Miami Florida. –
Officers responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and shot dead a black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, a lawyer for the man’s family said Wednesday.
Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based in the special operations wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting occurred on May 3.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that Fortson was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter.
According to Crump, the woman, whom Crump did not identify, said Fortson was alone in his apartment when he heard a knock on the door. He asked who was there but got no answer. A few minutes later, Fortson heard a louder bang but saw no one when he looked through the peephole, Crump said, citing the woman’s account.
The woman said Fortson was worried and went to retrieve his gun, which Crump said was legally owned.
As Fortson walked back into his living room, officers burst through the door, saw Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to Crump’s statement. The woman said Fortson was on the ground and said, “I can’t breathe” after he was shot, Crump said.
Fortson died at a hospital, authorities said. The officer involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
The woman said Fortson was not causing a disturbance during their Facetime call and believes the officers must have the wrong apartment, according to Crump’s statement.
“The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering a witness’ alarming statement that police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump said.
“We call for transparency in the investigation into Roger’s death and the immediate release of the body camera video to the family,” Crump said. “His family and the public deserve to know what happened in the moments leading up to this tragedy.”
Crump is a nationally known attorney based in Tallahassee, Florida. He has been involved in multiple high-profile police shooting cases involving black people, including those of Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Tire Nichols and George Floyd.
Crump and Fortson’s family plans to speak at a news conference in Fort Walton Beach on Thursday morning.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to an email or voicemail from The Associated Press seeking comment on Crump’s claims. But Sheriff Eric Aden posted a statement on Facebook Wednesday afternoon expressing sadness over the shooting.
“At this time, we humbly ask for the patience of our community as we work to understand the events that resulted in this tragic event,” Aden said.
The sheriff’s office said in a statement last week that a deputy responding to a call of a disturbance in progress at the apartment complex reacted in self-defense after encountering an armed man. The office did not offer details about what type of disturbance the officers were responding to or who called them.
The sheriff’s office also declined to immediately identify the responding deputies or their races. Officials said earlier this week that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local State Attorney’s Office will investigate the shooting.
FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the agency is highly unlikely to comment further until the investigation is complete.
Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions aviator, where one of his duties as a crew member of the squadron’s AC-130J Ghostrider was to load the gunship’s 30mm and 105mm cannons during missions. .
Fortson’s death has striking similarities to other Black people killed in recent years by police in their homes, in circumstances where officers responded to the wrong address or responded to calls for service with rampant use of deadly force.
In 2018, a white former Dallas police officer shot and killed Botham Jean, an unarmed black man, after mistaking his apartment for his own. Amber Guyger, the former officer, was convicted of murder the following year and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In 2019, a white former Fort Worth, Texas, officer fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson through a back window of her home after responding to a non-emergency call reporting that Jefferson’s front door was open. Aaron Dean, the former officer, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2022 and sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison.
Crump has represented families in both cases as part of his ongoing effort to demand accountability for the killings of Black people at the hands of police.
“What I’m trying to do, as much as I can, even sometimes alone, is increase the value of black lives,” Crump told The Associated Press in 2021 following the conviction of a former Minneapolis officer for the murder of George Floyd.
Fort Walton Beach is located between Panama City Beach and Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.
Associated Press reporters Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Aaron Morrison in New York contributed to this report.