The Florida sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot a U.S. Air Force senior airman in the airman’s home this month has been fired, the sheriff’s office said on Friday, describing the deputy’s use of deadly force, which was captured on body camera, as “not objectively reasonable.”
The deputy, Eddie Duran, was responding to a physical disturbance call in Fort Walton Beach in the Florida Panhandle on May 3 when he killed Senior Airman Roger Fortson in his apartment. Sheriff Eric Aden of Okaloosa County said in a statement on Friday that his decision to fire Mr. Duran had come after an internal affairs investigation and a review of the body camera footage.
“This tragic incident should have never occurred,” Sheriff Aden said, adding: “Mr. Fortson did not commit any crime. By all accounts, he was an exceptional airman and individual.”
The sheriff’s comments were a stark departure from the language that his office used in the initial aftermath of the shooting. At that time, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said Mr. Duran had “reacted in self-defense.”
The footage, released a week after the shooting, showed that Mr. Duran was told by a worker at the apartment complex to go to Apartment 1401 because of an apparent domestic dispute there.
When the deputy arrives at that apartment, the footage shows, he first knocks without identifying himself. Mr. Duran then knocks again, announces himself and steps away from the door. Seconds later, the deputy shifts to the other side of the door, knocks and announces himself again.
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