Questions and sadness remain at the door of the apartment where a deputy killed an American airman

WASHINGTON (AP) – At the doorway of the apartment where Florida’s deputy president shot and killed Senior Airman Roger Fortson, a small shrine grows, containing tributes from an Air Force unit struggling to manage along with his loss.

There is a long picket board, anchored by two pairs of aviator’s wings, and a black marker where mourners can leave prayers and memories for the 23-year-old.

One of the guests left an open Stella Artois beer. Others left combat boots, bouquets and an American flag. On either side of the door are 105mm and 30mm shell casings, like the ones Fortson used as a gunner on the unit’s AC-130J special operations aircraft – the empty 105mm cartridge is stuffed with flowers.

Then there’s the quarter.

In keeping with military tradition, quarters are left quietly and often anonymously if one other service member was there at the time of death.

The 1st Special Operations Wing, Florida Panhandle, where Fortson served, took a break from normal duties on Monday to process his death and “reflect members’ attention inward, lead small group discussions, enable voices to be heard and engage with teammates.” the statement reads. Wing said in a statement.

In the week since Fortson was shot, a heated debate has erupted on multiple online forums: Did the police have adequate housing? The caller reported a domestic disturbance, but Fortson was alone. Why would the deputy shoot so quickly? Why would police kill a service member?

There are also questions on whether race played a role in Fortson being black and echoes of the police killing of George Floyd.

Fortson was holding a legally owned gun when he opened the front door, nevertheless it was pointed at the floor. Based on body camera footage released by the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, the sheriff’s deputy only ordered Fortson to drop his gun when he shot him. The sheriff didn’t disclose the deputy’s race.

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“We know our air commandos are receiving increasing media attention and conversation about what happened,” Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, said last week in a message to unit commanders.

He urged these leaders to listen and seek to grasp their soldiers: “We have grieving teammates who have been through various adventures.”

In 2020, after Floyd’s death, then-Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Kaleth O. Wright wrote an emotional note to his troops about police killings of black men and children: “I’m a black man and I occur to be an Air Force master sergeant. “I’m George Floyd… I’m Philando Castile, I’m Michael Brown, I’m Alton Sterling, I’m Tamir Rice.”

At the time, Wright was one of the few black military leaders, including now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who said they needed to handle the assassination and its impact on them.

“My best fear is just not that I will probably be killed by a white policeman (imagine me, my heart starts racing like most other black men in America after I see those blue lights behind me)… but that I’ll get up and discover that one of our black airmen was killed at the hands of a white policeman,” Wright wrote at the time.

Wright, who’s now retired, posted a photo on his personal Facebook page Thursday of Fortson standing in matching flight suits along with his younger sister.

“Who am I… My name is SrA Roger Fortson,” Wright wrote. “That’s what I used to be all the time afraid of. She prays for his family. The young king of RIH.

On Friday, many members of Fortson’s unit will travel to Georgia to attend his funeral, with a planned flyover of AC-130 special operations aircraft.

“You were taken too soon,” one other senior airman wrote on a picket board outside Fortson’s front door. “Without justice there is no peace.”