The police killing of a black Air Force member in his own home is bringing renewed scrutiny to the deadly violence that US law enforcement routinely and disproportionately uses against black Americans.
On May 3, an officer responded to a call about a domestic disturbance and knocked on the door of U.S. Airman Roger Fortson’s apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Body camera footage Fortson, 23, is shown opening the door and holding a handgun pointing down. Within seconds of opening the door, and without asking him to drop his weapon, the officer fired multiple shots into Fortson’s chest. Fortson later died of gunshot wounds at a nearby hospital.
Body camera footage raises new questions about the officer’s use of deadly force and why he went to Fortson’s apartment in the first place. In an initial statement about the incident, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department claimed that The shooting was in self-defenseBut the deputy involved in the shooting, Eddie Duran, has since been fired and described the use of force. “Not materially reasonable.” The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is also conducting an ongoing criminal investigation into the shooting, and Fortson’s family has requested As well as criminal charges.
Fortson’s shooting is another painful incident in a long history of police violence against black Americans. In 2020, following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, mass protests erupted across the United States after an officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes. They sparked mass protests in 2014 after Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri. Fortson’s police shooting echoes other cases when law enforcement has killed black Americans in their homes, including the shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky.
Police violence has continued in recent years, 2023 saw the highest number of police killings In more than a decade. That year, black people made up 13 percent of the U.S. population but accounted for 27 percent of those killed by police. Mapping Police Violence According toA nonprofit is tracking this information.
This troubling trend has criminal justice advocates worried that the problem will not improve without significant policy changes that lawmakers have yet to invest in.
What we know about the shooting
The shooting occurred after an unidentified woman called police to report a domestic disturbance at Fortson’s apartment complex. In body camera footage provided by the Okaloosa Sheriff’s Department, a police officer (now identified as Duran) is seen arriving at the complex and speaking to a woman on the premises about a couple reportedly fighting in an apartment.
The woman led the officer to the area of the complex where she said she heard the fight and gave him Fortson’s unit number, 1401. The officer went to Fortson’s door and knocked on it without identifying himself. Getting no answer, the officer knocked twice more and said twice, “Sheriff’s office, open the door.”
Fortson then opens the door, holding a gun pointed at the ground. Almost immediately, the officer shot Fortson multiple times and he fell to the ground. At that point, the officer says, “Drop the gun,” and Fortson replies, “It’s over there. I don’t have it.” The officer called for emergency medical services, and Fortson was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died from his injuries.
According to Ben Crump, Fortson’s girlfriend, a civil rights attorney representing Fortson’s family, was on FaceTime with him throughout the encounter. Per Crump, he said he was alone in the apartment. Crump added that Fortson heard the initial knock from the officer and retrieved his gun because he could not see the man at the door. And Fortson’s family said the gun was legally owned.
In an interview with CNN, Crump notes that the woman at the apartment complex may have made a mistake and directed officers to the wrong unit. Fortson also has a girlfriend Some of their Facetime videos have been released, via Crump, which includes audio of the aftermath of the shooting and police checking the apartment for more people.
A follow-up report indicating that police did not find anyone else in the unit.
The body camera footage also raised concerns among advocates and his family as to why the officer shot Fortson so quickly before telling him to drop his weapon.
“It is deeply troubling that the deputy gave no verbal command and shot Roger multiple times within a split second of opening the door,” Fortson’s family said in a statement. Statement from Crump. “Since the officer did not ask Roger to drop the weapon before shooting, was the officer trained to give a verbal warning? Did the officer try to take life-saving measures? Was the officer trained to deal with law abiding citizens who own registered guns?
Fortson’s family emphasized how dedicated he was to his work in the Air Force, how committed he was to his siblings and how he hoped to one day buy his mother a house. “He was fighting for everybody,” said his mother, Chantemekki Fortson.
Black Americans are brutally killed by the police. This includes shooting people in their own homes.
Fortson’s shooting adds to the extreme violence black Americans have faced at the hands of the police.
A 2020 study from the Harvard School of Public Health It found that blacks were three times more likely to be killed by the police than whites. Last year, the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis and the fatal police shooting of Takia Young in Blendon Township, Ohio, are two high-profile examples of this continuing trend.
Fortson also joins the sad list of black Americans killed by police in their own homes. These incidents include Fatal shooting of Botham Jean In 2018 a police officer entered the wrong apartment thinking it was his and The police killing of Atatiana Jefferson in 2019, When officers thought he was an intruder in his own home.
The killing points to enduring institutional problems with policing Experts say The solution will take far deeper systemic reforms than the policies that have been introduced since the 2020 mass protests.
Given those protests, sure The city’s police budget has been slashed, and some states have approved reforms to better standardize law enforcement use of force reporting. Daniella Gilbert, director of Redefining Public Safety at the Vera Institute of Justice, said police are still empowered to use lethal force in many cases when it’s not necessary. And legal accountability and transparency regarding police misconduct is still lacking.
“It’s bad and it’s sad, but it’s not shocking that we’re still getting killed at a high rate,” said Karundi Williams, CEO of Re:Power, a group dedicated to training black political leaders. told NBC News in 2022. “When our moments of racial injustice are thrust into the national spotlight, outrage levels rise and people take to the streets.”
“But then the media moved on to other things, and that spirit waned,” he continued. “But we never got to the bottom of the problem.”
Update, June 4, 11:25 am ET: This story was originally published on May 10 and has been updated to include information about the firing of the officer involved in the shooting.
