May 14, 2024

Senior Airman Roger Fortson was shot and killed by police.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from BlackMansStreet.Today

(TriceEdneyWire.com/BlackMansStreet.Today) - An attorney for the family of a Florida special operations airman who was shot and killed in his home by a local
police officer said Wednesday that officers responding to a reported disturbance may have entered the wrong apartment.

Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field, was alone in his Fort Walton Beach, Florida, apartment on May 3 when police burst through the door and fatally shot him six times, according to Ben Crump, an attorney representing Fortson's family.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office was responding to a reported disturbance between a man and woman in the apartment building, and a responding deputy shot Fortson, who was Black, multiple times in the chest, according to police radio communications.

"The circumstances surrounding Roger's death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment," Crump said. "The narrative released by law enforcement, which falsely suggests that Roger posed a threat, is deeply troubling and inconsistent with the details provided by that witness: Roger was home alone, causing no disturbance, when his life was tragically cut short by law enforcement."

The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the attorney's claims.

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz issued a statement on Friday about the fatal shooting of an airman killed by an Okaloosa deputy. 

“The killing of Airman Roger Fortson in my community continues to be a source of deep sadness. As the investigation continues, I think one thing is clear from the body cam and should be stated unequivocally: Roger did not deserve to die. He did nothing wrong," Gaetz said.

Fortson lived in an off-base residence, and his special operations squadron at Hurlburt Field in the Florida panhandle flies AC-130J Ghostrider gunships.

Crump said there was no disturbance and that Fortson was home alone on a video call with another person, who reported the airman heard a knock on the door.

Fortson, according to the witness, asked, "Who is it?" But he didn't receive an answer. After a subsequent "aggressive" second knock and seeing no one through the peephole, Fortson grabbed his legally owned gun, Crump detailed.

As Fortson was walking back to his living room, police entered the apartment and shot him. He reportedly said, "I can't breathe" while on the ground after being shot, Crump said, repeating a witness account of the event.

Military.com reviewed publicly available police radio audio that reported a call for a disturbance at an apartment complex at 319 Racetrack Road around 4:30 p.m. local time.

"We don't have anything beyond a male and female; it's all fourth-party information from the front desk at the leasing office," a deputy said on the radio.

A few minutes later, another deputy called in to report "shots fired, suspect down" and called for emergency medical services.

"Multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, Black male," another deputy chimes in shortly after. Fortson was shot six times, Crump said in his statement.

No other details, including the circumstances of the disturbance that prompted the local deputies to visit the apartment building, were released. Fortson was taken to an area hospital, where he later died. No officers were harmed in the incident.

Fortson joined the Air Force on Nov. 19, 2019, according to a copy of his service record provided to Military.com. He joined as an AC-130J gunner. Crump added that Fortson graduated from high school with honors and had no criminal record.

The deputy involved was not identified in the news release and was "placed on paid administrative leave" pending the outcome of an investigation and administrative review, the sheriff's office said.

"I immediately placed the deputy on administrative leave and have asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct the investigation required in such incidents," Sheriff Eric Aden said.

The State Attorney's Office will also conduct an independent review. At this time, we humbly ask for our community's patience as we work to understand the facts that resulted in this tragic event."

The sheriff's office declined to provide Military.com with the original 911 call and the police report on the incident, citing "the ongoing active investigation" in an emailed response.

May 5. 2024

(TriceEdneyWire.com - As the November general election nears, many economic analysts have publicly pondered why so many likely voters are not impressed with reports that point to more hiring, or economic growth. But if these experts spoke with hard-working Americans, they’d understand why so many are disgruntled.

A wealth of new research spells out stark wealth and income disparities that reflect a far different economic dynamic: people who work full-time, but find it difficult  to get ahead financially. Race and ethnicity remain nagging factors. But emerging gender and occupational trends play a large role as well.

A late March update of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's ongoing research on wealth inequalitiesoffers several eye-opening data points:  

• Overall, women had only 68 cents in wealth for every dollar held by their male peers;

•  When data was filtered by race/ethnicity, never-married Black women and never-married Hispanic women had 8 cents and 14 cents, respectively, of the wealth of white males; 

•  Never-married Black women, never-married Hispanic women and never-married mothers of any race or ethnicity were the most financially stressed. They had very low levels of wealth to fall back on in an emergency, or to invest in financial stability and mobility; and 

•  Each of the never-married groups is in the bottom third of the wealth distribution for U.S. households. 

But low racial and gender wealth is inextricably tied to income.

An Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) report highlighted the inequities in full-time workers’ pay.

“Equal pay for equal work has been the law of the land for more than a half-century, yet women still cannot get fair treatment when it comes to employment and earnings,” noted Jamila K. Taylor, IWPR President and CEO. “And it’s worse for women of color, who face rampant racial discrimination in the workforce in addition to ongoing pay inequities.”

The report, The 2023 Weekly Wage Gap by Race, Ethnicity and Occupation, explores how these three factors are intertwined. In 2023 overall, according to IWPR, the wage gap for full-time workers by gender improved, but when race and ethnicity were factored into the analysis, a substantial wage gap grew.

