Family sues after U.S. Airman killed by Florida deputy in his own home
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The Brief
The family of Roger Fortson, a Black U.S. airman, filed a wrongful death lawsuit after he was fatally shot by a deputy responding to a false domestic call.
Deputy Eddie Duran has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter in the May 2024 shooting.
The case has sparked national outcry over policing, race, and accountability in law enforcement.
ORLANDO, Fla. - The family of Roger Fortson, a Black U.S. airman, filed a wrongful death lawsuit after he was fatally shot by a deputy responding to a false domestic call.
'He had a life ahead of him'
What we know
On May 3, 2024, Deputy Eddie Duran shot and killed Senior Airman Roger Fortson inside Fortson's own apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The deputy had responded to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance allegedly coming from Fortson's unit.
U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, died Friday, May 3, following an incident at his off-base residence. Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron. He entered active duty on Nov. 19, 2019. [Credit: U.S. Air Force]
When Fortson opened the door, he was shot within seconds. He was alone and on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend at the time. Duran has since been charged with manslaughter with a firearm and has pleaded not guilty. Fortson was a 23-year-old Black airman assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field.
What we don't know
It remains unclear why Fortson's apartment was identified as the location of the reported disturbance or what information the apartment complex staff provided to the deputy.
Authorities have not fully disclosed the body camera footage or other details about Duran's actions in the moments leading up to the shooting. Additionally, it's uncertain whether the justice system in Okaloosa County will conduct a trial that Fortson's family and supporters deem fair.
The backstory
This incident joins a broader national conversation about police use of force, especially in cases involving Black victims.
Fortson's death has prompted comparisons to other high-profile killings of Black Americans by law enforcement, including those of Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols, and George Floyd. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has represented families in many of those cases, is now representing Fortson's family. The case also intersects with ongoing military efforts to address racial disparities within its ranks.
Big picture view
The shooting has reignited concerns about systemic issues in law enforcement accountability and racial bias, particularly in areas like the Florida Panhandle. Okaloosa County has a reputation for rarely charging officers for on-duty killings, and convictions are even rarer.
Fortson's death adds pressure on local and federal systems to reassess police response protocols, training standards, and the role of racial dynamics in use-of-force cases.
What they're saying
Deputy Eddie Duran was responding to a domestic disturbance report at Fortson's apartment that turned out to be false.
"I want accountability because he was 23. I want accountability because he had a life ahead of him. I want accountability because he was in his own home," said Fortson's mother, Meka Fortson, at a news conference.
It is highly unusual for Florida law enforcement officers to be charged for an on-duty killing. Convictions in such cases are even rarer.
"This is not policing. This is an unlawful execution," said Ben Crump, the family's attorney. "We believe Roger's death was a result of a pattern and practice here in Okaloosa County," Crump added, criticizing what he called systemic issues in the sheriff's office.
Meka Fortson also expressed deep skepticism about local justice.
"I have no faith in Okaloosa County," she said, casting doubt that her son's case would receive a fair trial in the area where the deputy worked.
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The Source
This story was written based on reporting by the Associated Press, information released by the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and statements provided during a news conference held by Ben Crump, the family's attorney.
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Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's novel 1984, which coined the term "thoughtcrime" to describe the act of having thoughts that question the ruling party's ideology, has become an ironic lightning rod in debates over alleged trigger warnings and the role of historical context in classic literature. The introduction to the new edition, endorsed by Orwell's estate and written by the American author Dolen Perkins-Valdezm, is at the center of the storm, drawing fire from conservative commentators as well as public intellectuals, and prompting a wide spectrum of reaction from academics who study Orwell's work. Perkins-Valdez opens the introduction with a self-reflective exercise: imagining what it would be like to read 1984 for the first time today. She writes that "a sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity," noting the complete absence of Black characters. She also describes her pause at the protagonist Winston Smith's "despicable" misogyny, but ultimately chooses to continue reading, writing: "I know the difference between a flawed character and a flawed story." "I'm enjoying the novel on its own terms, not as a classic but as a good story; that is, until Winston reveals himself to be a problematic character," she writes. "For example, we learn of him: 'He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones.' Whoa, wait a minute, Orwell." That framing was enough to provoke sharp critique from novelist and essayist Walter Kirn on the podcast America This Week, co-hosted with journalist Matt Taibbi. Kirn characterized the foreword as a kind of