A sheriff's deputy who fatally shot a Florida airman in his apartment earlier this month has been fired, authorities announced Friday.
Deputy Eddie Duran was “fired” following an internal affairs investigation, the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.
The investigation determined that Duran's “use of deadly force” in the shooting death of Senior Airman Roger Fortson “was not objectively reasonable and therefore violated agency policy,” he said. say the sheriff's office.
On May 3, Fortson, 23 years old he was in his apartment in the Florida Panhandle city of Fort Walton Beach when Duran was fatally shot. Fortson was based in the special operations wing at Hurlburt Field, about five miles from his apartment.
Sheriff's investigators determined Duran had initially been dispatched to an “ongoing physical disturbance” at the Fortson apartment complex, the sheriff's office said in its news release Friday.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
The sheriff's office says when Duran arrived at the complex, he was directed by a complex employee to unit 1401, where the employee stated it was “the location of the disturbance,” adding that “there was there have been recent unreported disturbances in or around the same apartment,” the sheriff's office reported.
A statement previously released by the family, however, contradicts that claim, stating that Fortson was on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend before the shooting, and alleging that the deputy was directed to the wrong apartment.
Body camera video released by the sheriff's office earlier this month showed an officer knocking on Fortson's apartment door and announcing he was with the sheriff's office. As the door opens, the deputy yells for Fortson to step back.
In the body camera video, the deputy initially calls unannounced. About 30 seconds later, he calls again, saying he's with the sheriff's office and answering the door. It rings and is announced about 10 seconds later. Seconds after Fortson opens the door, the deputy shoots Fortson, who is seen holding what appears to be a gun at his side.
Attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Fortson family, previously testified at a news conference that Fortson was on FaceTime with his girlfriend and went to retrieve his legally owned gun after hearing knocks on the door and did not know who was there
Crump's firm also previously released video of the FaceTime call that appears to begin after the shooting, showing the ceiling of Fortson's apartment.
“I can't breathe,” Fortson says in the video as she moans.
Sheriff's investigators allege that when Fortson opened the door, Duran saw Fortson “holding a firearm in his right hand,” but that the gun “was pointed far enough at the ground that the former deputy could see clearly the rear face of the rear sight.” “
Fortson “did not physically resist” Duran “in any way, and the investigation concluded that Mr. Forston did not point the gun in the former deputy's direction,” the sheriff's office said Friday.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden said in a statement Friday that “this tragic incident should never have happened. The objective facts do not support the use of deadly force as an appropriate response to Mr. Fortson's actions. By all accounts, he was an exceptional aviator.”
— Alex Sundby contributed to this report.
