Judge dismisses lawsuit filed by parents of ‘Cop City’ activist

Judge dismisses ‘Cop City’ activist family’s lawsuit

A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought by the parents of Manuel Paez Terán, known as “Tortuguita,” who was killed in a raid by Georgia state troopers during a protest camp near the site of Atlanta’s police training center. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg, issued Monday, concluded that the troopers’ lethal response was lawful in the circumstances they faced after Paez Terán fired at officers.

The case stems from the Jan. 18, 2023, shooting of Paez Terán, a 26-year-old environmental activist whose death became a focal point for the “Stop Cop City” movement that opposed the construction of the sprawling training facility. The center, which opened last year, is a police and firefighter training complex built on a site that included a forest and a former prison farm just outside Atlanta.

Paez Terán’s family later sued three law enforcement officers, arguing that the raid violated Paez Terán’s free speech rights and involved excessive force. In court filings described in the ruling, the parents said troopers planned and carried out the raid against protesters who had spent months camping in the woods near the DeKalb County construction site and that Paez Terán panicked during the confrontation and began firing shots.

Grimberg’s Monday decision said that, as the plaintiffs themselves acknowledged, Paez Terán fired at the troopers and wounded one officer. The judge wrote that the officers’ response was therefore reasonable under the circumstances and that the family could not establish that the troopers’ actions were the proximate cause of the deadly force that ended Paez Terán’s life.

The ruling also addressed the lead-up to the shooting, including the officers’ earlier use of pepper balls. Grimberg said that before fatal gunfire, troopers were within their rights to fire pepper balls after Paez Terán, who was accused of criminal trespass, did not comply with orders to leave the tent.

Grimberg further ruled that the officers had qualified immunity, a legal protection that can prevent lawsuits over claims that police or other government employees violated constitutional rights. That determination, together with the judge’s proximate-cause reasoning, led to dismissal of the lawsuit.

Paez Terán’s parents, Belkis Terán and Joel Paez, said they were “devastated,” according to attorneys Jeff Filipovits and Wingo Smith. The attorneys said the family feels it is being denied the accountability they believe they deserve and that they would be reviewing their legal options, noting that records of their child’s death had not been publicly released.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said body camera footage from four Atlanta officers involved does not show the shooting itself. The agency previously said the footage shows officers encountering Paez Terán in a tent in the woods and firing 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, finding their use of deadly force was “objectively reasonable,” according to the reporting. Investigators have also said ballistics evidence indicated the injured trooper was shot with a bullet from a gun Paez Terán legally purchased in 2020.

The construction of the training center has been contested for years by protesters who argued it would harm the environment and increase flood risks in a poor, majority-Black neighborhood. Activists also said public funding being directed to the project amounted to tens of millions of dollars and criticized the facility as a training ground for “urban warfare.”

Protests around the project at times turned violent, including incidents involving masked activists torching police cars and construction equipment. Those actions contributed to a racketeering case in 2023 charging 61 protesters; a Fulton County judge tossed the case on procedural grounds last year, and Republican Attorney General Chris Carr has appealed that ruling.

Though the movement has receded since the filing of the racketeering charges and the opening of the training center, the name “Tortuguita” remains a symbol invoked at anti-police protests in Atlanta, including through murals and flyers.