Senior Airman Roger Fortson shot dead inside apartment; police release bodycam video
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the State Attorney's Office have been asked to investigate the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Senior Air Force Airman Roger Fortson inside his apartment by a local police officer near Hurlburt Field where he was stationed, the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office announced.
"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," Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden said in a statement Wednesday.
"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."
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Aden asked the community for patience "as we work to understand the facts that resulted in this tragic event."
At a press conference Thursday, civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump, representing Fortson's family, called the airman assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron "a patriot." He urged the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office not to "stain" his name with their narrative.
Crump called for transparency in the case and urged the police to release the body cam footage of the shooting. The sheriff's office released the footage Thursday.
According to CBS News, the video shows a deputy knocking on Fortson's apartment door and announcing that he is with the sheriff's office. When the door opens, the deputy is seen yelling for Fortson to step back. Within seconds, the deputy shot Fortson. The deputy then tells Fortson to drop his gun while he is lying on the ground. But Fortson is heard telling the deputy that he doesn't have the gun. The officer tells Fortson not to move as he calls for emergency medical help before the video ends.
"It pains me to show the video, but I know that you all need to see it," Aden was quoted as saying.
Crump said a witness, identified as Fortson's girlfriend, was on Facetime with the airman for the entirety of the encounter. She stated that Fortson was alone in his apartment when he heard a knock on his door.
When he asked, "Who is it?" he didn't get a response, she said. A few minutes later, there was another knock, she added, but this time it was very aggressive. Fortson looked through his peephole and saw no one, so he retrieved his legally owned gun as a precaution.
As he was walking back to his living room, the girlfriend said police officers broke through his door and shot him six times when they saw that he was armed.
His girlfriend said she saw him on the ground saying, "I can't breathe," after he was shot. Fortson was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Fortson's girlfriend believes the police may have entered the wrong apartment as there was no disturbance at his apartment prior to the shooting.
Fortson's mother, Chantemekki Fortson, said at Thursday's press conference that her son's girlfriend was devastated by his killing.
"She literally watched them walk over him as he was dying, taking his last breath," the grieving mother said.
Attorney Brian Barr of the Levin Papantonio Rafferty Law Firm, who is also representing the family, said the airman did nothing wrong.
"All he was doing was sitting in his house, sitting in his house. My Lord, every one of us sit in our houses every day, and every one of us, if somebody we don't know comes into our house, are going to defend ourselves," Barr said. "Every single one of us. And he lost his life because they knocked on the wrong door and they came into the wrong door."
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