It’s Friday afternoon and there are plenty of things to write about but I’m going to once again point out that a major “news” publications is intentionally slanting the story of Manuel Paez Terán’s death in a way designed to stir up outrage.
There is of course nothing wrong with stirring up outrage when outrage is warranted but what New York Magazine (and many others before them) are doing is lying to their readers about this story because they are partisans with an axe to grind. The NY Magazine story is titled “How to Criminalize a Protest” and Teran’s death plays a major turning point in the saga of how protests against a police training center became a pitched battle between far left protestesters and what the author dubs “the police state.”
Cop City immediately became one of the first major tests of the post-Floyd political order. People had spent 2020 begging for an end to abusive policing. The city responded the next year with a massive expansion of the police state. And the project’s biggest supporters — a slate of power brokers that ranged from the mayor’s office to the corner offices at Home Depot and Delta Airlines — envisioned the facility as a national model and hub where cops from all over could travel to refine their tactics…
When the Atlanta City Council approved Cop City in 2021, a handful of protesters started camping out in the South River Forest where the facility was slated to be built. They called themselves “forest defenders.” They set up a welcome table, shared food, hosted dance parties, and screened the Japanese environmental fable Princess Mononoke. They gave themselves funny nicknames — Pigweed, Bunny, Slug — and slept in makeshift tree houses. Some were from Georgia, others were not. They could be wary and eccentric yet disarmingly nice. A correspondent from The Daily Show visited one of their encampments, took one look at their bingo-night setup, and called them “Georgia Ewoks.”
Within a year, a coalition of local law-enforcement agencies was trying to evict the forest defenders to make way for construction. Some of the occupants allegedly threw rocks, while others damaged construction equipment. The group had no leader, organization was scattered and haphazard, and if you wanted to set a bulldozer on fire, no one was going to stop you. Rewards of up to $25,000 went up for the capture of certain protesters.
No mention is made of the Molotov cocktails thrown in the vicinity of police officers or AT&T line workers or the random person’s pickup truck that they burned to the ground after the driver invaded their occupation space looking for scrap. There were other acts of vandalism and rock throwing all designed to prevent the training center from being built because they had lost the vote at the city council. Here’s where we get to the really misleading take on Teran’s death.
Just before Christmas 2022, cops raided the woods and were greeted with a volley of rocks. They arrested five people and, in the first of several escalations, charged them with domestic terrorism…
Whatever the rationale, the crackdown failed to deter the protesters. Soon the encampment was up and running again. Plans were made for another multiagency raid. On January 18, 2023, a day whose precise sequence of events is still being disputed, cops stormed the woods and opened fire on a protester they later claimed had shot at them first, a 26-year-old Venezuelan named Manuel Paez Terán. Fifty-seven bullets hit home in what is believed to be the first police slaying of an environmental activist in U.S. history.
Forensic evidence, an autopsy, and the testimony of Paez Terán’s fellow defenders have since cast doubt on the official narrative. Paez Terán’s hands did not show any gunpowder residue, according to the DeKalb County medical examiner.
Cops did not open fire on a protester “they later claimed” shot at them first. Here’s how the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the shooting the day it happened.
Law enforcement officers helping conduct a “clearing operation” at the site of Atlanta’s planned public safety training center exchanged gunfire with a protester Wednesday morning, leaving the protester dead and a state trooper wounded, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The identity of the protester, a male accused of initiating fire with troopers “without warning,” was not released pending notification of kin.
The wounded trooper, who was shot in the abdomen area, also was not identified. He underwent surgery and was in stable condition in the intensive care unit at a local hospital, Georgia State Patrol Col. Chris Wright said during a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
Later that night police released a more detailed description of what happened.
