Belkis Terán, the mother of of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita, is invited to speak by Attorney Jeff Filipovits, right, during a news conference outside the Decatur Courthouse, in Decatur, Ga., Tuesday, Dec 17, 2024. (Jenni Girtman/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — The parents of an environmental activist who Georgia state troopers fatally shot near the site of a planned Atlanta-area police and firefighter training center filed a lawsuit Tuesday against three law enforcement officers who they say planned and carried out a police raid that led to his death.

Manuel Paez Terán’s family says state troopers used excessive force against the 26-year-old when they fired pepper balls into the protester’s tent after Paez Terán refused to leave on the morning of Jan. 18, 2023. Authorities said Paez Terán then shot at the troopers from inside the tent, wounding one of them and prompting the troopers to return fire, killing the activist.

Authorities were conducting what officials described as a “clearing operation” against those who for months had been camping in the woods near the DeKalb County construction site to protest what critics call “Cop City.”

The killing of Paez Terán, who went by the name Tortuguita and used the “they” pronoun, was a galvanizing moment for the “Stop Cop City” movement, with activists across the world holding vigils and painting murals in honor of Tortuguita, who friends said was dedicated to helping others and protecting the environment. Authorities have portrayed Paez Terán as an out-of-state radical who wrote in their journal that police officers should be killed.

Ever since Paez Terán's death, their parents have complained that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has refused to give them answers about the events surrounding his death. Last year, the family commissioned an autopsy that concluded that Paez Terán was sitting cross-legged with their hands in the air when they were shot more than a dozen times.

“The story of Manuel’s death is still being written,” attorney Brian Spears said at a news conference Tuesday morning in Decatur, a few miles from where the training center is nearing completion. “The objective of this lawsuit is to learn the truth about who planned the raid and to hold them responsible.”

Paez Terán had moved to Georgia from Florida in 2022 to join activists who had been camping in the woods and calling themselves “forest defenders.”

The lawsuit says GBI Special Agent Ryan Long planned a “raid” that targeted protesters for expressing their political beliefs, violating their First Amendment rights.

The protesters were camped out legally on public land, not on the construction site itself, the family's lawyers said, and Long was wrong to instruct officers to arrest campers for “criminal trespass," thereby violating their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The lawsuit said that when Paez Terán “stated the desire to remain in the forest,” Trooper Mark Lamb ordered Trooper Bryland Myers to fire pepper balls into the activist's tent, trapping the protester in an enclosed space with chemicals and making Paez Terán “reasonably believe that they were going to die.”

Lamb and Myers were among the six troopers who fired their guns at the activist after Paez Terán fired at them, officials have said.

A GBI spokesperson declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Body camera footage from four Atlanta officers involved does not show the shooting itself, the GBI 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, injuring one, 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 and 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 oppose the use of tens of millions in public funding on what critics describe as being a training ground for "urban warfare.”

Initially given a $90 million price tag, the cost has since jumped to $115 million, with taxpayer funds paying the majority of that cost, despite city officials' earlier claims that the public obligation would only be $31 million.

The city said the state-of-the-art campus would boost police morale amid hiring and retention struggles while emphasizing “progressive" training practices.

Since the fatal encounter, Tortuguita's name has been invoked at numerous protests — some of which have turned violent, including last year when more than 100 masked activists stormed the construction site and torched equipment while others threw projectiles at retreating officers.

In September 2023, 61 protesters were indicted on racketeering charges, and dozens of activists have been charged with domestic terrorism. Attorney Jeff Filipovits said this was part of a strategy to “demonize those who hold certain political beliefs.”

“Forest defenders are not terrorists,” said Paez Terán's father, Joel Paez. “They aren't. And my child was with individuals concerned against environmental injustice.”

Paez Terán used to meditate every morning to be close to God and saw the forest as a sacred place, said their mother, Belkis Terán. In honor of Tortuguita — Spanish for “little turtle” — she wore a necklace with a turtle pendant to the news conference.

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Kramon is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Kramon on X: @charlottekramon.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024