What we know about the police killing of Black Air Force member Roger Fortson

[Jilly_in_VA]

The police killing of a Black Air Force service member in his own home is drawing renewed scrutiny to the deadly violence that US law enforcement routinely and disproportionately uses against Black Americans.

On May 3, an officer responded to a call about a domestic disturbance and knocked on the door of US airman Roger Fortson’s apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Newly released body camera footage shows Fortson, 23, opening the door and holding a handgun pointed downward. Within seconds of the door opening, and without asking him to drop his weapon, the officer fired multiple shots at Fortson’s chest. Fortson later died of the gunshot injuries at a nearby hospital.

The body camera footage has raised new questions about the officer’s use of fatal force and his reason for visiting Fortson’s apartment in the first place. Fortson’s family has pointed to evidence suggesting that police went to the wrong unit and have emphasized that the shooting was unjustified. In an initial statement about the incident, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department claimed that the shooting was in self-defense. The Sheriff’s Department has since said that the officer did not go to the incorrect apartment and that it won’t be concluding whether the shooting was justified until a state investigation is complete.

Fortson’s shooting is another harrowing episode in the long history of police violence against Black Americans. In 2020, mass protests erupted across the US following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after an officer knelt on his neck for over nine minutes. Those followed extensive demonstrations in 2014 after Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri. The police shooting of Fortson also echoes other cases when law enforcement has killed Black Americans in their homes, including the shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky.

https://www.vox.com/24153974/roger-fortson-police-killing

Cop shoots him and THEN says "Drop the gun"? Yeah right. And claims "qualified immunity". What a crock.

[Dan]

1. Sadly,

That’s why I find it hard to feel a lot of belief in police involved shooting.

[kimbutgar]

2. I watched this old movie yesterday from 1967 point blank and the cops in the movie shot in the legs first

To apprehend someone as stated in the movie now they really shot at point blank range when someone is not being aggressive or fleeing.

Terrible police training nowadays.

[flying_wahini]

3. IMO, It's leftover military training and these soldier cops can't be retrained.

[Warpy]

6. We've seen a drop in the carnage since the lege abolished qulaified immunity for police

Now they know if they shoot anyone, there are going to be a lot of questions and if nobody likes the answers, they have no legal protection an will go to jail, themselves.

[jaxexpat]

4. The courts and popular cultural opinion have repeatedly told that airman that he could/should have a gun.........

ready in the case that monsters come banging on his door. The 2nd amendment says nothing about when to pull the trigger, or whether to shot through your door or wait until it's opened. That's pretty amazing to me since so many goddamned geniuses with guns coming out their ears refer to that amendment as the last fucking word on every aspect of life itself.

We've got to get this 2nd Amendment misinterpretation fixed or it's over, folks. It's more immediate than climate change. Just that simple.

[Warpy]

5. That's why NM got rid of qualified immunity in these cases

Colorado was the first state to do so, we followed suit. Other states are considering it over the howls of the police unions. Some might have abolished it already, I haven't kept up.

It's one of those things Congress should have taken up years ago if they hadn't been lousy with Republicans who wanted to rename post offices after other Republicans as their only real function.

[multigraincracker]

7. Want to put an end to this.

All Civil Rights settlements against police will be paid out of their retirement funds. Might erase that Blue Line.

[Best_man23]

8. I'm not optimistic we will see any sort of justice in this case

The county where the Airman was murdered (yes, I'm saying it, he was murdered) is in a deep red part of Floriduh. Even if the independent investigation determines that 1. the shooting was unjustified, 2. qualified immunity does not apply, and 3. charges against the officer are warranted, prosecutors still have to seat a jury in this case. I foresee a scenario where 12 mostly TSF loving jurors are seated and who will be more than willing to accept without consideration of other facts and evidence, the cop's uttering of the 5 Magic Words:

"I feared for my life"

As the truth, and the cop will walk.

IMO, the deputies of Okaloosa County are showing themselves to be a pack of trigger happy gunners who shoot first, praise themselves second, then ask the questions a lot later. None of the media is reporting that this is the VERY SAME county sheriff's office whose deputies recently fired multiple rounds on their own vehicle with a detainee inside after an acorn fell on the vehicle's roof.