Lawyer for family of slain US Air Force airman says video and calls show deputy went to wrong home

STONECREST, Ga. (AP) — A lawyer for the family of Roger Fortson said Thursday that police radio traffic and the body camera footage of the Florida sheriff’s deputy who killed the Black U.S. Air Force airman reinforce their assertion that the deputy was directed to the wrong apartment while responding to a domestic disturbance call that day.

In police radio traffic that lawyer Ben Crump played at a news conference surrounded by Fortson’s family, a dispatcher said all they knew about the location of the disturbance was “fourth-party information.”

“Uh, don’t have any further other than a male and female,” the dispatcher told officers. “It’s all fourth-party information from the front desk at the leasing office.”

Crump also highlighted two portions of the bodycam video in which the deputy asked the woman leading him around the complex, “Which door?” The woman responded, “Um… I’m not sure.” Seconds later, the woman told the officer that she heard a disturbance two weeks ago, but “I wasn’t sure where it came from.”

Fortson, 23, was shot May 3 by an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy in the doorway of his apartment. Sheriff’s officials say the deputy acted in self-defense while responding to a call of a disturbance in progress at the apartment complex. Crump and Fortson’s family contend that the deputy went to the wrong unit and the shooting was unjustified.

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