Nearly a year and a half ago, an airman in Florida was shot in the doorway of his own home by a sheriff’s deputy. The airman was armed, but reportedly, the gun was pointed down. He just answered the door armed.
I covered this then, and I was not comfortable with what happened and figured the jury would eventually agree with me.
Well…I blew that call.
A former Florida sheriff’s deputy has been found not guilty of manslaughter with a firearm in the killing of a Black U.S. Air Force airman fatally shot at his apartment during a domestic disturbance call.
An Okaloosa County jury acquitted Eddie Duran, 38, on Thursday. Duran had faced up to 30 years in prison.
Duran, who is Hispanic, worked for the Okaloosa County sheriff’s department in May 2024 when he responded to Roger Fortson’s Fort Walton Beach apartment near Hurlburt Field, where the airman was stationed.
The sheriff’s office had said the deputy “reacted in self-defense after he encountered a 23-year-old man armed with a gun.” The shooting was captured on the deputy’s body camera.
The video shows the deputy banging on the door and stepping aside, seemingly out of view of the door. Twice he shouted: “Sheriff’s office! Open the door!”
Fortson opened the door and could be seen holding what appeared to be a handgun pointed down toward the floor. The deputy shouted, “Step back!” and fired off shots. He then shouted, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!”
“It’s over there,” Fortson said.
“Drop the gun!” the deputy yelled back.
“I don’t have it,” Fortson said, lying on the ground.
The deputy then called paramedics on his radio.
Fortson later died at a hospital. The domestic disturbance report that led Duran to Fortson’s apartment turned out to be false.
Duran’s attorney, Rod Smith, told The Associated Press on Friday, “None of this needed to happen.” He added, “[Fortson] absolutely knew a police officer was at the door. Deputy Duran, himself, was also a victim of a terrible tragedy. He had followed his training. The guy answered the door with a semiautomatic pistol in his hand.”
First, people lie about who is at the door all the time, so no, Fortson didn’t inherently know it was a police officer at the door. Second, the fact that he had a semiautomatic pistol versus any other firearm is irrelevant. He was in his house doing nothing wrong, so the type of firearm is irrelevant.
The jury has reached a decision, and the state attorney’s office said they accept the decision, which just means not every jury member felt there was enough to convict. In other words, they’re convinced Duran is guilty, but they don’t think everyone will accept it.
Fair enough.
Frankly, from what I understand, this is a terrible travesty, and I’m not that prepared to pretend everything was copacetic. I also think that it’s awful for Smith to suggest the law-abiding service member was breaking the law by answering his door with a firearm in the dark of night simply because someone knocked on the door, said they were the police, then moved out of the way of the peephole so Fortson couldn’t verify anything.
But that’s my opinion. Since I don’t hold a high opinion of most attorneys who work outside of the pro-Second Amendment space, I stand by it.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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