Prosecutor won't seek charges against troopers in shooting of 'Cop City' activist
A prosecutor announced Friday that he will not charge Georgia state troopers for their fatal shooting of an environmental activist.
Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Christian said the troopers’ employment of deadly force against Manuel Paez Terán, 26, was “objectively reasonable.” Christian made his decision known through a news release and also released a 31-page report with his analysis.
Protestors of the ”Cop City,” a nickname for a police and firefighter training facility being built near Atlanta, were camping out in an area in development for the facility, where Paez Terán was killed in January.
The troopers were reportedly participating in an “enforcement operation” when they came across Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, according to authorities.
Paez Terán rejected calls from the officials to come out of a tent, so the troopers used a pepper ball launcher to force evacuation — which was followed by Paez Terán firing a handgun four times, according to the release. Six troopers fired back, killing the activist.
Questions around Paez Terán’s death have arisen, especially as Atlanta police body camera footage showed an officer after the incident saying, “You f---ed your own officer up?"
The footage also shows another officer asking, "Did they shoot their own man?"
Paez Terán’s family commissioned an autopsy, which indicated the activist was shot 14 times and died with hands raised.
An attorney for Paez Terán’s family, Brian Spears, conveyed “extreme disappointment” with the prosecutor’s report, calling it a "rubber stamp" of the officials' account "without any critical analysis."
The activist's mother, Belkis Terán, denounced the court's decision to not release more information.
“We have waited eight months for the truth,” she wrote. “We are in pain. We want to hear the interviews. We want our experts to review the lab tests. We want our questions answered."
"This report does not answer our questions. How long must we wait?” she added.
The Associated Press contributed.