The median income of white men in 2023 increased more than all other groups, but IWPR found substantial wage gaps for Latinas and Black women. Weekly median wages for Black women dropped to 65.8 percent in 2023, down from the previous year’s 67.4 percent. Similarly, Latina wages fell from 2022’s 61.4 percent to 59.2 percent in 2023.  

The highest paying occupations – management, business, and finance positions – brought white men a median weekly income of $1,905, according to IWPR. But these same occupations paid  Black men $1,488, and Black women earned even less at $1,287 per week.

By comparison, service occupations – paying less than other occupations such as sales, construction, and transportation – paid median full-time weekly wages of $917 to white men, and $749 to Black men. Black women and Latinas earned even less in these occupations, with Black women taking home median weekly wages of $654, and Latinas earning $646.

Even compared to workers of the same race or ethnicity women continued to earn less as full-time workers. For every dollar a Black man earned Black women earned 91.6 cents. Latinas earned even less, earning 87.4 cents for every dollar earned by a Latino man. 

“Tackling profound gender and racial wage gaps requires a variety of policies,” states the IWPR report. “These include addressing discrimination in all aspects of employment and tackling occupational segregation and its consequences, both by improving women’s access to and retention in well-paid jobs predominantly held by men and by improving earnings and job quality in undervalued jobs predominantly held by women.”

A report from the Urban Institute, How Policymakers Can Close the Wealth Gap for Black Women asserts that any serious proposals to eliminate lingering and widespread barriers to wealth building must address the monthly costs that deny the ability to save money:  lower women’s wages, child care costs, student loan payments, and unaffordable health care.

“Policies that help Black women afford rent, child care, education, and food would allow them to pursue higher-paying employment opportunities and increase their ability to afford basic expenses, save, and invest in assets,” states the Urban Institute report.

To remedy these historic inequities, the Urban Institute calls for policymakers to:

• Make college more affordable;
• Ensure pay equity and support for women entrepreneurs;
• Expand access to caregiving services and affordable health care; and
• Make mortgages more accessible.

Charlene Crowell is a senior fellow with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

Virginia Legislature Confirms Life-Saving Budget Decisions This Week

April 29, 2024

A large percentage of homeless people are Black men.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from BlackMansStreet.Today

(TriceEdneyWire.com/BlackMansStreet.Today) - The U.S. Supreme Court is taking on the issue of homelessness, which affects large numbers of Black people nationwide because, as a group, we comprise the nation’s largest homeless population. 

On Monday, the court argued whether local officials could ban homeless men and women from sleeping in the city’s public parks by charging them a fee. The city of Grants Pass, Oregon, charges its homeless residents $295 per night for sleeping outside.

But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in San Francisco, enjoined Grants Pass from barring the town's officials from charging men and women who sleep in the parks.

A brief, filed on April 3, argues that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment does not allow cities to issue fines or to arrest people for sleeping outside in public when they lack adequate shelter and the means to obtain it. 

The center of the storm is Grants Pass, Oregon, a town of nearly 40,000 with an estimated homeless population of almost 600. A footnote is that Grants Pass is or was a sundown town where Blacks were prohibited from living like most Oregon cities in the past.

Today, Grants Pass is 0.8% African American, which is 0.3% of Oregon's Black population, according to the Oregon Remembrance Project.

Hundreds of people were outside the Supreme Court Building holding signs that said, “Homelessness is Not a Crime.”

The case is titled “Grants Pass v. Johnson.”   If the Supreme Court reverses the lower court's decision, it is expected to have far-reaching consequences for the United States' homelessness policy.

Homelessness is a growing problem, especially among Black men who have been largely excluded from any economic recovery.

More than 650,000 Americans were homeless during the 2023 Point-in-Time count, which counts the number of homeless people in the U.S.

The Point-in-Time (PIT) count is an annual assessment of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness at a given moment. Each year, data compiled during the PIT count are analyzed to help inform areas of need and allocate resources for housing and services.

Among Black men and women, it’s hard to turn your back on the homeless. You see them everywhere. My wife keeps money in her pocket to give to the homeless on a daily basis.

Nearly 4 in 10 people experiencing homelessness identified as Black, African American, or African, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently Point-Time-Count.

People who identify as Black make up just 13 percent of the total U.S. population but comprise 37 percent of all people experiencing homelessness. 

In Chicago, where I live, unemployed Black men are sleeping in Chicago Transit Authority railcars because they have nowhere to live. Unhoused men also sleep under viaducts. 

I live across from a Whole Foods store. A man younger than me asked if I would buy him a meal. I did, but it was a point of pride for him to claim he wasn’t homeless. The cashier, familiar with the man, thanked me for buying him food.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass is dedicated to reducing homelessness. 

Bass, when she was campaigning for mayor, said that more than 40,000 Los Angeles residents go to sleep every night without a roof over their heads, and nearly four unhoused Angelenos die every day. Mayor Bass recently declared a state of emergency over the homeless crisis.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked what would happen if Grants Pass’s ban were allowed to stand and other cities adopted similar laws.

 Sotomayor asked, “Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleep?”