Human rights groups have filed a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights calling for a US Department of Justice investigation into the police killing of “Cop City” protester Manuel Paez Terán, as well as the release of all related evidence, and apologies to the family from the US government.
Two organizations – Robert F Kennedy Human Rights and the Southern Center for Human Rights – together with the University of Dayton Human Rights Center filed the 37-page petition to the Washington DC-based commission, on behalf of Paez Terán, also known as “Tortuguita”, and their mother, Belkis Terán. The Guardian obtained an exclusive view of the document.
The petition narrates details of Atlanta and state government and law enforcement behaviors before, during and since Paez Terán’s killing, with references to violations of human rights guaranteed by articles in the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the document created by the nascent Organization of American States (OAS) in 1948 that guides the commission.
The commission became part of the OAS in 1959. It monitors human rights violations in countries of the Americas and receives petitions from victims. The commission can accept or reject the premises of a petition and communicate suggestions to nations for repairing the violations.
Georgia state troopers shot and killed Paez Terán, who used they/them pronouns, on 18 January of last year during a raid on a forested public park south-east of Atlanta. The activist was camped in protest against plans for building the police and fire department training center in the same forest, about a mile away. The killing was the first such incident in US history.
The $109m center is being built on a 171-acre footprint. Opposition to the project has come from a wide range of local and national supporters and centers on concerns over police militarization and clearing forests in an era of climate crisis. Atlanta police say the center is needed for “world-class” training.
After Paez Terán’s killing, the activist’s family, including Belkis Terán, began a process that continues unfulfilled – seeking evidence from the state about what happened.
The same agency that led the raid, the Georgia bureau of investigation, or GBI, also investigated the shooting, eventually handing over its evidence to a special prosecutor, George Christian.
The prosecutor concluded in October that shooting and killing Paez Terán had been “objectively reasonable” – particularly since the 26-year-old had shot and wounded an officer first, the prosecutor’s report alleged.
Both Christian and the GBI refused to release the investigative file underpinning these conclusions to the Paez Terán family or to the public, calling it part of an ongoing investigation into dozens of other “Cop City” activists.
The state troopers who killed Paez Terán were not wearing body cameras – but Atlanta police combing the forest nearby were. The department publicly released some of those videos in February 2023; in one, an officer says to another that a trooper seems to have shot another trooper, or “friendly fire”. The state advised Atlanta police not to release more videos, also due to ongoing investigation.
Belkis Terán referred to this pattern of withholding evidence in a victim-impact statement accompanying the petition. The Venezuelan, who lives in Panamá, said she hoped the process of petitioning the human rights commission would help “explain what happened … [and] give some clarity … They need to show their evidence, so we can have a real process of justice”.
Terán also said family members – uncles, cousins, her younger sister – believed the state’s version of events, and no longer spoke with her, now seeing her as the mother of a “terrorist”. This “version” has included the office of the Georgia deputy attorney general, John Fowler, publicly releasing Paez Terán’s diary, with the activist’s views on police brutality, racism and other concerns.
“They wanted to ruin his reputation. That was an abuse. It was disrespectful,” Terán said. “The lack of information in addition to the police’s attempts to destroy Manuel’s reputation has doubled our grief,” she wrote in her statement.
Six state senators wrote a letter asking the DoJ to investigate Paez Terán’s killing in late April 2023 – nearly a year ago. Nothing has happened.
“Neither the state nor the federal government has pursued this case in the way they should,” said Delia Addo-Yobo, staff attorney on the US advocacy and litigation team at RFK Human Rights. “Asking [the commission] is another way for Belkis to seek accountability, to seek justice.”
In addition to seeking a DoJ investigation, the state’s evidence and an apology, the petition also seeks “reparations to Manuel’s family, including financial compensation”. And, in what could be seen as an act of solidarity channeling Paez Terán’s many efforts at mutual aid – community gardening, fundraising for people in need – the petition also seeks to “[m]eet and fulfill the demands outlined by the StopCopCity campaign, including, but not limited to, dismissing all charges against protestors immediately”.
