Just two months after Senior Airman Roger Fortson was killed by a Florida deputy, his 16-year-old younger brother was found fatally shot in at an apartment complex in Atlanta.
Andre Fortson was an innocent bystander on Tuesday and left bleeding in a breezeway at the Summit Hill Apartments on Bouldercrest Road, according to what neighbors told local news outlets. Police were called to the scene around 9:45 p.m. One neighbor told Action News that they heard people say “Andre, stay with us.”
“The Fortson family is battling the loss of yet another young member of their family. This has been an incredibly challenging time for them with the loss of Roger,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump told Newsweek. “Losing the life of yet another young family member – a mere child – has been an absolute devastation.”
Roger Fortson, 23, was fatally shot six times on May 3 by a Florida sheriff’s deputy who allegedly responded to the wrong apartment for a disturbance call. Okaloosa Sheriff’s officials dispute this claim and provided a different narrative of how the shooting unfolded.
Jaqueia, a neighbor to the Forstons, said she tried to do CPR but couldn’t save him. Andre Fortson was pronounced dead on the scene.
Newsweek reached out to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office but did not hear back immediately for comment.
Ode Fortson posted to Facebook about her cousin.
“GOD Please!!! Don’t tell me this is real. My little cousin 😭😭 Andre please come back,” she posted. “I can not take this. We just laid your brother to rest 2 months ago. Please give Roger Fortson a hug for me. I will love you forever and miss you a lifetime.”
Action News reported one of the shooters was identified as Quintavious Zellner, 20.
Zellner was arrested on July 31 by the DeKalb County Police Department for aggravated assault, according to inmate searches. There is currently no photo of Zellner in the database.
What happened to Roger Fortson?
A deputy responding to a disturbance call “reacted in self-defense after he encountered a 23-year-old man armed with a gun,” the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Fortson, who was originally from Atlanta, was at his off-base apartment on Racetrack Road when the shooting happened around 4:30 p.m. Fortson was taken to the hospital, where he died.
In bodycam video, the deputy is seen in the apartment complex on Racetrack Road asking, “What’s going on.”
He asked if a “fight is going on or something.” He meets with a woman who said fighting happens “frequently but this time it was sounding like it was getting out of hand.”
When the officer asked what door, the woman said, “I’m not sure.” She later says apartment 1401 – which was Fortson’s apartment number.
Crump played the police radio audio for the audience at a press conference. The dispatch officer was not able to provide information beyond that the incident involved a male and female.
“They said it was a domestic dispute between a male and a female, so they had to have had the wrong apartment,” Crump said at Fortson’s funeral. “If he can’t be safe in his own home, where can he be safe then?”
Sheriff’s records show another unit in the apartment complex, 1412, has had repeated domestic calls, several welfare checks and an EMS call for a “hemorrhage,” as reported by the Miami Herald. Deputies were called to the 1412 apartment 10 times since August 2023.
Okaloosa Sheriff Eric Aden called Crump’s claims that the deputy entered the wrong apartment false.
“We will never let them stain the reputation of Roger Fortson, not today, not tomorrow, not forever,” Crump said Friday. “We will remember him as the true American patriot that he was.”
While the officer was entering Fortson’s apartment complex, Fortson was on Facetime with his girlfriend and alone. Fortson had grabbed his gun, which he legally owned, when he heard banging at his door.
After a barrage of bullets, Fortson hits the ground and was eventually taken to a local hospital, where he died.
Fortson’s dog, Chloe, was with Fortson in his apartment and witnessed the shooting.
Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Fla., according to the Air Force. He entered active duty on Nov. 19, 2019.
He was a combat veteran, taking part in a special operations mission in Syria. Fortson was awarded the Air Medal with a Combat Device in 2023.
“Roger was light,” Crump said. “There would not be a stain on his name. He would not be put to rest in darkness because he was a bright light.”
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