Once again a controversial case among the ranks of the police force in the United States. The images that come from us are chilling Florida and captured by bodycam of an agent. In fact, the camera records the man who announces himself before fatally shooting an African-American airman inside his home. Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden released the images after the airman’s family Roger Fortson23, and his lawyers held a press conference in which they contested the line of the officer, who claims to have acted in self-defense.
The video shows the man arriving with his company car at a condominium in Fort Walton Beach on May 3rd. The agent first meets a man in a hall who gives him the first directions and then sits down to talk outside with a woman who reports shouting and shouting coming from an apartment, underlining that this is not the first time. The agent enters the elevator, reaching apartment 1401, as indicated by the woman. The man knocks on the door shouting twice: “Sheriff’s Office! Open the door!“. At that point Fortson opens the door holding what appears to be a gun pointed downwards.”Stay back!” the officer shouts before firing shots. Then the order to drop the gun. Fortson is on the ground and screams: “I do not have it”, collapsing.
Fortson’s family attorney, Ben Crump, released a statement stressing that the officer did not tell Fortson to drop the gun before shooting.”several times within a fraction of a second after opening the door”. According to the reconstruction, the airman was talking to his girlfriend upstairs FaceTime when he grabbed the gun due to loud noises coming from outside. This is the detail that suggests that the information provided to the police led to a mistake in the person and apartment. The same noises reported by the woman, in fact, could have been the same ones that led Fortson to open the door armed and intimidated.
In a segment of the video FaceTime captured on Fortson’s cellphone, the airman is heard groaning and saying, “I can not breathe”. But also the agent who shouts at him: “Stop moving!”. The phone is pointed at the ceiling and does not show what is happening in the apartment. Crump called the shooting “an unjustifiable murder”. The sheriff said the investigation was being handled as a criminal investigation and that it has not yet been determined whether the officer’s actions were justified or not. However, the sheriff’s office’s initial press release describing the shooting claims that the officer “reacted in self-defense after encountering a 23-year-old man armed with a gun”. The sheriff’s office declined to identify the responding officer.
The man has been placed on leave pending an investigation.
