On May 3, Roger Fortson, a 23-year-old Black man, went to answer a knock on the door of his apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. He was alone, on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend. Picking up a handgun he legally owned and holding it pointed at the floor, Fortson opened the door to an armed sheriff’s deputy. The pig just uttered two words, “step back,” and suddenly fired his weapon at Fortson. Roger Fortson died at the hospital from his wounds.
Roger Fortson, 23 years old, killed in his home by Fort Walton Beach, Florida cops
The sheriffs held back the pig’s body cam footage for a week, releasing it only after the family and their attorney held a press conference to condemn the killing and refute the police lies about what actually happened. The footage shows the deputy knock twice on the door, saying “Sheriff’s office, open the door,” and then move to the side so he can’t be seen through the peephole. Just a fraction of a second after Roger Fortson opens the door—again, with his gun clearly pointed down—the pig unloads six bullets into Fortson’s chest. Only after Roger crumples to the floor does the pig first shout “drop the gun.” Fortson can be heard saying, “It’s over there,” and “I don’t have it.” And then we hear, “I can't breathe, I can't breathe”—echoing the anguished words of Eric Garner in 2014... George Floyd in 2020... Frank Tyson in 2024... and too many more choked to death by the murdering police of this system.
Roger Fortson was an airman, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force. He had recently been injured while stationed in Kuwait. For millions of youths in this country, especially Black and Latino youth, this system of capitalism-imperialism has no future except hustling to survive in the streets, constantly in danger of being brutalized or murdered by police… or you can join the armed forces of that same oppressive system, which are brutalizing and killing people just like you around the world in service of the oppressors and exploiters that rule this system. As what happened to Roger Fortson shows, even if you go that second route, you can still have your life viciously stolen by the police under this system that is woven through with white supremacy.
The sheriff’s official statement claimed that their deputy was responding to a “call of a disturbance in progress” at the apartment complex and fired his gun “in self-defense.” In other words, Roger Fortson was the one to blame for his own fatal shooting! At the press conference, Roger’s mother, Chantemekki Fortson, clutched his picture and said, “To the sheriff’s department that took my gift… I need you guys to tell the truth about my son. I need you to get his reputation right.”
At a press conference, the family supports Chantemekki Fortson with a picture of her son, Roger Fortson, killed at his apartment by Florida cops, May 3, 2024. Photo: AP
In fact, there was no disturbance, no crime of any kind, at Roger Fortson’s apartment. The pig went to the wrong apartment, the family and their attorney maintain. The police body cam footage shows Fortson with a gun but not threatening anyone, as he opens the door. There is another video, from Roger’s FaceTime call with his girlfriend. She confirmed that Roger was in fact alone, talking with her, when he heard a knock on the door. He asked who was at the door but didn’t get a response. A few minutes later, he heard a louder knock but didn’t see anyone when he looked through the peephole, according to her account. She said he was concerned and retrieved his gun before opening the door—and getting shot. As Fortson is heard on the FaceTime video gasping, “I can’t breathe,” the murdering pig tells him, “Do not move. Stop movin’.”
To those who may raise, “Well, but he had a gun…,” a simple question: doesn’t the “highest law of the land,” the U.S. Constitution, include the Second Amendment and the supposed “right to bear arms”? But in fact, the “right to bear arms” has never really applied to Black people throughout the history of the USA. One of the defining marks of this so-called “land of the free” is the depraved, repeated violence against Black people—from slavery to decades of lynchings under Jim Crow to police acting as modern-day KKK today to terrorize and murder. The reality in this country, as revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) noted, is
that for white supremacists and fascists generally the Second Amendment, the “right to bear arms,” has been regularly upheld and given the backing of the law and the courts, and the support of the police and other institutions of the state; while for Black people, other oppressed people, and generally those opposing the oppression and injustice of this system, the “right to bear arms,” even in self-defense, has been actively opposed and suppressed.
To everyone outraged by yet another murder of a Black man by the pig enforcers of this system that rules over us… all who are asking, “How long must this nightmare go on?” Find out about and connect with the force that is building now for an actual revolution, in this time, that will bring an end to system that is the source of this and other horrors facing the people, and bring in a fundamentally different system and a whole new way to live. Get with the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity, and dig into and take up the revolutionary leadership of Bob Avakian.
Bob Avakian on the right to defend people under attack
All these attacks on people and their rights need to be powerfully opposed, and people on the good side of this need to be actively protected and defended, where they are assaulted with threats and even outright physical attacks.
There is the need to prevent the police from brutalizing and just coldly murdering people. Let us remember what was said by some people who witnessed, and even recorded, the slow-motion vicious execution of George Floyd: They agonized over whether they should have done more, should have acted to stop this blatant assassination of a defenseless Black man. Now, again, what I am pointing to is consistent with point 6 of the six Points of Attention for the Revolution—and, in what I am saying here, I am not calling for launching an attack on anyone. But there is no right for anyone, including police, to just murder someone—and there is a right and responsibility to defend and protect people from unjust attacks on their rights, and on their very lives.
Imagine if, in these different kinds of situations, there were a force of hardcore revolutionaries, including basic youth, whose presence in a disciplined and organized formation made clear that no unjust attacks on people would be tolerated. But this must not just be imagined—it must be developed as one important part of the overall process of preparing for, and building the organized forces for, revolution.
