Cop City Protester Shot 57 Times, According to Autopsy

Environmental activist and ‘Cop City’ protestor, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, was shot 57 times by police in Atlanta this past January, according to an autopsy released on Wednesday.

26-year-old Terán, whose chosen name was Tortuguita, suffered gunshot wounds all over their body, the Dekalb County Medical Examiner revealed in its autopsy.

Police have long claimed Tortuguita had a gun and shot first, which caused troopers to shoot in self-defense. However, the new autopsy suggests this narrative cannot be accurate.

The medical examiner writes in the autopsy, “gunpowder residue [was] not seen on the hands” and “soot stippling, searing and gunpower residue were not found in association with any of the above described clothing or around any of the gunshot wounds.” These findings mean Tortuguita almost certainly did not discharge a weapon, as police have insisted, at the time of the incident.

The autopsy also notes that Tortuguita was alive when most of the gunshots occurred, suggesting police had ample opportunities to stop and administer lifesaving medical intervention, but did not.

For many of the gunshot wounds, the report states, “the deceased was alive with some element of pulse and blood pressure when the wounds were inflicted.”

Tortuguita’s mother Belkis Terán, reacted to the autopsy, “We are devastated to learn that our child, our sweet Manny, was mercilessly gunned down by police…”

Tortuguita was part of a group of activists protesting Atlanta’s proposed ‘Cop City,’ a $90 million police training facility, which would demolish at least 85-acres of forest to create a mock-city for police and firefighters to train in.

The massive project is funded by the Atlanta Police Foundation, along with several large corporate backers including Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Amazon, UPS, and Delta Airlines, to name a few.

Tortuguita’s family is now anxiously awaiting the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) to release its investigation and, hopefully, shed some more light on the January 18th incident.

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