ATLANTA — An independent autopsy showed Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran — the activist killed last month near the site of Atlanta’s planned public safety training center — was shot at least 13 times, attorneys for the family said.
Decatur-based civil rights attorneys Brian Spears and Jeff Filipovits plan to hold a news conference Monday morning. They and Teran’s family are calling on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to release more information about the incident, which they called “the first time any environmental activist in the United States has been killed by the government.”
“Manny was a kind person who helped anyone who needed it. He was a pacifist,” Teran’s mother, Belkis Teran, said in a news release. “They say he shot a police officer. I do not believe it. I do not understand why they will not even privately explain to us what happened to our child.”
