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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/21/protester-killed-georgia-cop-city-police-shooting">theguardian.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">‘Assassinated in cold blood’: activist killed protesting Georgia’s ‘Cop City’</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Timothy Pratt - January 21, 2023<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div id="gmail-maincontent"><img src="cid:ii_ld6kbq7y1" alt="image.png" width="392" height="235"><br><span><span>B</span></span><span>elkis
Terán spoke with her child, Manuel, nearly every day by WhatsApp from
her home in Panama City, Panama. She also had names and numbers for some
of Manuel’s friends, in case she didn’t hear from the 26-year-old who
was protesting “Cop City”, a planned gigantic training facility being
built in a wooded area near Atlanta, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/state-of-georgia">Georgia</a>.</span><p>So
by midweek, when she hadn’t received a message from Atlanta since
Monday, she began to worry. Thursday around noon, a friend of Manuel’s –
whose chosen name was “Tortuguita,” or “Little Turtle” – messaged her
with condolences. “I’m so sorry,” they wrote. “For what?” she asked.</p><p>Terán
wound up discovering that on Wednesday around 9.04am, an as-yet unnamed
officer or officers had shot and killed her son. The shooting occurred
in an operation involving dozens of officers from Atlanta police, Dekalb
county police, Georgia state patrol, the Georgia bureau of
investigation and the FBI.</p><p>The killing has stunned and shocked not
only Tortuguita’s family and friends, but also the environmental and
social justice movement in Georgia and across the United States.
Circumstances surrounding the incident are still unclear and there are
demands for a thorough investigation into the killing and how it could
have happened.</p><p>The police apparently found Manuel in a tent in the
South River forest south-east of Atlanta, taking part in a protest now
in its second year, against plans to build a $90m police and fire
department training facility on the land and, separately, a film studio.</p><p>Officials <a href="https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2023-01-19/gbi-investigates-officer-involved-shooting-following-multi-agency">say</a>
Manuel shot first at a state trooper “without warning” and an officer
or officers returned fire, but they have produced no evidence for the
claim. The trooper was described as stable and in hospital Thursday.</p><p>The shooting is “unprecedented” in the history of US environmental activism, according to experts.</p><p>The
GBI, which operates under Republican governor Brian Kemp’s orders, has
released scant information and on Thursday night told the Guardian no
body-cam footage of the shooting exists. At least a half-dozen other
protesters who were in the forest at the time have communicated to other
activists that one, single series of shots could be heard. They believe
the state trooper could have been shot by another officer, or by his
own firearm.</p><p>Meanwhile, both Terán and local activists are looking
into legal action, and Manuel’s mother told the Guardian: “I will go to
the US to defend Manuel’s memory … I’m convinced that he was
assassinated in cold blood.”</p><p>The incident was the latest in a ramping-up of law enforcement raids on the forest in recent months.</p><p>Protests
had begun in late 2021, after the then Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance
Bottoms, announced plans for the training center. The forest had been
named in <a href="https://online.flowpaper.com/72b006f2/ACDSecondPrintFINAL180820/#page=342">city plans</a>
four years earlier as a key part of efforts to maintain Atlanta’s
renowned tree canopy as a buffer against global warming, and to create
what would have been the metro area’s largest park.</p><p>Most of the
residents in neighborhoods around the forest are Black and municipal
planning has neglected the area for decades. The plans to preserve the
forest and make it a historic public amenity were adopted in 2017 as
part of Atlanta’s city charter, or constitution. But the Atlanta city
council wound up approving the training center anyway, and a movement to
“Stop Cop City” began in response.</p><p>A series of editorials and
news stories lambasting the activists began in the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, the area’s largest daily paper. At least a dozen
articles in the last year-plus failed to mention that Alex Taylor, CEO
of the paper’s owner, Cox Enterprises, was also raising funds on behalf
of the Atlanta police foundation, the main agency behind the training
center.</p><p>At some point, Kemp and other civic leaders began
referring to the protesters as “terrorists”, in response to acts of
vandalism such as burning construction vehicles or spray-painting
corporate offices linked to the project.</p><p>In an interview with this
reporter last fall, Tortuguita was discussing how some Muscogee (Creek)
people interested in protecting the forest as well felt that leaving a
burnt vehicle at one of its entrances was not a good idea, and was an
alienating presence in nature. The activist seemed understanding of both
sides and critical of violence.</p><p>“Some of us [forest defenders]
are rowdy gringos,” Tortuguita said. “They’re just against the state.
Still, I don’t know how you can connect to anything if that’s your
entire political analysis.”</p><p>Police raids on the forest intensified
until 14 December, when a half-dozen “forest defenders” were arrested
and charged with “domestic terrorism” under state law – another
unprecedented development in US environmental activism, said Lauren
Regan, founder of the <a href="https://cldc.org/about/">Civil Liberties Defense Center</a>,
who has a quarter-century’s experience defending environmental
protestors charged with federal terrorism sentencing enhancements and
others.</p><p>Seven more activists were arrested and received the same charges the day Manuel was killed.</p><p>Regan and Keith Woodhouse, professor of history at Northwestern University and author of <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-ecocentrists/9780231165884">The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism</a>,
both said there has never been a case where law enforcement has shot
and killed an environmental activist engaged in an attempt to protect a
forest from being razed and developed.</p><p>“Killings of environmental
activists by the state are depressingly common in other countries, like
Brazil, Honduras, Nigeria,” said Woodhouse. “But this has never happened
in the US.”</p><p>Manuel’s older brother, Daniel Esteban Paez, found
himself in the middle of this unfortunate historical moment Thursday.
“They killed my sibling,” he said on answering the phone. “I’m in a
whole new world now.”</p><p>Paez, 31, was the only family member to
speak extensively with GBI officials, after calling them Thursday in an
attempt to get answers about what had happened. No one representing
Georgia law enforcement had reached out to Belkis by Thursday afternoon.
“I quickly found out, they’re not investigating the death of Manuel –
they’re investigating Manuel,” Paez said.</p><p>A navy veteran, Paez
said the GBI official asked him such questions as “Does Manuel often
carry weapons?” and “Has Manuel done protesting in the past?”</p><p>The
family is Venezuelan in origin, but now lives in the US and Panama, Paez
said. Less than 24 hours into discovering the death of his sibling,
Paez also said he “had no idea Manuel was so well-regarded and loved by
so many”. He was referring to events and messages ranging from an
Atlanta candlelight vigil Wednesday night to <a href="https://twitter.com/defendATLforest/status/1616274972959285249?s=20&t=_OHsB5oYY4tVylMTfJtHqw">messages</a> of solidarity being sent on social media from across the US and world.</p><p>Belkis
Terán, meanwhile, is trying to get an emergency appointment at the US
Embassy in Panama to renew her tourist visa, which expired in November.
“I’m going to clear Manuel’s name. They killed him … like they tear down
trees in the forest – a forest Manuel loved with passion.”</p></div></div></div>
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