Case Citation
Manuel Esteban Paez Teran et al. v. United States, Inter-Am. Comm’n H.R. (Petition filed Apr. 5, 2024)
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Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known to loved ones as “Tortuguita,” was an environmental activist killed by Georgia state police in January 2023 while peacefully protesting the destruction of Atlanta’s South River/Weelaunee Forest to make room for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. The 85-acre police militarization facility, expected to cost nearly $110 million, has been dubbed “Cop City” by the environmental, free speech, and racial justice advocates who oppose its construction.
U.S. state and federal officials disclaimed responsibility for Tortuguita’s murder, refusing to hold accountable the shooting officer. Georgia officials then engaged in a public smear campaign to portray Tortuguita as violent and dangerous in order to justify state violence. Officials publicly released pages of Tortuguita’s diary, confiscated from the tent where they killed the activist, for use in a criminal conspiracy indictment against Tortuguita’s fellow protestors. Belkis Terán, Tortuguita’s mother, suffered exceptional emotional harm as a result of the state’s propaganda campaign and failure to conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances of her child’s murder.
Why is This a Key Case?
This case seeks reparative justice for the extrajudicial killing of Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán, the first environmental activist in modern U.S. history to have been shot and killed by police during a protest.
Tortuguita’s murder is one of a number of extreme abuses by Georgia law enforcement against Stop Cop City activists, including intimidation, wrongful arrests, and domestic terrorism charges.
It is also emblematic of an alarming pattern in the United States of suppression of civic space and unchecked police terror carried out against civilians peacefully protesting for racial and environmental justice. Throughout the last decade, cities and states across the country have reckoned with mass organized demonstrations over police killings of Black people and environmental destruction in the name of resource extraction. The coordinated assault on the Stop Cop City activists in Georgia, and the murder of Tortuguita, are a deadly escalation of police efforts to repress First Amendment rights to assemble and express views through protest.
What is the status of this case?
Pending a response from the U.S. government to the petition
