Senior Airman Ayanna Dickerson embraces Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s mother after singing the national anthem during a memorial service at Hurlburt Field, Fla., May 20, 2024. (Alex Stephens/U.S. Air Force)

Senior Airman Collin Courtney stood in a packed Hurlburt Field aircraft hangar and told the audience his friend, fallen Senior Airman Roger Fortson, was made to be an AC-130 gunner.

Fortson was confident, caring and an exceptionally fast learner, Courtney said Monday at a memorial service at the Air Force base in Florida to honor the late airman who was killed in a May 3 police shooting at his off-post apartment.

While training to become a gunner on the AC-130J Ghostrider special operations gunship, Fortson once grabbed a fire extinguisher from the aircraft and handed it to his evaluator who was preparing to test him on a series of difficult questions about the aircraft’s various weapons systems, Courtney recalled. The evaluator stared at Fortson confused.

“Roger, without missing a beat, said, ‘You’re going to need this because I’m going to be on fire answering these questions today,’ “ Courtney told the gathering of his fellow member of the Air Force’s 4th Special Operations Squadron.

Hundreds of friends, family and airmen gather for Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s funeral service at Hurlburt Field, Fla., May 20, 2024. (Alex Stephens/U.S. Air Force)

Fortson, 23, was respected by those who served alongside him and those who trained him, according to Capt. Malcom Lee, an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship evaluator pilot with the 4th SOS.

Lee said the fallen special missions aviator scored the “highest evaluation” possible on his first AC-130 evaluation ride. He was a gifted athlete and student, Lee said.

“Roger can be summarized by the word exceptional,” he told the crowd at Hurlburt, which included hundreds of uniformed airmen, Fortson’s mother and father, and 14 other members of his family. “Everything about him was exceptional … and he was an exceptional special missions aviator.”

The Air Force service Monday came three days after Fortson’s funeral service at a church in Stonecrest, Ga., just east of his hometown of Atlanta. Fortson’s funeral, attended by hundreds, was described as a “sea of Air Force blue,” by Col. Patrick Dierig, who commands the Air Force’s 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field. Dierig credited Fortson’s family with producing a “great person” who would become a “great air commando and a great aviator.”

“If you want to be a great airman, be a great person first,” Dierig said. “And Senior Airman Fortson did just that.”

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David Flossi and Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, Air Force Special Operations commander, salute during the playing of the national anthem at Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s memorial service at Hurlburt Field, Fla., May 20, 2024. (Alex Stephens/U.S. Air Force)

Fortson’s family was presented the Air and Space Commendation Medal, posthumously awarded to the late airman for meritorious service while serving with the 4th SOS.

The Monday ceremony was the latest example of the Air Force and its special operations community standing up for Fortson, whose killing is being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Fortson’s family and lawyers representing them have described the shooting by an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy as unwarranted. The police officer who shot Fortson has not been identified yet.

A pastor who led Fortson’s funeral went further — describing the killing as murder of a Black man by a law enforcement officer.

“We’ve got to call it as it is — Roger died of murder,” the Rev. Jamal Bryant said during the funeral. “He died of stone-cold murder. And somebody has got to be held accountable.

“Roger was better to America than America was to Roger.”

Hundreds of friends, family and airmen gather for Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s funeral service at Hurlburt Field, Fla., May 20, 2024. Senior Airman Fortson was 23 years old when he was shot and killed in an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department deputy-involved shooting on May 3, 2024, at his off-base apartment. (Alex Stephens/U.S. Air Force)

Body camera footage of Fortson’s shooting released by the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department shows the airman answered his Fort Walton Beach apartment door holding his legally owned handgun pointed down. The deputy shouted, “Step back,” and immediately fired six rounds into Fortson the moment the door opened, the footage showed.

Only after firing those rounds did the deputy order Fortson to “drop the gun,” the video showed.

An attorney for Fortson’s family, Donald Crump, has said the deputy went to the wrong apartment to investigate a possible domestic disturbance before shooting Fortson. Crump told reporters earlier this month that Fortson was home alone when he was shot. He had been speaking with his girlfriend on the phone when he heard someone outside his apartment and grabbed his gun just before the shooting, Crump said.

Officials for the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Department have said the deputy shot Fortson in self-defense. The deputy has been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is probed by state law enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office, officials said.

Air Force Senior Airman Collin Courtney, a special missions aviator with the 73rd Special Operations Squadron, shares memories of Senior Airman Roger Fortson during a memorial service at Hurlburt Field, Fla., May 20, 2024. (Alex Stephens/U.S. Air Force)