The former Florida sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed U.S. Airman Roger Fortson has resorted to several tactics over the past two years to either delay or dismiss the manslaughter charges against him.
But a Florida judge denied Eddie Duran’s latest attempt to get the case dismissed on Sept. 11., putting him on track to face a jury later this month for killing the 23-year-old Black man.
However, Duran responded by filing a motion to get Judge William F. Stone recused from the case, accusing the judge of “improper unsolicited editorializing” about Fortson’s military and personal accomplishments in his denial.
But that is ironic considering Duran tried to use his own prior law enforcement experience to get the case dismissed in the 53-page motion he filed in July. Duran’s legal team also plans to file an appeal on the judge’s decision before the Sept. 28 trial, local media reported.
“It is so emotionally draining,” said Fortson’s mother, Meka Fortson, in a telephone interview with Atlanta Black Star on Wednesday.
“I was OK with the judge’s decision, but I feel like I can’t get excited or satisfied until they say guilty.”
Since May 3, 2024, Meka Fortson has driven from Georgia to Florida for every hearing in the Okaloosa County courtroom where her son died, just seconds after he opened his front door with a gun pointed downward at his side.
Meka Fortson told Atlanta Black Star in a June interview that a judge denied Duran’s trial 17 times since prosecutors charged him with manslaughter on Aug. 23, 2024.
“You want all this time, but you killed Roger so fast,” she said in the most recent interview.
“Like, you didn’t give him no time, and you feel like you deserve so much, and you don’t.”
Duran was an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy when he responded to an alleged domestic violence call from the apartment complex where Roger Fortson lived alone.
A leasing consultant from the apartment complex called the sheriff’s non-emergency line after receiving a complaint from the tenant who lived in the apartment below the airman.
Duran arrived and pounded on Roger Fortson’s front door while shouting, “Sheriff’s Office,” while deliberately standing away from the peephole so Roger couldn’t see him from inside.
Roger Fortson, a legal gun owner, opened the door with a gun by his side pointed downward and was shot and killed within seconds. He was alone inside his apartment aside from his dog.
However, many people have criticized the airman for opening the door with a gun by his side even though Florida is a stand your ground state
But Meka Fortson believes pro-gun laws do not necessarily apply to Black people.
“People walk around with guns every day that are not African American,” she said. “But we’re not given those same chances.”
Fortunately, Judge Stone recognized Roger Fortson’s right to bear arms in his home.
“In Florida, a person has a clearly established unequivocal statutory right to openly carry a firearm in his or her own home,” the judge wrote in his 34-page denial.
“A citizen absolutely does not forfeit constitutional and statutory rights when a law enforcement officer knocks and announces law enforcement presence, without other circumstances being present.”
Meka Fortson said her son was playing video games when the deputy pounded on his door and became suspicious.
“Roger’s in the United States Air Force,” she said. “He used the training that they gave to him. He felt like it was something going on.”
Duran has also attempted to use the stand your ground law to escape accountability.
Despite the upcoming trial, Duran appears confident he will escape accountability, Meka Fortson said.
“When I’m sitting in that courtroom and I’m watching him and his family and they laugh and they playing and they not taking it serious, it’s just so disappointing,” she said.
“This man laughing and talking to his family. And I’m sitting over there with my heart sitting in my lap.”
“He has no remorse. He has no repentance,” she continued.
“Roger deserves to still be here. Roger deserves accountability.”
With the latest denial from the judge, Duran’s chances of escaping accountability appear to be dwindling, even if he continues invoking his Blue Privilege that has allowed so many cops to escape accountability.
“Even if Defendant had presented a prima facie claim of self-defense immunity, the State presented clear and convincing evidence overcoming Defendant’s immunity claim,” Judge Stone wrote.
“Simply put, it is unreasonable to believe that the mere announcement of ‘Sheriff’s Office. Open the door’ made outside of an apartment obligates the person inside to believe that the individual outside is truly a law enforcement officer without something more.”
Meka Fortson agrees Duran’s status as a law-enforcement officer should not insulate him from consequences,
“You can’t just kill people because you wear a badge,” she said, sharing a Facebook video of a man describing her son’s military life before he was killled.
“He said what I wanted to say,” she said of the video. “He truly described my baby.”
