Parents of airman killed in home by sheriff's deputy fear he won't be charged

Pain is the only thing that motivates Chantemekki Fortson these days.

Two months after her son was fatally shot on her doorstep, she is consumed by grief as what she believed to be a well-established murder case remains uncharged.

“It's not a strength, anywhere,” she said. “It's a pain. I want to make sure my baby is recognized and honored and his reputation is not tarnished.”

On May 3, an Okaloosa County sheriff's deputy killed 23-year-old airman Roger Fortson in an act the sheriff said “should never have happened.” The deputy, Eddie Duran, was fired nearly a month later. But he has yet to be charged, forcing Fortson's parents to spend their days working and hoping that justice will never come.

Chantemekki Fortson traveled from her home in Stonecrest, Georgia, to the Florida city where her son was stationed at least three times to attend news conferences and community events to keep his memory alive.

She is now determined to pass national legislation to end qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that often shields law enforcement officers from civil lawsuits.

“It would give me a shred of hope that no one else would have to walk in my shoes,” she said.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is leading the criminal investigation, said Tuesday that its investigation is ongoing. The agency did not provide additional details on the status of the investigation.

The fact that the investigation is ongoing, however, provides little comfort.

“If I had killed police officers, I think they would have tried me and everything else,” Roger Wilburn said in an interview Monday night, his first since his son was killed. “I just don't understand why it's taking so long.”

Roger Fortson was home alone with his small dog and on a video call with his girlfriend when Duran knocked on his door while responding to a domestic violence call. Fortson answered his door holding a handgun pointed at the ground. Duran shot him multiple times within seconds and without ordering Fortson to disarm, body camera video shows.

Fortson's family and their attorneys insist Duran went to the wrong apartment after following instructions from a woman he met when he arrived at the property.

There is no evidence that Fortson was involved in the disturbance that led the deputy to the complex. Police had never been called to his apartment before, 911 recordings show. Those recordings show that police had been called to another apartment on the fourth floor nine times in the year before Fortson was killed.

“This tragic incident should never have happened,” Sheriff Eric Aden said on May 31, following an internal investigation into the shooting. Aden said Fortson “committed no crime” and that Duran’s use of force was unreasonable.

“By all accounts, he was an exceptional aviator and individual,” Aden said, something Fortson's parents said they had known for a long time.

Chantemekki Fortson, 50, said she has been in therapy, sometimes several times a week, since her son was killed.

“I have to go to therapy because I have become estranged from my other children,” she said. “I went to therapy because I am trying to reconnect with my children.”

“Right now I feel like I don't deserve love,” she added.

Her sleep is constantly interrupted by images of her son's final moments, she said.

“There can be no justice for the loss of my baby,” she said. “That void will never be filled.”

Wilburn, 55, said he hoped the length of the criminal investigation would indicate the state attorney's office would bring his son's killer to justice.

“That's what I pray for,” said Wilburn, who lives in California: If Duran is indicted, “it won't be hard to try to prove it.”

Wilburn last spoke to his son on April 15, his 23rd birthday. Fortson had visited him in California a week earlier. He recalled that they had “a good conversation” about the next chapter in his son’s promising life, a chapter that Wilburn said was now closed. Wilburn was somber as he thought about the milestones he had been deprived of: He would never be able to straighten his son’s bow tie before he got married or share his excitement about becoming a parent.

“He was my first son,” he said, recalling the joy he felt when Roger Fortson was born. “It really affected me a lot. Our bond was growing stronger and he took everything away from me.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com