Florida deputy who shot Black airman is fired, sheriff says

[June 01, 2024]  By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) - A Florida sheriff's office on Friday fired a deputy who had shot and killed a Black airman with the U.S. Air Force, saying the use of deadly force was not reasonable.

That was the conclusion of an internal affairs investigation by the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office into the May 3 killing of Roger Fortson, 23, in Fort Walton Beach, the sheriff's office said in a statement.

A criminal investigation into former deputy Eddie Duran, who shot and killed Fortson, is ongoing, the sheriff's office said.

"This tragic incident should have never occurred," said Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden. "The objective facts do not support the use of deadly force as an appropriate response to Mr. Fortson's actions."

The sheriff added: "Mr. Fortson did not commit any crime. By all accounts, he was an exceptional airman and individual."

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Fortson's family, said in a statement the firing was a step in the right direction but that "it is not full justice for Roger and his family. The actions of this deputy were not just negligent, they were criminal."

The deputy's body camera footage, released earlier this month, showed him responding to an apartment complex on a domestic violence call. An employee of the complex met Duran when he arrived and directed him to Fortson's apartment.

Duran banged on Fortson's door unannounced, following up with more loud knocks and announcing twice that he was with the sheriff's department.

The body camera video shows Fortson opening the door and holding a handgun at his side and pointed down. He did not point the gun at the deputy. Duran immediately opened fire multiple times at close range. Fortson died in the hospital.

Black U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson holds a handgun at his side pointed down as a Florida sheriff's deputy aims at him, in Okaloosa County, Florida, U.S., in this screengrab taken from a police bodycam video released May 9, 2024. Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office/via ReutersTV/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Fortson's family insists that the sheriff's deputy mistakenly targeted Fortson's apartment. They have pointed out that he was talking on the phone with his girlfriend before the shooting and that nobody else was inside of the apartment.

The sheriff's department's investigation found that someone from the apartment complex called a non-emergency sheriff's department phone line to report that they heard a couple fighting in Fortson's apartment.

But Crump has said Fortson was on a Facetime call with his girlfriend when he heard a knock on his door. He asked, "Who is it?" but did not get a response, Crump said, relating the girlfriend's account.

Fortson then retrieved a gun he owned legally and walked back through his living room toward the door, Crump said.

The killing was reminiscent of an unannounced police raid in Louisville, Kentucky, in March 2020, when police burst into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was an emergency medical technician, killing her. Police had obtained a "no knock" warrant to raid the apartment, mistaking it for the home of a suspect.

Taylor's death, along with the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police weeks later, set off a worldwide wave of protests against racism in law enforcement in the summer of 2020.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; Editing by William Mallard)

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