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Ex-Florida sheriff’s deputy who killed U.S. airman Roger Fortson is charged with manslaughter
A Florida Panhandle sheriff’s deputy is facing a charge of manslaughter with a firearm in connection with the fatal shooting of an airman who opened his apartment door while holding a gun.
Former Okaloosa County deputy Eddie Duran was charged Thursday in the May 3 shooting death of Senior Airman Roger Fortson, Assistant State Attorney Greg Marcille said Thursday. That is a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
Marcille said a warrant has been issued for Duran’s arrest but he is not in custody at the moment.
Authorities say Duran had been directed to Fortson’s Fort Walton Beach apartment in response to a domestic disturbance report that turned out to be false. Body camera video showed the deputy knock on the door of Fortson’s apartment. The deputy initially knocks without announcing himself, but then about 30 seconds later, he knocks again, saying he’s with the sheriff’s office and for Fortson to open the door.
After repeated knocking, Fortson opened the door while holding his handgun at his side, pointed down. The deputy yelled for Fortson, 23, to step back. Video showed that within seconds of Fortson opening the door, the deputy shoots him, and he immediately falls to the ground.
Authorities say that Duran shot him multiple times; only then did he tell Fortson to drop the gun.
During the incident, Fortson was on a FaceTime call with his girlfriend. His attorney released that video which appears to show the ceiling of his apartment and the airman on the floor groaning “I can’t breathe.”
The airman’s family said in a statement that it was troubling that the deputy fired multiple times so quickly.
Less than three months later, Fortson’s 16-year-old brother was killed in an unrelated Atlanta shooting.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoes bill requiring speeding alerts in new cars
California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to beep at drivers if they exceed the speed limit in an effort to reduce traffic deaths.
California would have become the first to require such systems for all new cars, trucks and buses sold in the state starting in 2030. The bill would have mandated that vehicles beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph.
The European Union has passed similar legislation to encourage drivers to slow down. California’s proposal would have provided exceptions for emergency vehicles, motorcycles and motorized scooters.
In explaining his veto, Newsom said federal law already dictates vehicle safety standards and adding California-specific requirements would create a patchwork of regulations.
The National Highway Traffic Safety “is also actively evaluating intelligent speed assistance systems, and imposing state-level mandates at this time risks disrupting these ongoing federal assessments,” the Democratic governor said.
Opponents, including automotive groups and the state Chamber of Commerce, said such regulations should be decided by the federal government, which earlier this year established new requirements for automatic emergency braking to curb traffic deaths. Republican lawmakers also said the proposal could make cars more expensive and distract drivers.
The legislation would have likely impacted all new car sales in the U.S., since the California market is so large that car manufacturers would likely just make all of their vehicles comply.
California often throws that weight around to influence national and even international policy. The state has set its own emission standards for cars for decades, rules that more than a dozen other states have also adopted. And when California announced it would eventually ban the sale of new gas-powered cars, major automakers soon followed with their own announcement to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, called the veto disappointing and a setback for street safety.
“California should have led on this crisis as Wisconsin did in passing the first seatbelt mandate in 1961,” Wiener said in a statement. “Instead, this veto resigns Californians to a completely unnecessary risk of fatality.”
The speeding alert technology, known as intelligent speed assistance, uses GPS to compare a vehicle’s pace with a dataset of posted limits. If the car is at least 10 mph over, the system emits a single, brief, visual and audio alert.
The proposal would have required the state to maintain a list of posted speed limits, and it’s likely that those would not include local roads or recent changes in speed limits, resulting in conflicts.
The technology has been used in the U.S. and Europe for years. Starting in July, the European Union will require all new cars to have the technology, although drivers would be able to turn it off. At least 18 manufacturers including Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, have already offered some form of speed limiters on some models sold in America, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 10% of all car crashes reported to police in 2021 were related to speeding. This was especially a problem in California, where 35% of traffic fatalities were speeding-related — the second highest in the country, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.
Last year the NTSB recommended federal regulators require all new cars to alert drivers when they speed. Their recommendation came after a crash in January 2022, when a man with a history of speeding violations ran a red light at more than 100 mph and struck a minivan, killing himself and eight other people.