Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said Fortson had not known it was sheriff's deputies who were breaking into his apartment – his castle – and that he grabbed his legally owned firearm to protect himself.
Crump said deputies responding to a disturbance call burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot Fortson when they saw he had a gun. He said Fortson had grabbed his gun because he heard someone outside his apartment, got no response when he asked who was there and discovered the peephole on his door was blocked.
Crump, a noted civil rights attorney, called the shooting an unjustifiable killing and said the sheriff's office needed to own up to it instead of creating a counter-narrative that deputies were acting in self-defense.
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