At about 9:00 a.m. today, as law enforcement was moving through the property, officers located a man inside a tent in the woods. Officers gave verbal commands to the man who did not comply and shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper. Other law enforcement officers returned fire, hitting the man. Law enforcement evacuated the Trooper to a safe area. The man died on scene. The injured Georgia State Patrol Trooper was taken to a local hospital where he underwent surgery. A handgun and shell casings were located at the scene. The GBI is working the officer involved shooting and the investigation is still active and ongoing. The identification of the man who died is pending next of kin notification.
This story has been consistent ever since. As has the claim that police found a gun and shell casings at the scene. That Smith Wesson 9mm was purchased by Teran in 2020. Some of his comrades in the protest camp knew he had the gun. So there’s no doubt from any side of this that this was his gun. Also, the bullet taken from the Trooper’s abdomen was matched to Teran’s gun. The fact that New York Magazine doesn’t mention any of this is remarkably dishonest.
And Teran was not shot 57 times. There were headlines to that effect early on but those headlines were mistaken. In fact, Teran was shot 14 times and those 14 bullets left 57 wounds. He was shot at close range and many if not all of the bullets left several entry and exit wounds through his arms and legs and then into his head and body. Last October, Teran’s own mother talked about the number of bullets found by the family autopsy.
“Why so much cruelty? To kill one person with one or two bullets is enough. 57 wounds, 13 bullets apparently, so why?” his mom questioned…
According to the lawyers, the private autopsy revealed that Tortuguita had been shot 14 separate times in various locations, including the head through their right eye, left upper chest, abdomen, arms and legs.
As for the mother’s question, her son was shot 14 times because he fired his gun at a group of 5 or 6 troopers, several of whom responded with return fire into a tent where they couldn’t see inside.
Finally, the claim about the gunshot residue is one that refuses to die. It’s true that the initial autopsy report didn’t spot gunshot residue but it also noted a closer examination was being carried out:
In the report, the examiner noted there was no visible gunpowder observed on Terán’s hands.
But the report also notes a test was performed to determine whether trace amounts of gunpowder residue were present and the results of that test are not included in the report. State investigators and the prosecutor assigned to the case declined to say what the results of the test were.
Ultimately, the residue test came back positive:
The DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy on Jan. 19, a day after Teran was shot by GSP troopers.
According to that autopsy report, no gunpowder residue was seen, but a sample was collected…
That GSR kit was sent off to the GBI Crime Lab for analysis. The findings were released Tuesday. This report “revealed the presence of particles characteristic of gunshot primer residue.”
So unless we’re going into the real of conspiracy theories, there’s really no doubt about what happened here.
Finally, it’s worth noting that parts of Teran’s diary were eventually released and they revealed that he considered the idea of shooting police officers and becoming a martyr for his cause, one that might inspire others to kill cops.
On Dec 18, 2021, Teran started a passage titled, “If the Cops (the word “Pigs” was crossed out) Kill me.”
“If the cops kill me, I want you to riot, burn down their stations and set their cars alight. Know that I went out fighting and ask we all could have peace and be free,” Teran wrote.
Then, “If the cops kill me I want you to riot, to kill as many of them as you can. They are terrorists. They keep us all subjugated . . . I think they should all quit their jobs or die. I would love to live a long and peaceful life but I do not fear violence.”…
An entry in September 2022 read, “I made the accounts knowing the risk and I do not regret it. Even if the FBI assassinates me, it will have been worth it. I have helped people and will hopefully inspire others to do more mutual aid without getting assassinated. My exit strategy is to keep resisting fascism, ecocide and the damn capitalist heteropatriarchy.”
Four pages later comes the passage, “Killing cops is okay! Killing people is generally a bad thing. Fascists and cops count as people but killing them is morally and ethically just because they are threats to the survival of many people. . . Dead cops! Dead cops everywhere.”
If we find out tomorrow that the facts have changed, great. Report that when it happens. But as of now there’s no mystery here. None at all. The fact that supposedly serious news outlets keep spreading this nonsense tells you all you need to know about their journalistic ethics.