Police shoot and kill black American airman in his Florida home | Florida

Police officers responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and shot a black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw him he was armed with a gun, a lawyer for the man's family said Wednesday.

Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, based at Hurlburt Field's special operations wing, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting occurred Friday.

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 at 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 get his gun, which Crump said was legally his.

As Fortson returned to his living room, officers burst through the door, saw that Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to Crumps' statement. The woman said Fortson was on the ground and said, “I can't breathe,” Crump said.

Fortson died at the hospital, officials said. The deputy involved in the shooting has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

The woman said Fortson did not cause a disturbance during their FaceTime call and believed the deputies must have the wrong apartment, according to Crumps' statement.

The circumstances surrounding Rogers' death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially given a witness's alarming statement that police entered the wrong apartment, Crump said in the communicated.

We are calling for transparency in the investigation into Rogers' death and for 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 recognized attorney based in Tallahassee, Florida. He has been involved in several high-profile shooting cases involving Black people, including those of Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Tire Nichols, and George Floyd.

The Crump family and Fortsons plan to speak at a news conference in Fort Walton Beach Thursday morning.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office said in a statement last week that a deputy responding to a call about a disturbance in progress at the apartment complex responded in self-defense after encountering an armed man. The office did not provide details on what type of disturbances deputies were responding to or who called them.

The sheriff's office also declined to immediately identify the responding deputies or their races. The office did not respond to an email or phone message Wednesday. Authorities said earlier this week that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local district attorney's office would investigate the shooting.

A police spokeswoman, Gretl Plessinger, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the agency was very unlikely to make further comments until the investigation was complete.

Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a Special Missions Airman, where one of his roles as a member of the squadron's AC-130J Ghostrider crew was to task the 30 mm and 105 mm cannons of combat helicopters during missions.

The sheriff's office did not immediately respond Wednesday to an email or voicemail seeking comment from The Associated Press.

Fort Walton Beach is located between Panama City Beach and Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.

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