WEBVTT - On the Ground at Stop Cop City, Part One: The Shooting 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:25.960 Around eight am Wednesday, January eighteenth, a forest defender who 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.520 went by Tortegita sent out a text message that read 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:35.800 morning raid. Please help. Just minutes prior, a multi agency 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.360 coalition of heavily armed law enforcement officers led by the 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.040 Georgia State Patrol began a raid on the Wallauni Forest 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.680 in southeast Atlanta. Encampments have sprung up throughout the forest 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.320 since November of twenty twenty one in protest and militant 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:56.320 opposition to a proposed militarized police training facility with a 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.760 mock city to practice combating civil unrest in the wake 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:05.240 of the corporate funded Atlanta Police Foundation seeks to control 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.479 over three hundred acres of the Wallauni or South River 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:12.360 Forest to construct this sprawling, state of the art police 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.880 compound with a starting budget of ninety million dollars for 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.960 its first phase of construction. The police raid on January eighteenth, 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:25.720 twenty twenty three, started off pretty similar to previous raids 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.120 that had taken place in the prior months, but for 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:31.920 the Georgia State Patrol, seemingly it was their first time 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.679 leading such a raid. In the woods. Police shut down 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.440 the parking lot at entrenchment, Creek Park and nearby streets 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:43.080 before entering the tree line with guns drawn. Within the 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.040 first hour, swat teams arrested two people in the woods 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.720 and destroyed multiple tents, and then shortly after nine am, 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:54.520 forest defenders in the woods reported hearing a rapid sequence 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:59.080 of about a dozen gun shots. Quickly, news spread that 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.400 Georgia State Patrare officers shot and killed a protester in 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.240 the woods who was defending the forest, and that a 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.520 state trooper was being sent to Grady Hospital with a 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:13.760 bullet wound. After the gunshots rang in the air, police 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:18.080 were quick to publicize a palatable sequence of events depicting 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:22.560 an exchange of gunfire rather predictably. The police claimed that 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.120 the deceased force defender had surprised to the armored swat 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:30.519 team and fired first. This is Peter, a force defender 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.400 I talked with a few days after the shooting. 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.119 So luckily I was in the woods on that day. 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.080 Just in a whim, I decided to stay in town. 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.560 The day of the shooting was really jarring. Trying to 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.720 figure out who was safe and who was unaccounted for 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:47.560 was like the main thing on my mind for most 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.080 of the day, and by the afternoon I realized that 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.040 it was probably taut. The last message that they sent 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.720 was at eight am saying morning raid, Please help, and 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.160 the shooting was at nine am. It was a weird 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.240 space to be in, knowing that it was likely toward 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.440 a GIDA that had died, but not being able to 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.760 grieve yet because not really having confirmation. The only eyewitnesses 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.480 were the police, and then all the other witnesses just 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:12.760 like heard noises. 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.080 In contradiction to the exchange of gunfire narrative, activists on 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.200 the ground reported hearing a single burst of gunfire and 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.919 suspected that the injured trooper was hit by friendly fire, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:28.760 and cautioned against taking police narrative as fact due to 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.600 cops track record of lying about police killings and covering 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:37.320 for fellow officers. Here's Sam from the Atlanta Community Press 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.160 Collective for more information about the sequence of events that day. 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.520 We know from speaking to people who were in the 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:53.480 area on that day that PD the various police agencies 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.440 that were involved in the raid began the operation around 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:02.520 maybe seven thirty or eight. Records show that two people 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:07.840 were arrested maybe thirty to forty minutes before tort was shot. 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:17.120 Tort was shot around nine am. Some of our sources 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.760 that were in the woods at the time say they 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.120 only heard like one I guess you could call it 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:30.359 a volley of gunfire followed by a large boom. You 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.520 can speculate a lot about those statements, but they were 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:39.719 pretty independent. They were almost all identical and independent of 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:45.240 each other. We know that. Sorry, it's hard to talk about. 