Hundreds of friends, family and airmen gathered for Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s funeral service at Hurlburt Field, Fla., on May 20, 2024. Fortson was 23 years old when he was shot and killed by an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office deputy on May 3, 2024, at his off-base apartment. (Alex Stephens/U.S. Air Force)

The Florida sheriff’s deputy who fatally shot an Air Force senior airman at his off-base apartment has been fired after an internal investigation found the shooting was “not objectively reasonable,” the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said.

The deputy, Eddie Duran, was fired Friday by Sheriff Eric Aden after a weekslong internal affairs probe of the May 3 shooting that killed Senior Airman Roger Fortson, a 23-year-old AC-130 gunship gunner from Atlanta. Duran, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, first joined the Okaloosa Sheriff’s Office in 2019 and left in 2021 before returning in June 2023, according to police records.

“This tragic incident should have never occurred,” Aden said in a statement after dismissing Duran. “The objective facts do not support the use of deadly force as an appropriate response to Mr. Fortson’s actions. Mr. Fortson did not commit any crime. By all accounts, he was an exceptional airman and individual.”

Fortson’s death made headlines across the nation after the sheriff’s office released footage from Duran’s body camera showing the deputy shooting Fortson, who was Black, at least five times within seconds of the airman answering his Fort Walton Beach apartment door with a firearm pointed at the ground. The airman has been honored by the Air Force since his death as a respected special operator and high achiever.

Duran has served in law enforcement in the military and as a civilian since about 2007, according to his police records.

He served in the Army from 2003 to 2014, including a 2008 deployment to Iraq as a military police officer, according to his records. He was honorably discharged and began his civilian law enforcement career in 2015 in Oklahoma.

In the 29-page internal affairs investigation released Friday, Capt. Roger Wagner of the Okaloosa Sheriff’s professional standards office, found Fortson’s actions did not merit the use of deadly force and Fortson had not “made hostile, attacking movements” toward Duran. The fired deputy said he believed he would be killed if he did not shoot first.

Duran was responding to a domestic disturbance call at the complex where Fortson lived at the time of the shooting. In an interview with Wagner detailed in the report, Duran said he knew he should quickly respond to the domestic disturbance because he believed the situation could become violent.

But Duran said he heard no signs of a disturbance when he was directed to Fortson’s apartment door by a leasing office employee. The deputy knocked on the door two times, stepping away from the peep hole both times, before announcing he was with the sheriff’s office and knocking a third time. Duran told Wagner that he believed he heard someone inside the apartment say, “Something to the effect of, ‘it’s the … police,’” before Fortson answered the door.

Duran shouted for Fortson to “step back” as the airman answered the door with his pistol at his side pointed down. The internal investigation found Duran began firing into Fortson’s torso in less than two seconds, instructing Fortson to drop his gun only after he had been repeatedly shot.

Duran said he believed Fortson was acting aggressively when he took a small step forward as he opened the door and his weapon was held in a position with his elbow bent just enough that it could have been quickly fired at Duran.

“When I saw his eyes, I saw aggression,” Duran told Wagner. He added later, “Based on everything that I had taken into account, I felt 100% that action was going to be my best course as opposed to reaction … I immediately felt that I was at a disadvantage considering he had his gun readily available for use, and mine was still holstered. So, at that point action was going to be better than reaction to prevent any kind of great bodily harm or death to myself.”

A witness to the shooting, who was on a video call with Fortson before and during the incident, told Wagner that Fortson did not know who was at his door and did not hear the deputy announce he was law enforcement. The name of the witness — along with other witnesses interviewed in the investigation — was redacted in the report. Family members have said Fortson was on the phone with his girlfriend at the time of the shooting.

Fortson’s girlfriend told Wagner that there was no argument or disturbance between her or anyone else at Fortson’s apartment before the shooting. She said the airman was playing video games and chatting with her when he heard the first two knocks, checked the peep hole, and did not see anyone outside his door.

She said the next knocks became aggressive, prompting Fortson to grab his gun from the bedroom because he didn’t know who it was.

She said Fortson never mentioned police before he answered his door. She said he shouted, “Who …. is it, really loud,” before opening the door.

Members of Fortson’s family and their attorneys have claimed Duran was sent to the wrong apartment before the shooting. Wagner’s investigation, which included interviews of at least one other resident and apartment front officer workers, did not indicate Duran should have been sent to a different apartment.

A neighbor, who also serves in the Air Force but did not know Fortson, said she had previously heard several disturbances between a man and a woman from Fortson’s apartment, and she had heard him yelling the day of the shooting. Fortson’s girlfriend denied Fortson had been yelling, telling Wagner she had been on the phone with him for a while and no arguments had occurred.

Lawyers and others close to Fortson have called for the deputy — Duran — to be charged with murder for the airman’s killing.

A criminal investigation into Fortson’s shooting led by state law enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office are ongoing, officials said Friday.