Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said Wednesday.

Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting happened on May 3.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that Fortson was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter.

  • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    They didn’t care about him when he was alive.

    They may care about the operational loss, but they certainly wont bring any kind of hammer down on the local PD.

    • Cipher22@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’m honestly curious about a source for your perspective on the first sentence. I’ve seen firsthand where the USAF negotiated on an international level for enlisted Airmen over a DUI. This particular case was in Japan and while the Airman had to serve his term as dictated by the Japanese courts, he was aloud to do so in a US Military facility, which was a significantly higher QOL for that Airman.

      I couldn’t find an article while looking for a minute, but it’s been quite a few years. I also promise that skin tone was not a distinguishing factor.

      At the end of the day, though, I would simply like information on your perspective, not to convince you to change.

      • lath@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Own country vs other countries. Doesn’t matter what a US soldier did in other countries, if it can be swept under the rug, it will. Own country, they don’t give a shit.

      • jonne@infosec.pub
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        6 months ago

        Americans getting arrested in other countries is “a great injustice”. If American cops kill an American, nobody cares.

        Look at what the US has done to protect obviously guilty Americans from facing any type of consequence from committing crimes abroad. Stuff like the woman who killed a motorcyclist in the UK because she was driving the wrong way, or the airmen that killed scores of people by flying into a gondola cable in Italy.

      • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Did someone edit a comment? Or the post itself? Where does Japan come into an article about an airman killed by police in Florida?

        EDIT: I put the em-PHASIS on the wrong syl-LABLE when reading the comment. Never mind.

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You saw some colonels nephew get out of a DUI and that makes u think the us military has integrity???

        Lmfao. They don’t hire the brightest do they?