No charges will be filed against any of the Georgia State Troopers involved in the January shooting of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran.
As ABC News reported, Teran, a 26-year-old Indigenous queer and non-binary environmental activist and community organizer, was killed during a raid on a campsite which was occupied by environmental activists protesting the “Cop City” complex planned for the city of Atlanta. Teran’s autopsy report indicates that the officers had no gunpowder residue on their hands. Officials have alleged that Teran fired the first shot and officers then returned fire.
Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George R. Christian released a statement on Oct. 6 detailing the results of his investigation.
““The Georgia State Patrol’s use of lethal (deadly) force was objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case,” Christian wrote. “No criminal charges will be filed against the Georgia State Patrol troopers involved in the shooting of Manuel Perez Teran.”
According to the autopsy report, Teran (who used the pronouns they/them) had 57 gunshot wounds to his body, including his arms, legs, chest and head. Teran’s family also had an autopsy performed, which revealed that Teran’s hands were up when they were shot, to which the official autopsy conducted by the state responded: “There are too many variables regarding the movement of the deceased and the shooters .” to draw final conclusions about Mr. Teran’s posture.”
Teran’s death has been officially ruled a murder, but the refusal to charge the officers means that none of them will be held responsible for the murder.
In September, activists who continued the work of Teran’s “Cop City” protest in a forest outside Atlanta were hit with RICO charges by the state. Accordingly The interception, The Start date of their alleged extortion conspiracy is listed as the date George Floyd was executed by the Minneapolis Police Department. The date was May 25, 2020 and this date reportedly predates the announcement of plans for Cop City.
Mary Hooks, an Atlanta organizer and activist affiliated with the Movement for Black Lives, told the media, “As we see in the indictment, the act of helping each other, the act of solidarity, is viewed as a threat.”
Hooks continued, “But these things are exactly what we need for our security and what we need in the face of rising fascism.”
The ACLU condemned the use of RICO charges against the protesters. Aamra Ahmad, the group’s lead attorney for its National Security Project, said: “We are extremely concerned about this breathtakingly broad and unprecedented use of state terrorism, extortion and money laundering laws against protesters.”
Ahmad added: “Georgian law enforcement agencies are disproportionately using these overly broad laws to stigmatize and target those who disagree with the government.”
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