Body camera footage shows the fatal shooting of a black airman by a Florida deputy in an apartment doorway

FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) – A Florida sheriff on Thursday released body camera footage showing a deputy standing outside an apartment door and shooting immediately after it was opened by a black man carrying a gun pointing downward, in what a family called “unjustified ” .”

Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden released the video hours after the family of U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson and his lawyers held a news conference in which they denied that the deputy general had acted in self-defense. Aden rejected claims by civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Fortson’s family, that the deputy went to the unsuitable apartment, covered the peephole on the door and didn’t report himself.

The video shows a police deputy arriving at a Fort Walton Beach apartment constructing on May 3 and talking to a woman outside who described hearing someone arguing. The deputy then took the elevator and walked through the outside hallway.

The video shows a police deputy banging on the door and moving to the side, seemingly out of sight of the door. He shouted twice, “Sheriff’s office! Open the door!”

Fortson opened the door and may very well be seen holding what gave the impression to be a gun pointed toward the floor. The deputy shouted, “Stand back!” and fired shots. He then shouted, “Drop your weapon! Drop the weapon!”

“It’s there,” Fortson said.

“Drop the weapon!” – the deputy shouted back.

“I don’t have it,” Fortson said as he lay on the ground.

The deputy then radioed for paramedics.

The sheriff’s office declined to supply details about the responding deputy or his race. The deputy has been placed on administrative leave pending the end result of the investigation.

Crump later released a statement noting that the officer didn’t tell Fortson to drop his gun before he fired “several times within a split second of opening the door.”

“We have consistently maintained that police mistook the apartment because Roger had been on the phone with his girlfriend for a significant portion of the time leading up to the shooting and no one else was in the apartment,” the statement read.

Crump also previously told reporters that Fortson was talking to his girlfriend on FaceTime and grabbed his gun because he heard someone leaving his apartment. He said the deputy forced entry into the apartment, citing the report of the girl, who has not yet been identified.

“The girl admits that although she initially thought the police had broken down the door, she stands by her emotional memories of what happened,” Crump’s later statement read.

In a FaceTime video captured on Fortson’s cellphone, the airman could be heard groaning and saying, “I can’t breathe.” The deputy could be heard yelling at him, “Stop moving!” The phone is pointed towards the ceiling and doesn’t show what is occurring in the apartment.

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Aden said he met with the family on Thursday and expressed his sincerest condolences.

“This is the result we can never hope to achieve,” Aden said. “These investigations take time, but I want to assure you that we are not hiding anything or trying to cover up.”

Officials said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the matter. FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the agency was unlikely to supply any further comments until the investigation was accomplished.

The sheriff said the investigation is being treated as a criminal investigation and that no decision has yet been made on whether the deputy’s actions were justified or not. However, an initial release from the sheriff’s office describing the shooting said the deputy “reacted in self-defense after encountering a 23-year-old man armed with a gun.”

Fortson’s mother, Chantemekki Fortson, walked into the morning news conference, with Crump holding a framed portrait of her son in his dress uniform. She burst into tears as Crump spoke about her son’s death.

“My baby was shot,” she said.

Crump called the shooting a “justifiable homicide.”

“For some reason they thought he was a bad guy, but he was a good guy. He was a great guy. He was a special guy,” Crump said. “They took our patriot away.”

Crump said Fortson, an Atlanta native, was shot six times.

Crump said Fortson enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from highschool. He was stationed in the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field. As a special mission aviator, one of his roles was to load the gunship’s guns during missions.

Crump, based in Tallahassee, Florida, has been involved in multiple high-profile cases of fatal encounters between black people and law enforcement and vigilantes, including Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Tir Nichols, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who also died in her own residence during a police raid no knock that targeted her ex-boyfriend in 2020.

Fortson’s death bears striking similarities to the deaths of other Black people killed by police in their homes in recent years.

In 2018, a white Dallas police officer shot and killed unarmed Botham Jean after mistaking his apartment for his own. Former officer Amber Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder.

In 2019, a white officer in Fort Worth, Texas, fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson through the rear window of her home after responding to a non-emergency call reporting that Jefferson’s front door was open. Aaron Dean, a former officer, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to almost 12 years in prison.

In each cases, Crump represented the families as part of his efforts to force accountability for police killings of black people.