CPE statement on the Police Killing of Atlanta activist Tortuguita at the site of the City of Atlanta Public Safety Training Center

January 26 2023

Last Wednesday, an environmental activist known as Tortuguita was shot and killed in an operation involving the Atlanta Police Department, DeKalb County Police, Georgia State Police (GSP), the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), and the FBI, on the site of the City of Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a planned police training facility dubbed "Cop City" by critics. The 26-year-old (legally identified as Manuel Esteban Paez Terán) was participating in a months-long protest in the course of which many activists have been camping in a forested area on the site, in an effort to prevent continued development of the facility. 

On Jan. 18, dozens of law enforcement officers undertook a "clearing operation," destroying the encampment and violently evicting protestors; in the course of the operation, a state trooper was shot and injured. Violence is never appropriate, no matter who is involved, and we send our wishes for a full recovery to the trooper who was hurt. GBI alleges that Tortuguita was the shooter and has produced a 2020 transaction record for a gun that officers report finding in the encampment. The bureau is conducting an investigation and has said there is no bodycam footage of the incident; activists have called for an investigation to be conducted independently of GBI. How and why it is possible that there is no available bodycam footage of the alleged crossfire, given today's policing practices, are among the many questions any investigation must seek to answer.

Those close to Tortuguita, who identified as nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, dismiss the possibility that they would have engaged in violence. Speaking with the press, their mother said Tortuguita "was a pacifist [and] wouldn’t even kill an animal." Last year, Tortuguita said that “the right kind of resistance is peaceful, because that’s where we win. We’re not going to beat them at violence. They’re very, very good at violence. We’re not…. We don’t want more people to die. We don’t want Atlanta to turn into a war zone.” 

The tragic events of Jan. 18 demonstrate clearly that the struggle for a just society is one in which multiple issues intersect in interrogating state power. Questions of policing and public safety, environmental justice, dismantling White supremacy, decarceration, and the Indigenous Land Back movement all find expression in the opposition to the training center. It is notable that, by means of a legal loophole, the City of Atlanta was able to get the $90 million facility approved despite vociferous opposition from those living adjacent to it, raising issues of governance, democracy, and community welfare, as well. 

The levers of power in this country have always been structured to serve White supremacist notions of ownership, who is deserving of safety, and hierarchies of human value. Tortuguita expressed a clear-eyed understanding of this reality when they told a reporter: “Am I scared of the state? Pretty silly not to be. I’m a Brown person. I might be killed by the police for existing in certain spaces."

CPE sends heartfelt condolences to all who loved Tortuguita and are now seeking answers. The road to a just society in which all are valued and none need fear state violence is a long one that we will continue to walk together, toward a future in which such needless losses will no longer have to be endured.