WASHINGTON — In 2020, the Air Force’s top enlisted leader made public his fear of waking up to the news that a Black airman had been killed by a white police officer.
Four years later, a Florida deputy shot and killed senior airman Roger Fortson in his apartment.
“I doubt that police officer knew or cared that Roger was a pilot. What he saw was a young black man,” said retired Chief Master Sgt. Kaleth O. Wright said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday.
After George Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, Wright, who like Floyd is Black, felt compelled to speak publicly about the fears he and his younger troops had. It didn’t seem to matter how hard he had worked to serve his country. There were still police who only saw him as a threat.
The national outrage surrounding Floyd’s death prompted Wright to lead some initiatives to better address racial issues within the Air Force. But they say they didn’t go far enough. Fortson’s death makes him wonder if things will ever change.
“Right now, in the midst of what happened with Roger, it’s kind of a big deal. People talk about it, the Air Force deals with it. But in a few weeks it will go away, right?” Wright said.
The investigation into Fortson’s death is ongoing and the sheriff’s office has not released the name or race of the officer involved.
On Wednesday, Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden went to Hurlburt Field where Fortson served and met with Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, to talk about next steps.
Sabu Williams, president of the Okaloosa County NAACP chapter, was there and said he did not leave feeling that the sheriff’s office believed Fortson’s race was a factor in the shooting.
But “bias definitely played a role in this,” Williams said. “From my perspective, we feel like we’re not getting the benefit of the doubt. It seems like a case of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’.”
In a statement posted to his Facebook page late Wednesday, Bauernfeind said the meeting with the sheriff’s office was productive and that the command would host a town hall in the coming days to further discuss the shooting and the path forward .
There is no government-run national data collection system that tracks fatalities caused by law enforcement officers. The FBI has a database, but it is voluntary, and fewer than two-thirds of local, state, tribal and federal agencies submitted data for it last year. In any case, there is no breakdown by race.
However, databases maintained by private organizations have shown that the number of fatal police encounters has increased every year since Floyd was killed, and that these killings disproportionately involve Black people.
Two databases, one from The Washington Post and another compiled by Campaign Zero, run by academics and activists who advocate for police accountability, found that while more white people are killed in police encounters overall, black people are disproportionately are killed by the police. Black people make up about 12% of the U.S. population, but account for about a quarter of police killings in each of the databases.
During the meeting in Hurlburt, Williams requested that the sheriff’s office implement de-escalation training and unconscious bias training, which he said the sheriff supported.
The sheriff’s office said in a statement on Facebook that they have received the “list of demands from the local NAACP and understand their concerns.” During the meeting at the airport, the sheriff emphasized “his commitment to doing what is right,” the report said.
Michael P. Heiskell, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the deputy’s race does not matter in determining whether unconscious bias played a role.
“Whatever the race of this deputy, whether he is black, white, Hispanic or whatever – in this case where this deputy saw a black person with a weapon and immediately used deadly force, instead of handling the situation calmly and to assess reflectively, this is it. ”
Williams’ NAACP chapter is drafting state legislation that would name it after Fortson. The bill would require police to use de-escalating language before using force if they encounter someone with a gun who is not being held in a threatening position.
Released police body camera footage shows Fortson had his gun in his hand when he opened his front door, but the barrel was pointed toward the ground. Within seconds, the deputy shot him, but only then told him to drop the gun.
“A little bit of de-escalation or discussion” by the deputy could have given the airman an opportunity to put down the weapon, Williams said. “He didn’t get time.”
MaCharie Dunbar, a board member of the Black Veterans Project, a national organization created to address racial disparities in the experiences of black service members, said he wonders if it would have made a difference if Fortson had worn a uniform .
“One thing has been proven time and time again: If you’re black in America, it doesn’t matter what job you have, the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the house you live in,” Dunbar said. who is retired from the Air Force and was stationed at Hurlburt Field. ‘At the end of the day you’re just black. And there are those who cling to the ideology that black people are dangerous.”
Fortson’s shooting occurred against a broader backdrop of increased attention by the military to racial issues in its ranks. In recent years, internal reviews have found wide disparities in opportunities for promotion and unequal military punishments.
But there has been significant resistance to these efforts, with far-right members of Congress criticizing them as “woke.” Congress this year capped what the Pentagon can pay experts to promote diversity, equality and inclusion.
Wright said pushback has silenced much discussion about the issue and that the most helpful thing commanders can do now is listen.
“If you’re a white male officer in the United States Air Force, you don’t wake up every day thinking about race,” Wright said. “We have black pilots and officers who wake up every day and go into rooms and they are the only black person.”
He said commanders need to understand the toll this is taking.
“It is accompanied by stress and anxiety. It comes with a feeling of not belonging. And you know, most of us have learned to just assimilate, right? You know, don’t complain, don’t be the outcast. Don’t be an outsider because sometimes you will be labeled as an angry black man.
If pilots don’t feel supported by their own units, it’s unlikely they will feel confident opening up to commanders on an issue as big as Fortson’s shooting, he said.
Wright is now thinking about writing another column, and perhaps getting involved in the issue again. But he’s not sure what needs to be done to prevent a future incident. Bringing sheriff’s deputies to the base to help them see black pilots differently won’t solve the problem without larger societal change, he said. Asking commanders to have the equivalent of “the conversation” with black pilots that parents have with their black children about encounters with police is also not a solution.
“I don’t know if commanders could say anything to pilots that would necessarily be helpful, like ‘if the police come knocking, do this, don’t do that,’” Wright said. “Young African-American men know the business, right? They already know the story. And yet it is not enough.”
Wright has two sons, ages 22 and 27. His heart breaks for Fortson’s mother, who will bury her 23-year-old son on Friday.
“That easily could have been one of my sons,” Wright said.
___
Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Aaron Morrison in New York City contributed to this report.