ATLANTA – A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit filed by the parents of an environmental activist who was shot dead by Georgia state troopers, saying their actions were “objectively reasonable” when they shot pepper balls into the activist's tent and ultimately fired fatal gunshots after the 26-year-old shot one of the troopers.
The Jan. 18, 2023, shooting of Manuel Paez Terán, known as “Tortuguita,” was a galvanizing moment for the movement to halt the construction of what critics labeled “Cop City,” a sprawling police and firefighter training center that opened last year on the site of a forest and former prison farm just outside Atlanta.
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Paez Terán’s family later sued three law enforcement officers who they say planned and carried out the raid against protesters who had spent months camping in the woods near the DeKalb County construction site. The lawsuit said troopers violated Paez Terán's free speech rights and used excessive force against the activist, who then panicked and began firing shots. An autopsy commissioned by the family concluded that Paez Terán, who used they/them pronouns, was sitting cross-legged with their hands in the air when they were shot more than a dozen times.
In a ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg noted that, as the plaintiffs have acknowledged, Paez Terán fired at the troopers, wounding one of them, which the judge said makes the troopers' lethal response reasonable. Grimberg also said that prior to the shooting, troopers were within their rights to fire pepper balls at Paez Terán after the activist, who was accused of criminal trespass, did not comply with orders to leave the tent.
“Because Paez Teran initiated gunfire with the (Georgia State Patrol) officers, Plaintiffs cannot maintain that Defendants’ actions were the proximate cause of the use of deadly force that ultimately ended the decedent’s life,” the judge wrote.
Grimberg also ruled that the officers had qualified immunity, special legal protection that prevents people from suing over claims that police or government workers violated their constitutional rights.
Paez Terán’s parents, Belkis Terán and Joel Paez, are “devastated” by the judge's ruling, according to their attorneys, Jeff Filipovits and Wingo Smith.
“They feel they are being denied the accountability they deserve,” the attorneys said in a statement. “The records of their child’s death still have not been publicly released. They will be reviewing all their legal options.”
Body camera footage from four Atlanta officers involved does not show the shooting itself, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said. But the agency said footage shows the officers encountered Paez Terán in a tent in the woods and fired in self-defense after the activist shot at troopers and ignored verbal commands to leave the tent.
A prosecutor declined to charge the troopers who killed Paez Terán, saying their use of deadly force was “objectively reasonable.” Investigators have also said ballistics evidence shows the injured trooper was shot with a bullet from a gun Paez Terán legally purchased in 2020.
Activists formed the “Stop Cop City” movement to protest the construction of an 85-acre (34-hectare) Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, which they said would cause environmental damage by cutting down huge swathes of trees and exacerbate flooding fears in a poor, majority-Black neighborhood. They also opposed the use of tens of millions in public funding on what critics described as a training ground for “urban warfare.”
Protests against the facility at times veered into violence, with some masked activists torching police cars and construction equipment — actions that ultimately led to a sprawling racketeering indictment against 61 protesters in 2023. A Fulton County judge tossed the landmark case on procedural grounds last year, but Republican Attorney General Chris Carr is appealing the ruling.
Though the movement has receded since the filing of the racketeering charges and the opening of the training center, the name Tortuguita is still invoked at anti-police protests, and the activist's image has become a common sight in murals and flyers across Atlanta.