A Florida sheriff on Friday fired a deputy who shot and killed a black air force soldier after he pointed a handgun at the ground at his home, saying the deputy’s life was not in danger and he should not have fired his weapon.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden has fired Deputy Eddie Duran, who was led to Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s apartment on May 3 in response to a domestic violence call and shot and killed Fortson.
Body camera footage shows that when the deputy arrived outside Fortson’s door, he stood quietly listening for 20 seconds, though the body camera did not pick up any voices from inside.
The man then knocked on the door but did not identify himself. The man moved to the side of the door, approximately five feet (1.5 meters) away. The man waited 15 seconds before knocking again. This time the man yelled, “Sheriff’s Office, open the door!” and moved to the side again.
Less than ten seconds later, he was back at the door, banging again and identifying himself once more.
Fortson, 23, opened the door with a legally purchased firearm in his right hand. The gun was at his side and pointed at the ground. The officer told him to “stand down” and immediately began firing. Fortson fell backwards to the floor.
Only then did the deputy sheriff yell, “Drop the gun!”
In a statement, the sheriff’s office said the investigation found that “Mr. Fortson did not make any hostile or aggressive moves and therefore the former deputy’s use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable.”
“This tragic incident should never have happened,” Aden said in a statement. “The objective facts do not support the use of lethal force as an appropriate response to Mr. Fortson’s actions. Mr. Fortson did not commit any crime, and by all accounts he was an exceptional Airman and an outstanding person.”
A phone number for Duran could not immediately be found, and email and phone messages seeking comment from his lawyer, John Whitaker, were not immediately returned.
After the shooting, as other deputies rushed to assist, Duran walked into a hallway outside the unit and said “damn it” while punching the wall with his right fist, according to the sheriff’s report.
When investigators later asked him why he did it, he said, “I thought I was going to get shot.”
“Well, I was just letting out all the pent up emotion and frustration,” he said, according to the internal report. “I was standing there thinking, I’m going to get shot at any moment, I’m going to die at any moment, that’s the situation I was in,” he said.
“Once I said it, all the emotions were like, ‘Oh my God, I just want to get it out,'” he said.
A criminal investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is ongoing.
Fortson lived in an apartment building about eight miles (13 kilometers) from Hurlburt Field. Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions pilot aboard an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship. One of his tasks was to load the plane’s 30mm and 105mm cannons during combat. He was awarded the Air Medal with Combat Device, which is typically awarded after 20 flights in a combat zone or for outstanding valor or meritorious service during a single mission.
He had no criminal history.
Okaloosa County NAACP President Sabu Williams praised Aiden’s actions.
“I appreciate what the internal investigation has uncovered and what the sheriff’s office has done,” Williams told The Associated Press. “Obviously, I don’t think this is the end of it.”
He said the NAACP has a good relationship with Republican sheriffs.
“Some of us may have wished things had moved faster, but we know we have to do our due diligence,” Williams said.
According to the sheriff’s investigation report into the Fortson shooting, Duran served in the U.S. Army from 2003 to 2014, including a combat deployment to Iraq in 2008.
He served in military intelligence and then transferred to military law enforcement. He was honorably discharged, according to the report.
Following his service in the Army, Duran began his law enforcement career in Oklahoma, serving as a police officer and police dog officer from 2015 to 2019. He also served as fire chief for the Altus, Oklahoma, Fire Department from approximately 2016 to 2017, according to reports.
Duran joined the sheriff’s office in July 2019 but resigned two years later. He returned to the office 11 months ago.
