BREAKING: Body Cam Footage of Killed Cop City Protester Shows At least 16 Shots Fired, Cast Doubt on Police Claims
"Man...you fucked your own officer up?" an officer can be heard saying to another officer right after protester Manuel Terán was shot at least 13 times, seeming to imply friendly fire struck officer
Unearthed body camera footage of the January 18th killing of Cop City environmental protester Manuel Terán cast doubt on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation [GBI] account that Terán shot at them after declining to comply with their verbal commands to leave their tent.
In body camera footage worn by Atlanta Police Department officers, you see APD officers walking in the forest when four gunshots suddenly go off further down in the woods (off camera). In the leadup to hearing the gunshots, there are no audible commands being delivered by police to Terán. In GBI’s original press release on the killing of Terán, GBI claimed: “Officers gave verbal commands to the man who did not comply and shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper.”
But in the body cam footage, you hear no verbal commands by police; instead, you hear an abrupt firing of four gunshots followed by a barrage of at least 12 shots fired in seven seconds.
A private autopsy done by the family of Terán found they were shot 13 times by several different officers.
In another part of the body cam footage, you hear conversation among APD officers in the immediate aftermath of the shooting of Terán.
“That sounded like suppressed gunfire,” one officer says. Soon after, another officer says: "Man...you fucked your own officer up?” The latter comment from the officer seemed to imply that the officer hit by gunfire had been struck by friendly fire from a fellow officer—not Terán—as the police had claimed.
The body camera footage is unfortunately not from the officers who actually shot at Terán; GBI officers claim their is no body camera footage of the actual shooting. Thus far, police not provided any evidence that Terán shot at them or even had a gun in the forest as he protested.
Terán, a beloved environmental protester, and many others have been protesting in and around Atlanta’s Weelaunee Forest since 2021 to try and stop what they call “Cop City”—a proposed $90 million militarized police compound that might span hundreds of acres right next to a majority Black neighborhood (75 percent Black). Cop City would have sprawling areas for explosives and gun ranges—disturbing the neighborhood not to mention the environment in what is supposed to be protected public forest.
Status Coup’s Tina-Desiree Berg recently reported ON-THE-GROUND from the protests at Cop City. There, she exclusively interviewed one of several protesters who was arrested—and charged with domestic terrorism—on the day Teránwas killed.
“As far as I knew no [protester] had any arms in the forest at all,” the arrested protester, who Status Coup granted anonymity to while their legal proceedings carry out, told Desiree Berg. This matches other sources who said, to their knowledge, no forest defenders had guns with them in the forest.
In addition to the killing of Terán, police have been on an arrest spree, arresting at least 19 protesters and tossing dubious charges of domestic terrorism at them.
You can watch Desiree Berg’s full interview with one of the protesters charged with domestic terrorism below.
Click here for the full Playlist of Status Coup’s Cop City coverage in Atlanta.
Unsurprising, but still tragic. These videos prove nothing, but I'll trust my instincts here and say we are investing too much time, energy, and money into militarizing our police. Just as in medicine, where we are content to treat symptoms but never address causes or search for cures (no $$$ in that!), we pay the police our hard earned cash for them to stick their fingers in the bursting dykes. "My work is done here!" Society is broken, the banking system is broken, the business world is broken, politics are broken-"everything is broken" (Bob Dylan). Ain't gonna fix anything with more guns, but we will hold the population (#s) in check better...