Florida deputy who shot black airman fired, sheriff says

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – The Florida sheriff's office on Friday fired a deputy who fatally shot a black U.S. Air Force airman, saying the use of deadly force was not reasonable.

That is the conclusion of an internal 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 fatally shot Fortson, is ongoing, the sheriff's office said.

“This tragic incident should never have happened,” 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 aviator and individual. »

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

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

Duran knocked on Fortson's door unexpectedly, following up with louder knocks and announcing twice that he was with the sheriff's department.

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

Fortson's family insists the sheriff's deputy mistakenly targeted Fortson's apartment. They pointed out that he was talking on the phone with his girlfriend before the shooting and that no one else was inside the apartment.

The Sheriff's Department's investigation revealed that a person at the apartment complex called a Sheriff's Department non-emergency hotline to report that they heard a couple fighting in Fortson's apartment.

But Crump said Fortson was on a Facetime call with his girlfriend when he heard a knock on her door. He asked, “Who is it?” but didn't get a response, Crump said, recounting the girlfriend's account.

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

This murder is 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 an arrest warrant to search 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, sparked a global wave of protests against racism in law enforcement in the summer of 2020.

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