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:50.080 Yeah. It wasn't until late into the night that people 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.480 in the movement were able to confirm that the person 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.760 killed by the Georgia State Patrol was Manuel Tehran, also 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.440 known by their forest name to to Gita, which means 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:07.000 little turtle. Torti Guita was a young Queer Afro Venezuelan 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.000 twenty six year old forest defender, described by friends and 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:19.880 loved ones as your friendly neighborhood anarchist, as a kind, earnest, fierce, welcoming, funny, 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.760 exceedingly helpful and brave person. They were an artist, an 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.440 urban farmer, a trained street medic, and heavily involved in 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:33.000 mutual aid all across the South. This is it could 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.799 happen here. I'm Garrison Davis or just Gare And after 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.120 checking in with friends and various people I know in 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.200 the movement. I made my way down to Atlanta late 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:48.080 Wednesday night. I've been reporting on and writing about the 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.560 Defend the Forest and Stop cop City movement since summer 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.560 of twenty twenty one. Last year, in twenty twenty two, 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.520 I put out around six hours of audio related to 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:02.120 the Forest encampment's protests, organized weeks of action, and the 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.200 forgotten history of the prison farm that operated on the 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.159 land cop City is slated to be built on. But 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.680 these new episodes serve as a follow up to the 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.279 two part series from last May titled on the Ground 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.120 at Defend the Atlanta Forest, but the various updates put 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.800 out since then will certainly help fill in the gaps. 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.480 This four part series will feature interviews with forest defenders, 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.839 audio clips from on the ground in Atlanta, and accounts 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.720 on what's changed the past few months. Episode one, What 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.280 You're listening to right Now will largely cover the events 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.560 around the shooting itself. Episode two will get into who 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.360 Tortigita was as a person and the stories about them 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:52.400 from friends and comrades. Episode three and four will cover 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.680 protests in the wake of the police killing, state repression, 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.880 and how the movement might evolve going forward due to 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.680 increasing state repression. We will be using a mix of 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.040 voice distortion and re dubbed voice replacement for some of 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.560 the interviews and discussions I had with forest defenders on 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.640 the ground in Atlanta. Speaking of the next forest defender 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.000 you're going to hear from is Cricket talking about their 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.320 experiences the day of the shooting. 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.480 God, I mean, I can only obviously only speak for myself. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.240 For me, it was terrifying. We had obviously already lived 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:30.960 through the raid in December, but when we heard someone 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.360 had been shot and killed, it was it was terrifying, 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.560 and in part because of the complete lack of information. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:38.520 We had so few details for so long, and it 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:40.640 wasn't at least for me. It wasn't until the following 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:44.240 day that I found out that it was taught and 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.600 it it was just devastating. I mean, there's not really 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.200 words for it. It was like it felt like the 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.080 world stopped and then kept going. But it shouldn't have 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.480 like it felt like it should have stayed stopped like 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:58.440 it it shouldn't have kept turning. 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.920 After the dead shooting in the morning, the police continued 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.280 their multi agency raid of the Wallani Forest in a 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:11.280 pretty regular fashion, with cops reportedly firing pepperballs at people 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:15.160 up in treehouses and making arrests throughout the day, into 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.720 the night, and even the next morning. 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.880 I think a total of seven folks were arrested in 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:27.200 the forest that day. It might have been six. Six 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.240 arrested on the day Tourt died, and then one person remained. 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:33.040 The last tree. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.960 Setter, the last person arrested in the deadly police raid, 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.679 was up in the trees overnight and surrounded by police 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.920 for about twenty hours straight. All seven people arrested in 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:49.560 the forest were charged with criminal trespassing and domestic terrorism. 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.400 There was one person who remained in a tree set 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.200 because we had some communication with them throughout the night. 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.040 They were just like perched in and their climbing rig 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.920 in a tree for about twelve hours until a little 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:12.959 after sunrise when dekeb County SWAT moved in and took 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:14.880 them into custody. I guess you could say as they 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:19.360 were trying to repel back up the tree. They had 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.520 been in the tree pretty much the whole day and 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.920 then all night. They ran out of food and water 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:31.480 I think sometime after nightfall, and then after dark. They 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.120 were turning their phone on and off to conserve battery, 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.959 so it was a little sporadic. They were able to 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.840 send us some pictures of two cops standing in the 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.079 platform of like a trucuity used to work on a 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:49.040 telephone pole, and they both had like the SWAT operator 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.040 helmets on, and one of them had a long gun. 