NO CHARGES FOR GA. TROOPERS IN SHOOTING
Georgia state troopers who shot and killed an environmental activist at the site of a planned police and firefighter training center near Atlanta will not be charged, a prosecutor announced Friday, saying he found that their use of deadly force was “objectively reasonable.”
Opponents of the center, who derisively refer to it as “Cop City,” had camped out at an 85-acre tract of forest that is being developed for the massive facility. It is there that Manuel Paez Terán, 26, was killed on Jan. 18.
Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George
Christian was appointed to review the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s file on the shooting. Along with the statement announcing his decision, Christian released a 31-page report detailing his analysis. He declined to release the underlying evidence, however, outraging Paez Terán’s family.
State troopers were part of what authorities described as an “enforcement operation” at the site when they encountered Paez Terán, who was known as Tortuguita. When the activist refused to come out of a tent, the troopers fired a pepper ball launcher and
Paez Terán responded by firing a handgun four times through the tent, hitting and seriously wounding a trooper, the release says. Six troopers fired back, killing Paez Terán.
Brian Spears, an attorney for the family, called Christian’s report “a rubber stamp of the GBI’s version of events without any critical analysis.”
The troopers who fired on Paez Terán were not wearing body cameras, and Paez Terán’s family and other activists have expressed skepticism from the start about law enforcement statements about the shooting.
Specifically, they’ve pointed to the results of an independent autopsy commissioned by the family that concluded Paez Terán was sitting cross-legged with hands in the air at the time of the shooting. Separately, the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office said the activist’s body had at least 57 gunshot wounds. The coroner also said gunpowder residue was “not seen” on Paez Terán’s hands, though investigators said forensic tests later “revealed the presence of particles characteristic of gunshot primer residue.”
Protesters have also singled out the comment of a responding officer who, seemingly reacting to the radio traffic, had said, “You (expletive) your own officer up.” The activists have said that it supports assertions that the trooper was shot by friendly fire.
Paez Terán’s killing was a galvanizing moment for the “Stop Cop City” movement, with activists across the world holding vigils in honor of Tortuguita. It also set off acts of vandalism, including the storming of the construction site in March, an event that led to dozens being charged with domestic terrorism.