ATLANTA – The teenage brother of a U.S. Air Force airman who was fatally shot in his home by a Florida sheriff's deputy in May has been killed in a shooting in the Atlanta area, police said.
Andre Fortson, Senior Airman Roger Fortson's 16-year-old brother, was killed this week in DeKalb County, near Atlanta's east side, DeKalb County police said.
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“The Fortson family is battling the loss of yet another young member of their family,” said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who has been representing the family since Roger Fortson was killed.
“This has been an incredibly challenging time for them with the loss of Roger,” Crump said in a statement. “Losing the life of yet another young family member — a mere child — has been an absolute devastation.”
Andre Fortson was found shot to death in the breezeway of an apartment complex on Tuesday, police said. Two groups of people had been shooting at each other for unknown reasons, DeKalb County police said.
A 20-year-old man was identified as one of the shooters and arrested on an aggravated assault charge, police said. He was booked into the DeKalb County Jail. Jail records did not list an attorney who could be reached for comment on his behalf.
The killing comes about three months after Roger Fortson, 23, was killed on May 3 by Okaloosa County sheriff's Deputy Eddie Duran in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The airman answered the door to his apartment while holding a handgun pointed toward the floor and was killed within seconds, body camera video showed.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden fired Duran, saying the deputy's life was never in danger and 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.”
Crump has called for on state prosecutors to file criminal charges against Duran.
“This tragic incident should never have occurred, and we must ensure that there are consequences for such reckless actions,” Crump said in a statement. “Roger Fortson’s family deserves justice, and our community deserves accountability.”
The state attorney's office did not immediately have a comment on the shooting investigation.
The Fortson family is from DeKalb County, where Andre Fortson was killed. At a tearful news conference a couple of weeks after the Florida killing, Andre Fortson stood on the stage with his mother and sisters. They wore red shirts with the words “WE ALL WE GOT” on the front and a picture of Roger Fortson in his military uniform on the back.
Roger Fortson was stationed at the Air Force's Hurlburt Field in the Florida Panhandle. At his funeral outside Atlanta, hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues filed past his coffin, draped with an American flag.