black Air Force airman was killed by a Florida deputy almost immediately after opening his door to the officer, a body-camera video released Thursday shows.

An unnamed male Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy fatally shot Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, last week. The video shows how rapidly a 911 call on a Friday afternoon at a quiet apartment complex in Fort Walton Beach unraveled and ended with Fortson writhing on the floor after having been shot six times.

At a news conference earlier in the day, Fortson’s mother said the sheriff’s office had sullied her son’s reputation by implying he was involved in “a disturbance.”

“Tell the truth about my son,” said Meka Fortson, fighting back tears as she clutched a large framed photo of her son in his airman’s uniform. “I know my son did not do anything to you guys.”

Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden said the video rebuts statements made by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who initially said the deputy “burst in the door.” Crump based his statements on what Fortson’s girlfriend, who was on FaceTime with him during the incident, told the family.

“I want to assure you that we are not hiding, covering up, or taking action that would result in a rush to judgment of Mr. Fortson or our deputy,” Aden said. “There are many questions the investigation must answer before we can determine whether the officer’s actions were justified.”

The video shows that the deputy arrived at the apartment complex and asked a man in the lobby about “a fight or something.” A woman who greeted the deputy in the parking lot and walked him to Fortson’s building told him she had heard fights in the apartment in the past, “but this time it sounded like it was getting out of hand.”

When the deputy arrived at Fortson’s door, he paused to listen, the footage shows, but no voices can be heard on the video. He then knocked on the door without announcing himself, the video shows, and stepped away to avoid being seen through a peephole.

Captions included in the video released by police indicate Fortson said something about police from the other side of the door. The deputy knocked loudly again, identified himself and stepped out of view a second time. Fortson answered the door with a pistol in his right hand, pointed downward, and was commanded to step back.

The video does not show him raising his weapon. One second later, the deputy fired at Fortson six times, as he held up an empty left hand in defense. After the deputy stopped firing, he yelled at him, “Drop the gun!” At that point, Fortson was wounded and on the ground.

Four seconds elapsed between the door opening and the first gunshots. Fortson later died of his injuries.

The apartment number mentioned by the bystander who told officers about the disturbance when they arrive on scene is consistent with Fortson’s address in public records. Crump said he is certain deputies went to the wrong unit, however, contending that there was no dispute taking place at the time.

It is unclear whether the people who called police heard a commotion in another apartment or mistakenly believed there were two people at Fortson’s residence.

“We remain adamant that the police had the wrong apartment,” Crump said in the statement after viewing the video with the family. It raised more questions, he said, including whether lifesaving measures were taken quickly and whether the deputy was trained to give verbal warnings.

He added that Fortson’s girlfriend “initially thought the door was forced open” and “stands by her emotional recollection of what happened.” Crump released a clip of the couple’s FaceTime call, recorded immediately after the shooting, in which Fortson groans and cries, “I can’t breathe.”

Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger confirmed that the agency is investigating the incident at the request of the sheriff.

“FDLE use-of-force cases are independent, fact-finding investigations. The results are referred to the State Attorney’s office to determine further action,” Plessinger said in an email. “As this investigation is active, we do not have additional information to provide at this time.”

At a news conference Thursday, Crump said Fortson returned to his apartment at 4 p.m. Friday and called his girlfriend, who is a nurse. About 30 minutes later, she said, there was an “aggressive bang” at his door. He asked who it was, but got no answer, Crump said. He then looked through the peephole but couldn’t see anything.

Fortson continued to ask who was there, but no one responded. He then retrieved his gun, which Crump said Fortson had a legal right to own.

“My baby was shot up!” Meka Fortson cried as Crump recounted the events.

“You put out this narrative demonizing his name as if he did something wrong, as if he committed some crime, trying to justify an unjustifiable killing,” Crump said about the sheriff’s original statement on the shooting.

Sabu Williams, an Air Force veteran and president of the Okaloosa County branch of the NAACP, said he did not see a justifiable reason for the shooting after reviewing the video with the sheriff. It’s his belief that justice would involve charges for the deputy, he said.

“When it comes to people of color and their engagement with law enforcement, it’s as if there is a disregard for human life,” he said. “Shoot first, ask questions later.”

Fortson enlisted in 2019 and served as a special mission aviator with the 4th Special Operations Squadron, the Air Force said, including as a gunner on the AC-130J, a workhorse aircraft in Special Operations. His decorations include an Air Medal with “C” Device, according to his service record, indicating that he served in a combat environment.

According to internal investigation documents released in February, a law enforcement officer from the same sheriff’s office shot at an unarmed and handcuffed man in November after he mistook the sound of a falling acorn for a gunshot. While the investigation concluded that the deputy used excessive force, there were no criminal charges filed, and the deputy resigned before the public release of the findings.

Police violence against Black Americans has sparked mass protests over the past decade, including the Black Lives Matter movement, in response to the killings of people such as Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor and others. Public outcry reached a fever pitch in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder by police.

According to The Washington Post’s database of fatal police shootings from 2015 to May of this year, police killed the highest number of people on record in 2023, and Black Americans are killed by police at more than twice the rate of White Americans.

Fortson served on a deployment last year, including time in Kuwait, officials said. It would have been easier to accept his death if it happened on a military mission, his mother said in an interview with The Post, not inside his own apartment.

Fortson was central to his family’s life, she said, acting as a role model and mentor to his siblings. She said he joined the military to support his family and had a dream of one day buying his mother a home.

“He was our puzzle. He kept us together. He kept us grounded. He took care of us,” she said. “Now our puzzle is broken. We don’t know how to put it back together.”

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