The 16-year-old brother of a U.S. Air Force airman who was shot and killed in his home by a Florida sheriff’s deputy in May has been killed in a shooting in the Atlanta area, authorities said.
Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s brother, Andre Fortson, was killed this week in DeKalb County, near Atlanta’s east side, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement.
“The Fortson family is battling the loss of yet another young member of their family,” Crump said. “This has been an incredibly challenging time for them with the loss of Roger. Losing the life of yet another young family member – a mere child – has been an absolute devastation.”
Brynn Anderson / AP
Andre Fortson was found shot to death in the breezeway of an apartment complex on Tuesday, authorities said. Two groups of people had been shooting at each other for unknown reasons, DeKalb County police told WSB-TV. A 20-year-old suspect was arrested on aggravated assault charges and booked into the DeKalb County Jail, the station reported.
Neighbors told WSB that they heard cars drive off after the gunfire, leaving Andre Fortson bleeding in the breezeway.
“I tried to save him, doing CPR because I couldn’t save him,” a neighbor named Jaqueia told the station. “He never disrespected me. You always see him go to school. He was a really good boy. He was never disrespectful, never saw him in any altercations, or anything like that.”
The killing comes about three months after Roger Fortson, 23, was killed May 3 by Okaloosa County sheriff’s Deputy Eddie Duran at Fortson’s apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The airman had answered the door while holding a handgun pointed toward the floor and was killed within seconds, body camera video shows.
During the incident, Fortson was on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend. Crump’s firm released a video of the call that appears to start after the shooting, showing the ceiling of Fortson’s apartment.
“I can’t breathe,” Fortson says in the video while groaning.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden fired Duran, saying the deputy’s life was never in danger and that he should not have fired his weapon.
A sheriff’s office internal affairs investigation found that Fortson “did not make any hostile, attacking movements, and therefore, the former deputy’s use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable.”
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The Fortson family is from DeKalb County, where Andre Forston was killed. Roger Fortson was stationed at Air Force’s Hurlburt Field, where he was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron.
A GoFundMe set up after Roger Forston’s death has raised more than $26,000.