ATLANTA — Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump said he is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Deputy who shot and killed 23-year-old U.S. senior airman Roger Fortson.
Crump made the announcement Tuesday afternoon alongside Fortson’s mother, Meka Fortson.
“I want accountability because he was 23. I want accountability because he was in his own home,” Meka Fortson said.
The mother told Channel 2’s Audrey Washington she will continue to travel to Okaloosa County, Florida, until the people she believes caused her son’s death are held accountable.
“They turned an ordinary day into what would be a death sentence,” Crump said on Tuesday.
Crump said Deputy Eddie Duran, who was responding to a disturbance call at the time of the shooting in 2024, showed “excessive and unconstitutional deadly force.”
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Crump noted that Duran shot and killed Fortson within seconds of Fortson answering his apartment door.
Deputy body cam video showed Fortson answer his own door while holding a legally owned handgun pointed toward the floor.
“He was shot, dying with his little dog barking in the background,” Crump said.
Crump also said he believed both the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s office and the apartment complex where Fortson lived were responsible.
“It was the wrong apartment, and had they not based everything on speculation, then maybe the deputy would’ve gotten the right apartment,” Crump said.
“You’re going to be held accountable and held accountable the right way,” Meka Fortson said.
Duran is charged with manslaughter with a firearm.
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