Attorneys for the family of an Air Force airman killed last week by a Florida sheriff’s deputy called Thursday for law enforcement officials to “correct the narrative” surrounding the 23-year-old’s death, saying that he had done nothing wrong before being fatally shot.
Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, was shot late Friday afternoon by a deputy responding to a call of a disturbance in progress, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said. His girlfriend, who was on a FaceTime call with him throughout the encounter, said that the deputy burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot Fortson when he saw he was armed with a gun, Fortson’s mother and her attorneys said at a news conference. They said the girlfriend, who did not attend the news conference, was distraught.
“He lost his life because they knocked on the wrong door. Mistakes happen. We know that,” said Brian Barr, one of the family’s attorneys. “Humans aren’t perfect. Good people make mistakes. But good people also own their mistakes.”
He said the sheriff’s office, through its statement about the shooting, had misled the public.
“You go pick it up and read it. What’s it make you think? It makes you think this happened outside. That this kid was in the middle of a disturbance,” Barr said. “And he did something. He instigated this and lost his life. That’s what it makes it sound like. It sounded justified. That’s what they tried to make it sound like.”
“We want to know what happened,” he continued. “We want the mistakes to be owned. We’re not going away until that transparency happens.”
In its statement, the sheriff’s office said: “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.”
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is also representing Fortson’s family, said that they planned to review the body camera video with members of the sheriff’s office later Thursday and that he expected it to be released publicly thereafter.
“They took a good guy. They took a patriot from us,” he said. “Then to put out this narrative that a officer killed a citizen at this apartment complex in self-defense. You put out this narrative demonizing his name as if he did something wrong. Trying to justify an unjustifiable killing.”
“When you make a mistake, you own up to it. You don’t try to justify killing a good guy,” Crump said. “Okaloosa sheriff’s office, they need to give him the dignity and respect he so richly deserved.”
Fortson’s mother, Chantimekki Fortson, held a framed photograph of her son in his uniform. She said he had aspired to be in the Air Force since he was a young boy and was living his dream. She described him as compassionate, intelligent, loving and respectful.
She implored the sheriff’s department, which she said, “took my gift,” to release more information about the encounter.
“I need you to get his reputation right,” Chantimekki Fortson said. “Tell the truth about my son. I know my son didn’t do anything to you guys. Please clean my baby’s reputation.”
The sheriff’s office has not responded to requests for comment.
In a statement Wednesday, Crump called the sheriff’s office’s account “deeply troubling” and said it falsely suggested Fortson had posed a threat.
The sheriff’s office has said the deputy, who has not been publicly identified, heard “sounds of a disturbance” and “reacted in self defense” after he encountered Fortson armed with a gun and after he had identified himself as law enforcement. But Fortson’s mother and her attorneys said that Fortson was on the FaceTime call with his girlfriend during the entire encounter and that he was home alone when he heard a knock at his door. He asked, “Who is it?” but didn’t get a response, Crump said in a statement Wednesday and at the news conference.
A few minutes later, there was a second aggressive knock, according to the girlfriend. Crump said Thursday that Fortson did not see anyone when he looked through the peephole and it appeared as if someone was covering it, citing the girlfriend. Fortson believed someone was attempting to break into his apartment, Barr said. So he retrieved his gun, which his family’s attorneys said was legally owned. As he walked back through his living room, law enforcement burst through the door, saw that Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to the girlfriend’s account. He was taken to a hospital where he later died, the sheriff’s office said.
The girlfriend said she saw Fortson on the ground saying, “I can’t breathe” after he was shot. She said she believed law enforcement had burst into the wrong unit, because there was no disturbance in Fortson’s apartment and he was home alone.
Chantimekki Fortson said her son’s girlfriend called her while she was still on the FaceTime call. The grieving mother said her son was shot three times in the chest and three times in the left arm.
Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron. Hurlburt Field, the Air Force base where he was assigned, said in a statement that he entered active duty Nov. 19, 2019.
In a statement late Tuesday, Sheriff Eric Aden said he “immediately” placed the deputy on administrative leave and asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an investigation, as required by policy. He said the Florida State Attorney’s Office would also conduct an independent review.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed it was investigating the shooting at the request of the sheriff’s office and declined to comment further. The Florida State Attorney’s Office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Crump compared Fortson’s killing to that of Botham Jean, an unarmed Black man who was shot and killed in 2018 by a white, off-duty Dallas police officer who mistook his apartment for her own. Amber Guyger was found guilty of murder the following year and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
“You come into my apartment, you shoot and kill me and then you say it was self-defense?” Crump said. “How does that make any sense.”
