Could Cops Maybe Try To Have The Right Address Before Opening Fire In Someone's Home?
Could Cops Maybe Try To Have The Right Address Before Opening Fire In Someone's Home?
23-year-old Roger Fortson is dead, allegedly because police went to the wrong apartment.
On May 3, police in Okaloosa County, Florida, were “responding to a disturbance” when they busted down the door of 23-year-old Senior Air Force Airman Roger Fortson’s apartment, opened fire, and killed him.
According to a statement from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, which notes that it is “saddened about the fatal officer involved shooting over the weekend,” what happened was that on “Friday afternoon, our deputy responded to a call of a disturbance in progress where he encountered an armed man. The deputy shot the man, who later succumbed to his injuries.”
It’s a surprisingly active-voiced statement — comparatively — but it’s not quite what actually happened. And we know what actually happened, because the whole thing was witnessed by a woman that Fortson was on Facetime with.
According to famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump, whom Fortson’s family has retained to represent their interests, the witness says that the police must have been at the wrong apartment, because there was no “disturbance.” They were just talking.
She was on Facetime with him when he heard a knock at the door. When he asked “Who is it?” the way anyone would do when they get an unexpected knock at the door, no one replied.
Not long after, there was another knock, this one much more aggressive. He went to the door again, looked out through the peephole, saw no one.
Now, that’s a pretty scary thing, right? That could be anyone, it could be a serial killer, who knows? So Fortson went to go get his gun in order to defend himself. It was at that point that the police burst through his door and shot him six times.
According to the statement, the witness “saw Roger on the ground stating, ‘I can't breathe,’ after he was shot.”
The particularly galling thing, Crump notes, is that the Sheriff’s Department is doing all it can to insinuate that Roger Fortson was somehow a threat. As much as some of us may not like guns, there is certainly a world of difference between “encountering an armed man” and “busting into someone’s home to see that they are holding a gun in order to defend themselves because they think someone is trying to break into their home.”
"The circumstances surrounding Roger's death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment. The narrative released by law enforcement, which falsely suggests that Roger posed a threat, is deeply troubling and inconsistent with the details provided by that witness: Roger was home alone, causing no disturbance, when his life was tragically cut short by law enforcement,” Crump said in a statement.
"We are calling for transparency in the investigation into Roger's death and the immediate release of bodycam video to the family. His family and the public deserve to know what occurred in the moments leading up to this tragedy. We urge authorities to immediately stop demonizing Roger in their statements to the media. It's imperative to correct the record and acknowledge the wrongful entry into Roger's home. What we know for sure is that Roger was a dedicated U.S. Airman serving the country and a cherished member of his community. Any attempts to tarnish his character only compound the pain felt by his loved ones.”
It’s clear that they are trying to suggest that the police somehow acted in self-defense or simply because they were terribly frightened, but that seems unlikely. It’s certainly hard to trust the judgment of people who can’t even find the right apartment.
It also feels important to point out that Florida is an open-carry state. If police opened fire every time they “encountered” an armed man, that would get very bloody, very quickly.
This is hardly the first time that something like this has happened. In fact, it is not even the first time this has happened this year. Back in February, Eboni Pouncy was shot by police who “mistook” her for an intruder in her own home. She survived, thank goodness.
We all know these stories of people — Black people, specifically — gunned down in their own homes due to the sheer incompetence (or, in Breonna Taylor’s case, rather purposeful incompetence) of police officers. Now we know another.
Now, I don’t want to go and cause a full-on crime wave, but could we perhaps just consider teaching police officers to be a tad more circumspect when they start opening fire into people’s homes.
At the very least, could they not employ a modicum of the restraint the ATF did at Waco — one of the most famous cases in our country’s history of law enforcement officers failing to exercise restraint? Just, you know, they could try finding out who is actually in there or, you know, if there are any children around before bursting into a home and randomly shooting? Is that too much?
Sadly, it probably is.
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Police officers need absolute immunity, just like presidents, otherwise they'll constantly be worrying that someone will indict them for gunning down innocent people in their own homes.
Ta, Robyn. What a tragedy. May Fortson's memory always be a blessing.