Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump is set to join a press conference on Thursday to demand justice for a 23-year-old Black Air Force airman who was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies at his off-base residence in Florida last week.
In a statement made public on Wednesday, Crump said that Okaloosa County Sheriff’s officers responding to a disturbance complaint at the Fort Walton Beach apartment complex entered the incorrect unit and shot Senior Airman Roger Fortson to death when they noticed he was carrying a gun.
When deputies showed up at Fortson’s door, he was alone in his house, talking on Facetime with a woman who is now the key witness in the case. After noticing Fortson was armed, officers allegedly shot him six times.
“The witness has said that she saw Roger on the ground stating, ‘I can’t breathe,’ after he was shot,” Crump said. “She has also said the police were in the wrong apartment as there was no disturbance in the apartment and he was alone.”
Roger was later declared dead in a hospital.
“The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump stated, as reported by the Associated Press.
“We are calling for transparency in the investigation into Roger’s death and the immediate release of body cam video to the family,” Crump added. “His family and the public deserve to know what occurred in the moments leading up to this tragedy.”
At the sheriff’s department’s request, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that it is looking into the shooting. Awaiting the results of the inquiry, the deputy who was shot was put on administrative leave.
“All of us at the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office are saddened about the fatal officer involved shooting over the weekend,” said sheriff Eric Aden in a statement. “At this time, we humbly ask for our community’s patience as we work to understand the facts that resulted in this tragic event,” he added.
According to the sheriff’s office, an independent assessment is also being carried out by the state attorney’s office.
The circumstances surrounding Fortson’s murder bear remarkable resemblance to those of other Black individuals who were slain by police in their homes in recent years, when the cops had responded to the incorrect location or had used wanton use of fatal force in response to service calls.
Breonna Taylor, who was also killed in her home in 2020 during a no-knock police raid that targeted her ex-boyfriend, and Ahmaud Arbery are just a few of the high-profile law enforcement shooting cases involving Black people in which Crump, a well-known attorney based in Florida, has been involved.
