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Atlanta Police Release Body Camera Footage of Activist Killing at ‘Cop City’

“Is this target practice?” one cop said. “Man, you fucked your own officer up.”
cop city body camera
Image from body camera footage of Atlanta police at the scene of a raid on a protest against "Cop City." (Image: Atlanta Police Department)

Atlanta police released body camera footage Wednesday night that captures a violent barrage of gunfire that killed a protester, Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán, and injured a police officer during a raid in a forest that is earmarked to be turned into a police training facility known as “Cop City.”

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The four videos are body camera footage from a unit of Atlanta Police Department officers who were not directly involved in the killing. The footage confirms that the killing was carried out by a Georgia State Patrol SWAT team—which is not required to wear body cameras. 

In a press conference earlier this week, Terán’s family and their lawyers discussed the results of a private autopsy conducted. It showed that Terán’s body was riddled with bullets—shot at least 13 times by several different firearms. 

In an initial statement about the incident, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stated that Teran shot and injured a Georgia State Trooper first and that a gun—allegedly belonging to Terán—was recovered from the scene. As of right now, there is no footage or audio to corroborate this. At one point in the body camera footage from officers nearby, a drone can be overheard indicating that the bureau may have footage of the killing of Terán. 

The raid took place on January 18th in the South River Forest outside Atlanta which is adjacent to Weelaunee People’s Park, and it's unclear where exactly the killing took place. That morning, Terán was one of at least eight forest defenders protesting the construction of a $90 million 85-acre “state-of-the-art” police training facility commonly known as “Cop City.”

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At the start of the video, officers can be heard joking as they make their way to a pair of tents. After confirming no one is inside one officer starts slashing up the tent and later makes a joke about how the tent is no longer livable.

Approximately 18 minutes into the video, four gunshots can be heard off-camera and one officer mutters, “Oh shit,” to himself. The group of Atlanta police officers immediately stop in their tracks, then another 16 shots ring out before there’s a barrage of noise—making it hard to make out individual shots. After approximately 12 seconds of shooting an officer can be heard muttering to himself, “Is this target practice?” Another officer turns and says, “Those are real shots being fired.” 

A cacophony of shouting can be heard in the distance and the officers tense up, with their hands on their weapons. In one of the videos, someone in the distance can be heard commanding people to hold and put their body cameras on. 

Roughly a minute and 40 seconds after the first shot, the group starts to move ahead after some sort of audible signal. The officers are warned multiple times about crossfire. 

One officer whispers quietly, “They’re shooting at us.”

“Nah, that sounded like suppressed gunfire.”

“Yeah, it did.”

An announcement over the radio confirms an officer was injured. A few seconds later, the officer wearing the body camera can be heard saying, “Man, you fucked your own officer up.” 

The rest of the video shows officers surrounding another tent they believe to be occupied while more shouts can be heard in the distance. They proceed to shoot several rounds of pepper spray into the tent, only to realize that it’s unoccupied. In the last two minutes as officers are seemingly winding down from the operation a conversation can be overheard.

“Did they shoot their own man?”

To which an officer replies, “We don’t know what he got shot by…” and the rest of what he says is hard to decipher. An officer responds and says, “The first one, they said, was suppressed.”