Okaloosa County Fatal Officer Involved Shooting (with video & audio)

Thursday, May 9, 2024

Wright, Fla. — On Friday May 3rd shortly before 4:30 p.m., a deputy with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office responded to an apartment complex located at 319 Racetrack Rd in Wright, FL for a reported disturbance.

Upon arrival, the deputy made contact with office staff and the person who called in the report. After gathering the initial information, the deputy walked to Building E apartment 1401, which is the address the complainant gave him, to make contact with the occupant.

Upon arrival at the apartment, the deputy waited outside the door of the apartment and listened for any disturbance. In the video below, after the deputy knocked the first time, you can hear a dog bark and a door close from within the apartment. You can hear a voice from within the apartment say something that not clearly audible. A moment later, you can hear the same voice say, “I don’t know, the police”. The deputy knocks again and plainly states, “Sheriff’s Office, open the door”. The deputy then walks to the left side of the doorway, out of view of the peephole for officer safety and knocks a third time and again plainly says, “Sheriff’s Office, open the door”.

The male occupant, later identified as 23-year-old Roger Fortson, a U.S. Air Force Senior Airman stationed as Hurlburt Field, opens the door and the deputy tells Fortson to step back. With a firearm in the right hand of Fortson, the deputy draws his service weapon and shoots six times, not to kill the occupant but to stop any potential threat.

Fortson was transported to a nearby trauma center where he later succumbed to his injuries.

These are the facts of the case, not speculation.

Our job as news media, is not to present an opinion, that is what opinions columns are for, but to report the news unbiasedly. Both the video of the shooting and the audio of Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden’s news conference is attached below.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who responded to the scene, to investigate the fatal officer involved shooting which is standard policy with any law enforcement agency in the state of Florida. The deputy involved has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the unfortunate incident that took a life.