ATLANTA – The end of a family trip to the nation’s Capitol took a terrifying turn on August 4 when Lauren Benton and her family showed up for their Delta Air Lines flight at Washington Dulles International Airport, that is when she says a man got too close for comfort. 

“I would go so far as to say stalking us,” she said. 

Benton said they noticed the man after going through security. She says he followed the family of four to a seating area and at one point joined Benton and one of her young daughters in the women’s restroom. 

“My heart was racing, and my immediate attention was drawn to my children,” Benton said. “Where are they? And I need to keep them close to me now.” 

Eventually, they went to board their Delta flight home to Atlanta, but that is when the situation got worse. The man followed them onto the flight and sat right next to them. 

“I was just questioning his intentions the entire time and I know that child trafficking is absolutely a growing problem here in the United States and so that was the first thing that came to mind,” Benton said. 

She says she reported him to a flight attendant, and eventually he was removed because he should not have been on board. Officials confirmed the passenger had a ticket, just not on that Delta flight. 

Airport officials say the passenger was not charged. 

The airline tells FOX 5 it is investigating. In a statement it said, “Delta has processes in place for gate agents and flight crews to verify that individuals onboard aircraft prior to departure are customers that are booked on that particular flight. Delta is reviewing the matter in question internally and has been in touch with airport authorities in conjunction with this review.” 

“I was shocked and felt nauseous, I could not believe the magnitude of the safety breach,” Benton said. 

Benton says her sense of safety at the airport was shattered. She hopes others take note of this situation. 

“If your gut is giving you the sense that something is off and wrong, don’t be afraid to speak up,” she said. 

Benton says her young daughters are scared after this. She says she is frustrated with the lack of response here and says Delta needs to do more. 

This story is being reported out of Atlanta

More than three months after a U.S. Air Force airman from metro Atlanta was gunned down by a Florida sheriff’s deputy, his family and their lawyer are demanding that prosecutors decide whether to bring charges against the former lawman.

At a Friday news conference, civil rights attorney Ben Crump questioned why the investigation has taken so long, noting that the shooting of Senior Airman Roger Fortson was captured on the deputy’s body camera video.

He said that “for Black people in America, when they delay, delay, delay, that tells us they’re trying to sweep it under the rug.”

“It’s on video y’all,” Crump added. “It ain’t no mystery what happened.”

Fortson, 23, was killed on May 3 by Okaloosa County sheriff’s Deputy Eddie Duran in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The airman answered the door to his apartment while holding a handgun pointed toward the floor and was killed within seconds, body camera video showed.

Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden fired Duran, saying his life was never in danger and that he should not have fired his weapon.

A sheriff’s office internal affairs investigation found that Fortson “did not make any hostile, attacking movements, and therefore, the former deputy’s use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable.”

On Friday, Crump said his team has been told that authorities will make a decision on charges on Aug. 23.

“Mark your calendars, brothers and sisters, mark your calendars,” Crump told supporters gathered for the news conference in a church sanctuary in Fort Walton Beach.

The Aug. 23 date came from a top official in the state attorney’s office, Crump said. Neither State Attorney Ginger Bowden Madden, who oversees the area, or her staff responded to requests for comment on Friday.

Fortson was stationed at the Air Force’s Hurlburt Field in the Florida Panhandle. At his funeral outside Atlanta in May, hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues filed past his coffin, draped with an American flag.

Now, Crump and the family want the former deputy to face charges.

“To the state’s attorney, you got everything you need,” Crump said. “The only question is, are you going to do it?”

A key swing county in suburban Atlanta approved nearly $50,000 this week to purchase “panic buttons” for election workers, a move that comes as those who administer elections have faced increased threats and harassments.

Commissioners in Cobb county approved the purchase of about 200 of the devices, which are about the size of a credit card, according to NBC News, which first reported on the purchase.

The devices alert authorities to someone’s location by pairing with a user’s smartphone. The commission also approved more than $14,000 to hire a security guard for the election office as part of a $2.43m budget for election contingencies.

“With the severe increase in concern for election worker safety, we’re requesting funds for a security guard for our office, as well as panic buttons for Poll Managers,” Tate Fall, the Cobb county election director wrote in a memo accompanying the request.

Ever since Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election, local election officials have faced an increase in scrutiny. Election skeptics have bombarded their offices with public records requests and verbally attacked them at public meetings.

Turnover in election offices has been increasing for years, and has reached its highest point in decades, according to a survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center from earlier this year. More than half of election officials surveyed by the Brennan Center for Justice this year said they were concerned about the safety of colleagues and staff.

Earlier this year, Georgia became the first state to require police officers in the state to learn election law as part of their state certification.

An election services company and a security company that have partnered to sell the devices have seen wide interest in them, according to NBC News. They are in discussions to sell at least 1,500 in five states, NBC reported.

“We thought maybe 10 or 20 counties would show interest, and it’s been every county or state that we’ve talked to has shown interest in this,” Jeff Ellington, the chief executive of Runbeck Election Services, which is selling the buttons, told NBC.