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.000 And then later on in the evening, four or five 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.800 police cars just like backed up to the tree and 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.800 just like surrounded the tree and shown their spotlights up 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.280 in the tree. And they didn't the cops didn't that 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.319 were there over night. They didn't say anything. They were 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.240 just waiting. They were just waiting for the sun to 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.040 come up so SWAT could move. 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.560 In the night of the shooting, before we even knew 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.880 who was killed, there was a small vegil turned to 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.720 march in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta. The 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:28.160 first twenty four hours after the shooting were extremely hectic, 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:31.480 as many people were not even sure who the police 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:32.000 had killed. 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:39.520 Obviously, the first thing on everyone's mind was who was killed, 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:45.640 and by late Wednesday night, some folks that help us 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:50.040 source our reporting came to us saying that they believed 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.280 it was this person that they believed it was Taut. 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.160 A lot of people's friend was just murdered by the police, 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.120 and folks wanted to get ahead of the police narrative, 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.080 and as a community press collective, of course, we wanted 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:10.000 to support the community in that, so we just immediately 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:17.160 offered like to post whatever Towart's family and I believe 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.800 their their partner consented to that. That was the primary thing. 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:27.360 Once the community had kind of definitive definitively identified that 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:32.040 it was Tort, was obtaining consent from from those closest 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:38.920 to Tort to publish their name, any pictures, details, and 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:43.600 we wanted to give people a way to help tell 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:45.920 everyone who was about to be paying a lot of 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.360 attention to the story whose Tot actually was and not 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.720 who the police would like people to think Torque was. 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.040 State agencies were swift in their attempts to control the 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:21.520 narrative surrounding the deadly raid. Hours after the killing, the 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.880 Georgia Bureau of Investigation set up a press conference as 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:30.000 the raid was very much still ongoing. First, a GBI 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.920 spokesperson explained the purpose of the raid. 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.000 The operations goal is to secure the site of the 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.640 future City of Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:45.080 Next, GBI Director Mike Register gave his account of the 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:46.520 day's events so far. 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:48.040 As you are aware. 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.079 A few weeks ago, several individuals were arrested for domestic 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.800 terrorism in the area around the future site of the 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.960 public safety training facility. This morning, the GBI, with a 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.559 other local state law enforcement agencies such as the CABPD, 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:09.760 Atlanta PD, the Georgia State Patrol, and Georgia DNR, conducted 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:14.040 a plan clearing operation to remove the individuals who were 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.640 illegally occupying the area. At approximately nine o'clock this morning, 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.120 as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:26.640 an individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.000 Other law enforcement person there returned fire and self defense 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:35.000 and evacuated the trooper to a safe area. The individual 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.160 who fired upon law enforcement and shot the trooper was 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.760 killed in the exchange of gunfire. The GBI is working 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.240 the officer involved shooting and the investigation is still active 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:51.560 and fluid. The circumstances was an individual confronted law enforcement 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.560 and I don't think that he was seen until he fired. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:57.760 I'm not sure. 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.080 Right leader that day, a GABI statement claimed that officers 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.679 located tort inside a tent in the woods and that 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.679 they did not comply with verbal commands from law enforcement officers. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.199 The day after the shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.240 also announced that there is no body cam footage of 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:20.320 the incident. They also claimed that twenty five campsites were 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:25.440 located and removed Wednesday and that quote mortar style fireworks, 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:30.000 edged weapons, pellet rifles, gas masks, and a blowtorch were 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:35.040 recovered unquote, after people pointed out that the list of 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:39.400 recovered items was absent any firearms. The next day, the 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:43.720 GBI released a photo of a nine millimeter handgun allegedly 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:46.680 found at this scene of the shooting. It was the 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.440 only firearm police claim they found in their extensive sweep 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:51.280 of the forest. 