Family, friends and supporters gathered on Friday for the funeral of Roger Fortson, an Air Force senior airman who was killed in early May by a sheriff’s deputy in Florida’s Okaloosa County. Members of Congress have now joined the call from activists and Fortson’s family for accountability in the fatal shooting, which was captured in disturbing bodycam footage.
As NBC News described the incident:
Fortson, 23, was shot May 3 in the doorway of his apartment in Fort Walton Beach by a deputy from the sheriff’s office who was responding to an apparent domestic dispute. Fortson’s family and their attorneys have insisted the deputy went to the wrong apartment because Fortson was home alone and on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend at the time of the incident. [Attorney Benjamin] Crump said Thursday that the two were not raising their voices and had been making plans to see each other that weekend. Crump and Fortson’s family contend his killing was unjustified.
The Okaloosa sheriff has said the unnamed officer involved didn’t go to the wrong apartment. The bodycam footage shows Fortson answering the door with a gun in his hand, though he’s not seen pointing it at anyone. His family says the gun was legally owned. The deputy has been placed on leave while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates.
The Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday called for “accountability” for Fortson’s death, saying he was “a son, brother, friend, and patriot who should still be with his family today.” Their statement says, “The public trust has been damaged, and the life of a young Black man was taken unjustly.”
Fortson’s former baseball coach, his former high school principal, and several members of the Air Force were among those in attendance at his funeral to eulogize him, alongside his family, including his cousins and his older sister.
Crump, who is representing Fortson’s family, gave a “mother’s prayer” on behalf of Fortson’s mother, Meka Fortson. In his remarks, Crump again questioned the law enforcement account of the shooting.
“We’ve got to honor Meka’s request — all of us,” Crump said. “When they try to say this narrative, that [they were] justified in killing him this way, we’ve got to say, ‘No, we will not let that lie stand.’ We will stand on the truth, and the truth was that Roger Fortson was the best of us. He was the very best America had to offer the world. He was an American patriot, and we have to remember him as such!”