Florida deputies burst into wrong apartment, shoot and kill 23-year-old Air Force Senior Airman (Video)
On the afternoon of Friday, May 3, U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, was shot and killed by an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Deputy who was responding to a disturbance call. Tragically and reportedly, the deputy had gone to the wrong address and shot the wrong guy. It didn’t help matters optically that Fortson was armed with a handgun when the deputy “burst into his home.”
The airman was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, when the fatal officer involved shooting occurred.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing Fortson’s family in the case. Yesterday, the sheriff’s office released body camera video showing a sheriff’s deputy shoot and kill the airman at his apartment last week when the deputy responded to that disturbance call.
The video shows a deputy from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in the Florida panhandle knock on the door of Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s apartment late Friday afternoon and announce he was with the sheriff’s office. When the door opens, the deputy yells for Fortson, 23, to step back.
The video shows a deputy from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in the Florida panhandle knock on the door of Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s apartment late Friday afternoon and announce he was with the sheriff’s office. When the door opens, the deputy yells for Fortson, 23, to step back.
Within seconds of Fortson opening the door, the deputy shoots Fortson who is seen holding what appears to be a handgun at his side.
Fortson, who is blurred in the video, immediately falls to the ground. He’s seen moving on the floor as the deputy tells him to drop his gun.
“It’s over there,” Fortson is heard on the video telling the deputy. “I don’t have it.” ~ Excerpt from CBS News
When the deputy first knocked on Fortson’s apartment door, the airman was on a Facetime call with his girlfriend. She told NBC News that there was no disturbance and that he was alone in his apartment. The woman also said that when Fortson inquired as to who was knocking at his door, he received no verbal response, but just a “second, aggressive knock.”
“Concerned, he did what any other law-abiding citizen would do and retrieved his legally-owned gun, but as he was walking back to the living room, police burst through the door. When they saw the gun, they shot Roger six times,” attorney Crump said in the statement.
On May 8, Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden released the following statement regarding the on fatal officer involved shooting
All of us at the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office are saddened about the fatal officer involved shooting over the weekend.
Late Friday afternoon, our deputy responded to a call of a disturbance in progress where he encountered an armed man. The deputy shot the man, who later succumbed to his injuries.
I immediately placed the deputy on administrative leave and have asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to conduct the investigation that is required in such incidents. The State Attorney’s Office will also conduct an independent review.
At this time, we humbly ask for our community’s patience as we work to understand the facts that resulted in this tragic event.
Describing the shooting, the woman on the Facetime video said that after Fortson answered the knock at the door, he walked back through his living room. When deputies “burst through the door,” and saw that Fortson was armed, he was immediately shot six times. The woman said Fortson was on the ground, saying, “I can’t breathe,” after he was shot. The airman died a short time later after being transported to the hospital.
At the time of the shooting, Fortson was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field and was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions aviator, where one of his roles as a member of the squadron’s AC-130J Ghostrider aircrew was to load the gunship’s 30mm and 105mm cannons during missions.
For more on the story, and to view the released body cam footage, see the videos presented below.
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(Cover photo of Senior Airman Roger Fortson, Image credit: U.S Air Force)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
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