A judge denied bond on Tuesday for a fired deputy in the shooting of a Black U.S. Air Force senior airman who answered his apartment door while holding a gun pointed at the floor.
Former Okaloosa County deputy Eddie Duran, 38, was charged with manslaughter with a firearm in the May 3 shooting death of 23-year-old Roger Fortson. The rare charge against a Florida law enforcement officer is a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
The judge ordered him held until a Thursday pre-trial detention hearing, despite objections from his lawyer, who said he should be released now.
“They know he’s going to show up,” attorney Rod Smith said. “We believe that he’s no risk, no flight risk. He’s going to show up Thursday, he’s going to show up any time, he need not spend the time in the jail the next few days.”
After the hearing, Smith told The Associated Press that he came to represent Duran as part of the legal team for the Florida Deputy Sheriffs Association. It's a not-for-profit association that offers benefits and services to deputies, he said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.
Smith said he and other defense attorneys disagree with the decision to charge Duran with a crime.
“I would say that we reviewed the case and we believe the case is one in which we disagree with the state and we will proceed from that point and let the judge and jury make that decision,” Smith said.
The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office initially said Duran fired in self defense after encountering a man with a gun, but Sheriff Eric Aden fired Duran on May 31 after an internal investigation concluded his life was not in danger when he opened fire. Outside law enforcement experts have also said that an officer cannot shoot only because a possible suspect is holding a gun if there is no threat.
Fortson had been talking with his girlfriend in a FaceTime video call that recorded audio of the encounter, and Duran's body camera video showed what happened.
Duran had been sent to Fortson’s Fort Walton Beach apartment in response to a domestic disturbance report that turned out to be false. After repeated knocking, Fortson opened the door while holding his handgun at his side, pointed down. Authorities say that Duran shot him multiple times and only then did he tell Fortson to drop the gun.
According to the internal affairs report, Duran told investigators that when Fortson opened the door, he saw aggression in the airman’s eyes. He said he fired because, “I’m standing there thinking I’m about to get shot, I’m about to die.”
Weeks passed after the shooting before the sheriff released an incident report, 911 records or the officer’s identity, despite requests for the information under Florida’s open records act and pressure from the family’s attorney, civil rights lawyer Ben Crump.
The fatal shooting of the airman at his off-base apartment in the Florida Panhandle was one of a growing list of killings of Black people by law enforcement in their own homes as they’re going about their day. Fortson's death also renewed debate over whether Florida's “Stand Your Ground” law has fostered a “shoot first” climate of vigilantism in which gun owners operate with impunity in killing largely Black people.
Hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues joined Fortson’s family, friends and others at his funeral in a suburban Atlanta megachurch. Fortson is from DeKalb County, Georgia, where his family lives on the east side of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
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Martin reported from Atlanta. Schneider reported from Orlando, Florida.
