Roger Fortson: Where Are The MAGA Tears For This Soldier?
An Air Force Airman was killed by a bumbling police officer. Shouldn't his life matter as much as someone killed in battle?
I want you to watch this military procession. It has been performed for countless members of the American armed forces after losing their lives in battle, defending this nation's freedoms.
This is not the return of a soldier who was killed in battle, or who was the victim of a sniper, or died while trying to save a fellow trooper. This is United States Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson. He lost his life when a police officer in Florida burst into his door and shot him dead. He was committing no crime. He was no threat. He was in the line of fire. He was on a battlefield called American Blackness.
According to Military.com, Fortson, 23, served in the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlbut Field in Florida’s panhandle region about two hours south of Montgomery, Ala. He was an aircraft gunner who served with pride and lived in an off-base apartment near Fort Walton Beach.
But on May 3, an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy, who was investigating a disturbance began banging on his apartment door, the Associated Press reports. A police body camera video shows the officer twice identifying himself and ordering the door open. Fortson opened the door apparently with a legally owned gun drawn, but pointed downward. The officer shouts “step back” then opens fire, wounding Fortson, then says “drop the gun.” Fortson replies “it’s over there.” Medical assistance is called, but the serviceman dies later of his injuries.
The deputy, according to the Oskaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden, was using self-defense. He was placed on administrative leave after the shooting.
Fortson’s family's attorneys say there were no verbal commands from the deputy and they also said he was on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend who said she also never heard an answer when he asked who was at the door. Civil Rights attorney Benjamin Crump contends that this was a case of the deputy going to the wrong apartment, which makes this a stupid mistake.
There’s Something Happening Here…What It Is Ain’t Exactly Clear
Now when our service members lose their lives, it is not uncommon for people from many political perspectives to express sorrow, offer words of condolence to their families, and praise them as heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Far be it from me to disagree.
But when I read right-wing publications that fume at President Biden over the soldiers who died in Afghanistan fighting, blaming him for a war that started almost two decades before he became chief executive. I’m left scratching my head. Why are these people mad over the loss of our military overseas, but not the loss of our military at the hands of a cop?
Why aren’t they demanding the impeachment of Gov. Ron DeSantis? Why aren’t congressional Republicans asking for an investigation of the death of Fortson they way they are promoting a probe of DEI policies in the U.S. military?
I’ve been looking at Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” laws, but I’m not seeing where Fortson was not within his rights to have a gun, and be ready when he feels threatened. But history keeps unfortunately repeating itself. Need we even remember what happened to Breanna Taylor in 2020 when a bunch of Louisville cops, in the process of bungling a drug raid, rushed into her home and as her boyfriend tried to defend their home with his legally owned firearm, shot her to death.
Outside of a few losing their jobs, most of the cops involved there were never held accountable, and there were no criminal charges for any of them outside of one whose court proceedings ended in a mistrial.
In the case of Botham Jean, a 26-year-old accountant who in 2018 was sitting on his couch watching football when a Dallas cop who was returning home from her shift walked into his apartment by accident and opened fire, killing him. It puzzled a lot of people how the officer, Amber Guyger, could mistakenly go to his apartment instead of hers and take his life, but once again a Black person dies because of a cop blunder. She did get 10 years behind bars, which she has tried to appeal, unsuccessfully so far.
The common thing between Fortson, Taylor and Jean’s cases is that these were people who were in their houses not bothering anyone, but they wind up dead.
When it came to military personnel who chose to put their lives on the line, MAGA Republicans want the White House taken apart brick by brick.
But if a cop kills a soldier who wasn’t doing anything unlawful and not doing much more than chatting up his girlfriend, not a whisper.
“The American people will never forget President Biden’s misguided and dangerous decisions that led to a deadly and chaotic withdrawal,” said Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott in 2023 in his continued criticism of the Biden administration’s pullout from Afghanistan.
And look, there are some legitimate criticisms of that pullout in which 13 service members were killed in 2021 at Kabul Airport. Their families deserve some answers and some accountability. There’s no denying that.
But if Scott is so adamant on making sure those military families get the answers he deserves, why haven’t we heard anything from him or his fellow Florida senator Marco Rubio?
C’mon guys, this is a serviceman, someone who could be doing a lot of other things with his young life, but he chose to serve his country. He could be stationed overseas in a hot zone, where he’d be under much greater risk. But it just so happens he was stateside. And being stateside was where he was in the most danger, thanks to the Oskaloosa County Sheriff’s Department.
Fortson was set to be buried on May 17, his body was returned to his family in Atlanta. I don’t know if the people who stand up for military that lose their lives in combat will do the same for one who lost his life because of a cop’s stupid blunder.
You’d think that Scott, Rubio and a lot of other Republicans who beat their chests about supporting military members and their families would do so in this case. But given the similar deaths I described and the lack of compassion they show for other Black people who are felled by police bullets, I wouldn’t hold my breath.