Tortuguita

No Charges For Georgia Troopers Who Killed Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Terán

October 9, 2023 Chris Schiano, Unicorn Riot. Educate! Accountability, Georgia, Legal System, Police abuse, Stop Cop City, Tortuguita

Stone Mountain, GA — A Georgia prosecutor announced Friday, Oct. 6, that six Georgia State Patrol SWAT troopers – Brylend Myers, Jerry Parrish, Jonathan Salcedo, Mark Lamb, Ronaldo Kegel, and Royce Zah – will not face criminal charges in the January 18, 2023 shooting death of Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Esteban Paez Terán, a nonbinary indigenous Venezuelan climate protester. Terán’s family and fellow activists believe they were murdered that day in the South River Forest near Atlanta, and much of the publicly available evidence from the incident casts doubt on the official narrative. Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George R. Christian was tasked with the investigation on March 8 by the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, ostensibly for the purpose of conducting an independent investigation.

Cities Across The US Are Mobilizing To Honor Tortuguita’s Birthday

April 23, 2023 It's Going Down. Resist! Atlanta, Cop City, Georgia, Police, Solidarity, Tortuguita

Supporters of the fight against Cop City in so-called Atlanta, Georgia are planning solidarity demonstrations, educational events, benefit concerts, and solidarity events to mark the birthday of anarchist and forest defender Tortuguita. This call for continued action comes after forty-two people now face “domestic terrorism” charges for simply “their participation in the movement, with arrest warrants citing the flimsiest grounds, including protesters having mud on their shoes and the number for a legal support group scrawled on their arms.” Moreover, the call for continued solidarity comes as the Dekalb County Medical Examiner has released the damning results of their autopsy, which directly contradicts claims made by law-enforcement that Tortuguita fired upon them, causing them to fire back and kill them in mid-January of this year, when police carried out a raid on protest encampments in the Weelaunee forest.

Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Terán’s Independent Autopsy Report Released

March 15, 2023 Alex Binder, Unicorn Riot. Educate! Cop City, Georgia, Police, police brutality, Tortuguita

The family of Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Esteban Paez Terán held a press conference Monday morning outside the Historic DeKalb Courthouse to release the full autopsy of Tortuguita and to discuss the lawsuit the family filed this week against the City of Atlanta under the Georgia Open Records Act. Tortuguita was shot and killed by Georgia State Patrol on January 18 in the South River Forest as they were dedicating their time to the diverse ‘Stop Cop City’ movement. The autopsy conducted of Tortuguita at the request of their family by Dr. Kris Sperry has found that when Tortuguita was shot and killed, their hands were raised in the air.

The State Murder Of Tortuguita And Tyre Nichols Are Inextricably Linked

February 6, 2023 Black Alliance for Peace. Educate! Atlanta, Capitalism, Class Struggle, Fascism, Georgia, Memphis, Police, police brutality, Tennessee, Tortuguita, Tyre Nichols

The cold-blooded assassination of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, Spanish for “Little Turtle,” is a reminder that fascism in the United States cannot be reduced to the political intentions of avowed white nationalists. African/Black and Indigenous people residing in the settler-colonial project known as the United States continue to be subjected to a cycle of state-sanctioned violence and political repression with bipartisan consensus. People of the global majority and their allies must not allow these latest episodes of injustice to go unanswered. The Atlanta City-Wide Alliance of the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP-Atlanta) has been working with a coalition of Indigenous people, African/Black people, other people of color, and Euro-Americans to prevent the construction of “Cop City,” as BAP-Atlanta expressed in a recent statement. The statement highlighted the obvious nexus between the proposed $90 million police-training facility site, where Tortuguita was killed on January 18, and the white supremacy-fueled genocide, militarism, and oppression the U.S. empire exercises both outside and within.

Daily movement news and resources