Update: The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office has released bodycam footage that shows one of their deputies shooting Senior Airman Roger Fortson numerous times after he answered the door to his apartment with a handgun in his right hand.
May 8 – A special operations airman died after being shot by police at an apartment complex in Florida on Friday afternoon.
Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, was shot by an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputy who responded to a “disturbance in progress” call at the Chez Elan Apartment complex in Fort Walton Beach.
According to the Sheriff’s office, the deputy encountered Fortson armed and shot him in “self-defense.”
“Hearing sounds of a disturbance, he reacted in self-defense after he encountered a 23-year-old man armed with a gun and after the deputy had identified himself as law enforcement,” Sherriff Eric Aden said in a statement.
Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field -roughly eight miles from where the shooting occurred.
According to a press release from Hurlburt Field, Fortson lived at the apartment complex where he was shot.
The base did not release his service records but said he joined the Air Force in 2019.
The deputy was been placed on leave until the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducts its investigation of the shooting.
The deputy has yet to be identified.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s came under scrutiny earlier this year after a deputy fired shots at a handcuffed suspect when he misinterpreted the sound of an acorn falling on his vehicle as gunshots.
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