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:56.640 The GBI has been as the independent agency investigating all 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:02.040 of this. Has changed their story a little bit, which 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.720 it was a breaking news story. I think they first 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:07.920 went before the cameras at noon when it happened at 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.840 nine am, not to grant the police any kind of 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.640 flee weigh at all, because Fuckham. But it was a 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:19.560 rapidly evolving situation, as they say. That said, the story 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:24.600 changed kind of dramatically over the first few days. They 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.240 released an initial list of items that had recovered, but 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:33.640 it didn't mention a gun. And then when the community 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.840 kind of said, hey, you said, tort shot this trooper, 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.960 where's the gun? Then a gun was produced. Then when 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.520 people still didn't believe it, the GBI said that they 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.760 had a bill of sale for the gun. The GBI 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.080 and Georgia State Patrol have also come out and said 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.680 that they won't release the identity of the trooper for 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.120 concerns about their safety. 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.360 Results from an independent autopsy were released on February third. 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.840 It found thirteen gun shot wounds. Attached to the report 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.480 was a statement from Tortighito's family, of which I will 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.720 read quote. The GBI has claimed that Manny shot an 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.880 officer and that the bullet matches the gun possessed by Manny, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.760 but even if that is true, there are still many 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:26.480 unanswered questions. The GBI has selectively released information about Manny's death, 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:31.440 says civil rights attorney Jeff Philipovitz. They claim many failed 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.160 to follow orders. What orders. The GBI has not talked 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.480 about the fact that Manny faced a firing squad when 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.800 those shots were fired. Or who fired them. While the 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.520 GBI has publicly stated there's no body camera footage of 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.160 the shooting, it has not stated whether there is any 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.160 audio or other video from other sources, such as aerial 0:16:51.240 --> 0:16:53.600 drones or helicopters that were used during the time of 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.880 the incident. The family has contacted the GBI and specifically 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.800 requested that it released whatever audio and video exists of 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.040 the incident, or any other information that would shed light 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.479 on what happened. Any evidence, even if it's only an 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.760 audio recording, will help the family piece together what happened 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:13.400 on the morning of January eighteenth. This information is critical 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.440 and it is being withheld, said Brian Spears, a civil 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.640 rights attorney with nearly five decades of experience litigating police shootings. 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:25.040 Whatever you believe about the exact series of events that 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.280 led to towards death, personally, I doubt that we'll ever 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:32.520 know what happened for sure, but regardless, the killing of 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.639 a forced defender at the hands of police, coupled with 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.800 the domestic terrorism charges, marks a significant escalation in the 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:44.199 fight against copp City and even environmental activism in this 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.480 country at large, as this seems to be the first 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:52.880 killing of an environmental protester by US law enforcement. As 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.040 horrific as this escalation is, it's not out of the 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.440 blue as one might think. All the way back in 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.359 May of twenty twenty two, police were already talking on 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:08.680 scanners about using deadly force against Stop Coop City protesters. 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.080 Oh yeah, right, how old you four encounter? 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:15.600 So last time I was like in the woods for 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.960 a decent amount of time was like last last spring, 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:24.240 last summer. What how is? In what ways has like 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.359 living in the woods changed since then? Like what sort 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.000 of developments I guess has there been? 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:33.000 Well, one thing that's changed in the day to day 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.280 life in the woods and the past several months is 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.920 that the raids by the police have been more thorough 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.159 and so it's required a lot of more vigilance to 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.040 live in the woods and a lot more being aware 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.680 of places to run and hide and escape routes. 