Bodycam video shows Florida cop shooting Black airman
STORY: Florida police on Thursday released a body-camera video of a deputy fatally shooting Robert Fortson, a Black airman, in his apartment on May 3.
The video shows the deputy arriving at an apartment complex in Okaloosa County, where a woman greets him and directs him to apartment 1401.
She also tells him that two weeks prior she heard noises from that apartment that sounded like domestic abuse.
The video records the deputy twice knocking on the door and saying “Sheriff’s office, open the door.”
In the next part of the video, which Reuters has chosen not to show, Fortson answers the door with a handgun at his side, pointed down, and the unnamed deputy immediately shoots him multiple times.
Fortson later died in the hospital.
It remained unclear who called law enforcement on the day of the shooting or why.
“I need you guys to tell the truth about my son. I need you to get his reputation right. If you have a heart, if you have a niece, a nephew, any young person in your life, tell the truth about my son.”
Fortson’s family has insisted the deputy, who was investigating a domestic violence complaint, knocked on the wrong door, since the 23-year-old was in the apartment alone.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said that Fortson was on a Facetime call with his girlfriend when he heard the deputy’s knock.
In a statement issued after the release of the video, Fortson’s family said they remained ‘adamant that the police had the wrong apartment.’
Upon release of the video, Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aiden pushed back on that assertion.
“We are aware of a press release and other comments that falsely state our deputy entered the wrong apartment and imply that they burst through the door into Mr. Fortson’s residence. Those statements are inaccurate, as shown on the video that we are about to see.”
“The deputy knocked on the correct door. He did not cover the peephole or otherwise obscure its view in any way.”
Aiden said the deputy was placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into the incident.
