Blue Lives Shouldn’t Matter

Policing only works if cops are willing to die.

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On May 3^rd, Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputies knocked on the door of Roger Fortson’s apartment in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. When he answered, the cops shot the 23-year-old dead. Fortson, an active duty airman, was holding a legal firearm, which he retrieved after hearing someone outside. To make matters worse, the attorney representing the Fortson family says the cops were at the wrong house. Fortson was a Black man, making him yet another casualty in the long list of legally-armed African Americans killed by the cops. While many questions about this shooting remain unanswered, the recently released body cam footage makes one thing clear: Roger Fortson is dead because the cops are cowards. 

Fortson’s family with his picture during a press conference.

The footage shows Fortson open the door and follow the deputy’s instruction to “step back.” When he does, the cop sees a handgun in his right hand. Despite neither pointing the gun at the officer nor doing anything remotely threatening, the cop opens fire. (You can watch the footage, here, but I must warn you. It’s censored, but it’s still traumatic.)

A still from the bodycam right before the shooting. You can see Forston’s gun is not pointed at the officer.

As soon as the footage was released, the choir of Blue Lives Matter talking heads defended the offending officer and blamed Fortson. Predictably, they all focused on the officer’s potential fear for his safety. “Officer Ben,” a cop/social media personality, put it plainly: “If the deputy hesitated, he could have been killed.” 

Through Officer Ben’s logic, because the officer “could have been killed,” he was justified in shooting Fortson to protect himself. This statement highlights what police critics such as myself have long suspected: The cops view themselves as more valuable than civilians. People like you, me, and Roger Fortson are expendable whenever a cop gets a bad feeling about us. This worldview, one in which cops believe they are of higher importance than non-cops, has soiled American policing far beyond the potential of reform.