Lawyer says Georgia officer hunted down black man

ATLANTA — A white Georgia police officer accused of shooting a fleeing black man stalked and hunted his victim like an animal, a lawyer for the man’s family said at a news conference Friday.

Attorney Malik Shabazz also said the manslaughter charge filed against Kingsland Police Officer Zechariah Presley is highly unusual in a police shooting — and he praised authorities for taking swift action.

“It is a rare occurrence in the United States of America where a police officer is charged with killing anyone, particularly an African-american man,” said Shabazz, who is president of Black Lawyers for Justice and is also representing the family of Anthony Green. “That shows how strong the evidence must be.”

The officer was “obviously stalking Mr. Green, hunting him down in a fashion that we believe is like an animal at this point,” Shabazz said.

Presley was charged after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reviewed his body camera recording and other evidence in Green’s death in the small town of Kingsland on Georgia’s coast.

The officer’s body camera video has not been made public.

“We definitely need to see it,” said Atlanta lawyer Reginald Greene, who is also representing the family. “These days, without the video, a lot of times what people tell you happened and what actually happened are not the same.”

BOISE, Idaho — An environmental group is challenging a massive removal of juniper trees, a project that federal officials say will protect habitat for imperiled sage grouse and benefit cattle ranchers in southwestern Idaho.

The Western Watersheds Project in an administrative appeal filed Thursday contends the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s project benefits mainly cattle and sheep grazing at the expense of sage grouse habitat that will be harmed by an influx of fire-prone invasive weeds.

“Sage grouse in Idaho are in trouble, but it’s not because of juniper, it’s because of decades of inappropriate livestock grazing,” said Scott Lake, Idaho director of the Western Watersheds Project.

The appeal filed targets the BLM’S scientific review and approval of the Bruneau-owyhee Sage-grouse Habitat Project released earlier this year.

The agency plans to remove junipers from about 1,100 square miles within a 2,600-square-mile area in Owyhee County over about 15 years.

Experts say warmer winters combined with fewer wildfires at higher elevations of sagebrush steppe have allowed junipers to expand into areas once filled with sagebrush and native grasses. Sage grouse survival is completely dependent on sagebrush.

The Western Watersheds Project contends that studies show western juniper, a native species, has expanded and retreated several times over thousands of years, and the BLM’S plan is driven by grazing interests, not concerns about sage grouse.

“BLM has a blind spot for the damage caused by livestock, and until it addresses that threat, sagegrouse will remain imperiled,” the group said.

BLM spokeswoman Venetia Gempler said the agency doesn’t comment about appeals on projects.

If the Western Watersheds Project doesn’t like the panel’s decision, the group could file a lawsuit in federal court.