ideological overreach. "Thank you for your trigger warning for 1984," he said. "It is the most 1984ish thing I've ever f***ing read." In which you will learn that the current leading paperback version of 1984, its official Orwell-estate-approved 75th anniversary edition, includes a 1984-ish trigger-warning introduction calling the novel's hero "problematic" because of his "misogyny." I am not making this up. — Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) June 2, 2025 Later in the episode, which debuted on June 1, Kirn blasted what he saw as an imposed "permission structure" by publishers and academic elites. "It's a sort of Ministry of Truthism," he said, referring to the Ministry of Truth that features prominently in the dystopian novel. "They're giving you a little guidebook to say, 'Here's how you're supposed to feel when you read this.'" Conservative commentator such as Ed Morrissey described the foreword as part of "an attempt to rob [Orwell's work] of meaning by denigrating it as 'problematic.'" Morrissey argued that trigger warnings on literary classics serve to "distract readers at the start from its purpose with red herrings over issues of taste." But not all responses aligned with that view. Academic Rebuttal Peter Brian Rose-Barry, a philosophy professor at Saginaw Valley State University and author of George Orwell: The Ethics of Equality, disputed the entire premise. "There just isn't [a trigger warning]," he told Newsweek in an email after examining the edition. "She never accuses Orwell of thoughtcrime. She never calls for censorship or cancelling Orwell." In Rose-Barry's view, the foreword is neither invasive nor ideological, but reflective. "Perkins-Valdez suggests in her introduction that 'love and artistic beauty can act as healing forces in a totalitarian state,'" he noted. "Now, I find that deeply suspect... but I'd use this introduction to generate a discussion in my class." Taibbi and Kirn, by contrast, took issue with that exact line during the podcast. "Love heals? In 1984?" Taibbi asked. "The whole thing ends with Winston broken, saying he loves Big Brother," the symbol of the totalitarian state at the heart of the book. Kirn laughed and added, "It's the kind of revisionist uplift you get from a book club discussion after someone just watched The Handmaid's Tale." Photographs of Eric Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, from his Metropolitan Police file, c.1940. Photographs of Eric Blair, whose pen name was George Orwell, from his Metropolitan Police file, c.1940. The National Archives UK Perkins-Valdez, a Black writer, Harvard graduate and professor of literature at American University, also noted the novel's lack of racial representation: "That sliver of connection can be difficult for someone like me to find in a novel that does not speak much to race and ethnicity at all." Kirn responded to that sentiment on the show by pointing out that Orwell was writing about midcentury Britain: "When Orwell wrote the book, Black people made up maybe one percent of the population. It's like expecting white characters in every Nigerian novel." Richard Keeble, former chair of the Orwell Society, argued that critiques of Orwell's treatment of race and gender have long been part of academic discourse. "Questioning Orwell's representation of Blacks in 1984 can usefully lead us to consider the evolution of his ideas on race generally," he told Newsweek. "Yet Orwell struggled throughout his life, and not with complete success, to exorcise what Edward Said called 'Orientalism.'" Keeble added, "Trigger warnings and interpretative forewords... join the rich firmament of Orwellian scholarship—being themselves open to critique and analysis." Cultural Overreach The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's 1984 has become a lightning rod in debates over alleged wokeness, censorship and the role of historical context in reading classic literature. The 75th anniversary edition of George Orwell's 1984 has become a lightning rod in debates over alleged wokeness, censorship and the role of historical context in reading classic literature. Newsweek / Penguin Random House While critics like Kirn view Perkins-Valdez's new foreword as a symptom of virtue signaling run amok, others see it as part of a long-standing literary dialogue. Laura Beers, a historian at American University and author of Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century, acknowledged that such reactions reflect deeper political divides. But she defended the legitimacy of approaching Orwell through modern ethical and social lenses. "What makes 1984 such a great novel is that it was written to transcend a specific historical context," she told Newsweek. "Although it has frequently been appropriated by the right as a critique of 'socialism,' it was never meant to be solely a critique of Stalin's Russia." Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Courtesy American University "Rather," she added, "it was a commentary on how absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the risk to all societies, including democracies like Britain and the United States, of the unchecked concentration of power." Beers also addressed the role of interpretive material in shaping the reading experience. "Obviously, yes, in that 'interpretive forewords' give a reader an initial context in which to situate the texts that they are reading," she said. "That said, such forewords are more often a reflection on the attitudes and biases of their own time." While the foreword has prompted the familiar battle lines playing out across the Trump-era culture wars, Beers sees the conversation itself as in keeping with Orwell's legacy. "By attempting to place Orwell's work in conversation with changing values and historical understandings in the decades since he was writing," she said, "scholars like Perkins-Valdez are exercising the very freedom to express uncomfortable and difficult opinions that Orwell explicitly championed."
