Pain is the only thing driving Chantemekki Fortson these days.
Two months after her son was fatally shot standing in his own doorway, she is consumed by that ache as what she believed was an open-and-shut murder case languishes without charges.
“It’s no strength, nowhere,” she said. “It’s pain. To make sure that my baby is recognized and honored and his reputation is not damaged.”
An Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy killed Roger Fortson, 23, a senior airman, on May 3 in an act the sheriff said “should have never occurred.” The deputy, Eddie Duran, was fired nearly a month later. But he has yet to face charges, leaving Fortson’s parents to spend their days working and wishing for justice they worry might not come.
Chantemekki Fortson has traveled from her home in Stonecrest, Georgia, to the Florida city where her son was stationed at least three times to attend news conferences and community events to keep his memory alive.
She’s now determined to see national legislation passed to end qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that often protects members of law enforcement from civil lawsuits.
“That would give me an ounce of hope that nobody else would have to stand in my shoes,” she said.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is conducting a criminal investigation, said Tuesday its investigation is active. The agency did not provide any additional details about the investigation’s status.
That the investigation is ongoing brings little comfort, however.
“If I had killed the police, I believe they would have me already going to trial and everything by now,” Roger Wilburn said in an interview Monday evening, his first since his son was killed. “I just don’t understand why it’s taking so long.”
Roger Fortson was home alone with his small dog and on a video call with his girlfriend when Duran knocked on his door while he was responding to a domestic violence call. Fortson answered his door holding a handgun pointed to the ground. Duran shot him multiple times within seconds and without giving any command to Fortson to disarm himself, body camera video shows.
Fortson’s family and their attorneys insist that Duran went to the wrong apartment based on directions from a woman he encountered upon arriving at the scene.
There is no evidence Fortson was involved in the disturbance that led the deputy to the complex. Deputies had never been called to his apartment before, records of 911 dispatch calls show. Those records did show that deputies had been called to another fourth-floor apartment nine times in the year leading up to Roger Fortson’s killing.
“This tragic incident should have never occurred,” Sheriff Eric Aden said May 31, at the conclusion of an internal affairs investigation into the shooting. Aden said that Fortson “did not commit any crime” and that Duran’s use of force was unreasonable.
“By all accounts, he was an exceptional airman and individual,” Aden said, something Fortson’s parents said they’d long known.
Chantemekki Fortson, 50, said she has sought therapy, sometimes multiple times a week, since her son was killed.
“I have to do therapy because I’ve detached myself from my other kids,” she said. “I’ve done therapy because I’m trying to get my bond back with my kids.”
“Right now, I feel like I’m unworthy of love,” she added.
Her sleep is constantly interrupted by images of her son’s last moments, she said.
“There is no justice that can be rendered for the loss of my baby,” she said. “That void would never, ever be filled.”
Wilburn, 55, said he hopes the length of the criminal investigation signals the state’s attorney’s office will take his son’s killer to trial.
“That’s what I’m praying for,” said Wilburn, who lives in California — that if Duran is charged, “it won’t be hard to try to prove it.”
Wilburn last spoke to his son on April 15, his 23rd birthday. Fortson had visited him in California about a week before that. He recalled their having “a good conversation” about the next chapter of his son’s promising life, a chapter Wilburn said is now closed. Wilburn was somber as he reflected on the milestones he had been robbed of: He’ll never be able to straighten his son’s bow tie before he walks down the aisle or share in his excitement in becoming a parent.
“That was my first-born son,” he said, remembering the joy he felt when Roger Fortson was born. “So it’s really, really affected me. Our bond was getting stronger, and he just took all that away from me.”