Bodycam video shows fatal shooting of Black airman
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. — A Florida sheriff’s deputy announced himself as law enforcement just before fatally shooting a Black U.S. Air Force airman inside his apartment in the state’s Panhandle, according to body camera video shown Thursday.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden presented the video hours after the family of Senior Airman Roger Fortson and their attorneys held a news conference in which they disputed that the deputy acted in self-defense. Aden rejected assertions made by civil rights attorney
Ben Crump, who is representing Fortson’s family, that the deputy had gone to the wrong apartment, covered the door’s peephole and did not announce himself.
The video shows the deputy arriving at a Fort Walton Beach apartment building on May 3 and speaking to a woman outside who described hearing an argument. The deputy then went up an elevator and walked down an outdoor hallway.
The video shows the deputy banging on the door and stepping aside, seemingly out of view of the door. Twice he shouted: “Sheriff’s office! Open the door!”
Fortson opened the door and could be seen holding what appeared to be a handgun pointed down toward the floor. The deputy shouted, “Step back!” and fired shots. He then shouted, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” “It’s over there,” Fortson said. “Drop the gun!” the deputy yelled back. “I don’t have it,” Fortson said, lying on the ground.
The deputy then called paramedics on his radio.
The sheriff’s office has declined to identify the deputy or his race. The deputy was placed on administrative leave.
Crump released a statement later noting the officer did not tell Fortson to drop his gun before shooting “multiple times within a split second of the door being opened.”
“We remain adamant that the police had the wrong apartment as Roger was on the phone with his girlfriend for a substantial amount of time leading up to the shooting, and no one else was in the apartment,” the statement said.
Crump also told reporters earlier that Fortson was talking to his girlfriend on FaceTime and that he grabbed his gun because he heard someone outside his apartment. He said that the deputy burst into the apartment, citing the account of the girlfriend.
“The girlfriend acknowledges that even though she initially thought the door was forced open by the police that she stands by her emotional recollection of what happened,” Crump’s later statement said.
Aden said he had met with the family Thursday and extended his deepest condolences.