Former Florida deputy charged with killing of black man | The Mighty 790 KFGO

By Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – A former Florida deputy sheriff was charged with manslaughter on Friday for shooting a black man who answered a knock on his apartment door, prosecutors said.

Former deputy Eddie Duran, who was previously fired from the Okaloosa County sheriff's office, has been charged with the May 3 killing of 23-year-old Air Force soldier Roger Fortson in Fort Walton Beach, District Attorney Greg Marcille said by phone. Authorities issued a warrant for his arrest Friday.

Body camera video of Duran, who was responding to a domestic violence call, shows him banging on Fortson's apartment door without warning. The deputy knocked loudly again and said twice that he was from the sheriff's department.

The video shows Fortson opening the door and holding a gun at his side, pointing downward. He did not point the gun at the deputy. Duran immediately opened fire multiple times at close range. Fortson later died at a local hospital.

Duran, who faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted, could not immediately be reached for comment and it was not clear whether he is represented by a lawyer.

Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney who represents Fortson's family, said in a written statement that this was a first step toward justice.

“Nothing can ever bring Roger back and our fight is far from over, but we are confident that this arrest and this indictment will bring real justice to the Fortson family,” Crump said.

Fortson's family insists the deputy mistakenly targeted Fortson's apartment, pointing out that he was on the phone with his girlfriend before the shooting and no one else was in the apartment.

An investigation by the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department revealed that someone from the apartment complex called a sheriff's department non-emergency hotline to report hearing a couple arguing in Fortson's apartment.

Crump, the family's attorney, said Fortson was on Facetime with his girlfriend when he heard a knock on his door. He asked, “Who's there?” but got no answer, Crump said, echoing his girlfriend's account.

Fortson then retrieved a gun he legally owned and walked through his living room back to the door, Crump said.

The killing was reminiscent of an unannounced police raid in Louisville, Kentucky, in March 2020, when police entered the home of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old black emergency medical technician, and killed her. Police had obtained a no-knock search warrant to search the apartment, mistaking it for the home of a suspect.

On Friday, a federal judge dropped some of the most serious charges against two former police officers accused in Taylor's murder.

Taylor’s death and the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police a few weeks later sparked a worldwide wave of protests against racism in the police in the summer of 2020.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; editing by Cynthia Osterman)