Authorities in Florida released shocking police bodycam footage Thursday that showed an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy shooting and killing an armed special operations US airman in his own apartment — before the cop even told him to drop his gun.
The unidentified deputy was responding to the Chez Elan Apartments in Fort Walton Beach on May 3 on a domestic violence call — a woman said she heard arguing from a frequently troubled couple in a nearby apartment.
Roger Fortson’s family said the deputy barged into the wrong apartment — and that the 23-year-old had armed himself with his own legal handgun in response to suspicious knocks at his door.
After knocking, the cop — who was apparently alone by the time he reached the front door — yelled, “Sheriff’s Office! Open the door!”
When Fortson, an active-duty senior airman with the US Air Force, opened up, the deputy immediately raised his pistol and let off six shots, striking Fortson and causing him to fall to the floor.
“Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” the deputy yelled after he opened fire, according to the bodycam footage.
“It’s over there!” the mortally wounded Forston replied. “I don’t have it!”
The officer called for backup just as the clip released by the Okaloosa County sheriff fades to black.
Famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump said at a Thursday press conference that Forston — who later died from his wounds — didn’t know it was sheriff’s deputies outside.
“For whatever reason, they thought he was a bad guy, but he was a good guy,” Crump said, as he stood beside Fortson’s heartbroken family.
“He was a great guy. He was an exceptional guy. They took a patriot from us.”
Fortson’s bereaved mom, Chantemekki Fortson, held a framed portrait of her late son clad in his dress uniform as she walked into the media event.
She erupted in tears as Crump spoke about Roger, a special missions aviator based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field in the Florida Panhandle.
“My baby was shot up,” she said.
Fortson was talking to his girlfriend on FaceTime when the deputy barged in his door and killed him, Crump said.
The girlfriend told his mom about witnessing Fortson being shot, and Chantemekki drove to Fort Walton Beach — only to find out it was too late.
“You guys have killed my baby,” Chantemekki said she told cops at the hospital. “Just take me to my baby, please. I just want to see my child.”
“They had taken my gift,” she said.
“My heart is bleeding, and they wanted to talk to me. They told me the investigation was ongoing.”
It’s not the first time a deputy from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office has made an eye-popping blunder. Last November, a deputy fired into a patrol car after he mistook the sound of an acorn landing on the roof for a gunshot.
A handcuffed black man sat in the backseat, but escaped the shooting without wounds. He was later released without being charged. The trigger-happy cop resigned.
In the Fortson case, the sheriff’s office said the deputy acted in self-defense after encountering an armed man in response to a domestic violence call.
“I can’t breathe,” Fortson said as he died, according to Crump.
Meanwhile, the deputy who killed him is on administrative leave pending an investigation.
The department hasn’t identified the officer involved in the encounter.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local State Attorney’s Office will investigate the shooting, which Crump called an “unjustifiable killing.”
“He was just in his apartment, minding his businesses,” Crump said.
“They could have made sure they were at the right apartment. They had a duty to make sure they were at the right apartment before they busted in the door.”
“Any law-abiding citizens who feel they have a right to the Fourth Amendment and the Second Amendment, they should be troubled by this,” Crump said, citing the amendments that grant American citizens the right to be free of illegal searches and seizures and the right to bear arms.
With Post wires