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:51.520 The past few months, police raids have been increasingly violent 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.560 and destructive, from the demolition of the gazebo in Willane 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.000 People's Park to the flattening of community gardens and the 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.360 trashing of makes shift cafes and kitchens within the forest, 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:09.320 using consistently escalated violent tactics. Police have routinely attacked protesters 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.879 with chemical weapons and rubber bullets, have cut tree limbs 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:17.359 and safety lines from under them, and reportedly threatened lethal force, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.800 often targeting just peaceful people who were sitting in trees 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:26.359 or walking through the public park. In an article for 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.119 The Bitter Southerner, an unnamed tree sitter spoke about a 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.240 police raid in September twenty twenty two, where they described 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.879 their interactions with law enforcement as such, quote, they threatened 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.880 to shoot me. They didn't draw their guns, but they 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.680 talked about it. Several showed their sight arms while locking 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.080 eyes with me. They very easily could have killed my 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:53.000 friend in the other tree sit. It was fucking nuts unquote. 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.040 And here's a bit from Peter again. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.000 Ever since the beginning, it's it's been on my mind that, 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.080 you know, there's a possibility of people dying in the woods, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.679 ever since I started living in the woods, beginning of 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.399 the encampments. It was just something that kept coming up 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:11.240 into my mind as a possibility. I think before this happened, though, 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.800 people were generally under the impression that the police wouldn't 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:17.840 murder forest defenders because it would look bad for them. 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:22.000 Just a month prior to the deadly January raid. Another 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.200 police raid took place a couple weeks before Christmas, which 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.560 resulted in the first domestic terrorism charges being levied against 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.680 people arrested near the forest. In the aftermath of this raid, 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.600 a spokesperson for the Atlanta Solidarity Fund talked about the 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.399 developing pattern of police escalation against the protest movement and 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:46.720 warned that steadily increasing police repression would lead to protesters 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:47.439 being killed. 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.199 And it's clear that if the public doesn't respond, if 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.600 the public doesn't do something about this, that escalation is 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:56.679 going to continue. Are we going to end up in 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:00.640 a situation where the police are murdering protesters in order 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:05.359 to advance not public safety but their particular political agenda 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:07.080 in building Copcity. 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:12.080 The use of infleeted charges like domestic terrorism not only 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:16.040 make life for the people charged a living hell, it 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:21.240 also lays the narrative groundwork to justify extreme physical escalations 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.639 of force and increasingly brutal crackdowns. Take it from the 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:27.800 GBI director himself. 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.399 As director of MIELS said, I'm Director Mike Register of 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:35.280 the GBI, and over the last several months, law enforcement 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.960 and portions of our community have experienced growing criminal behavior 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:43.320 and terroristic acts committed by individuals and groups concerning the 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.879 building of Atlanta's new public safety training center. These individuals 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.960 and groups have attempted to disguise their activities as being 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:53.480 protests against the building of this facility. 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.639 I'm going to read a short quote from an article 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:02.080 for the Inhabit Territories newsletter that sums this up nicely. Quote. 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.640 The violent escalation which led to this murder comes during 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.439 increased and coordinated repression against the movement to Defend the 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:13.119 Atlanta Forest, where the movement has built a diverse and 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:17.240 welcoming community through years of organizing. The police have used 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:22.159 every tactic to bad mouth, harass, threaten, surveil, criminalize, and 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:27.360 attack participants. Unquote. One of the forced offenders I spoke with, 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.040 who goes by Noah, talked about coming to terms with 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:35.040 something that everyone kind of knew was the possibility, but 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.280 still had this element of shock and disbelief. 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:42.720 I think it was really personally shocking. I think anytime 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:46.360 you introduced police into a situation, you have the possibility 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.119 of somebody dying batch what cap to do the murder 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:53.919 with impunity. So I think like anybody who was there 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.639 in the forest. Anybody who spent time in around activism 0:22:57.000 --> 0:23:00.320 against the police knows that this is like a thing 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.639 that can happen to people fighting against various types of 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:09.320 state power. But it was It was really really shocked. 0:23:09.000 --> 0:23:10.879 And I think everyone was just kind of an a loss. 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.879 I personally, I mean, it's just kind of like, I 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.160 don't know, I sat with it for a really long time. 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:20.160 It was just kind of like there was an error 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:21.560 of disbelief to it. 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:23.560 Just kind of knowing that like. 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:27.760 These were the people we were, that we were and 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:29.720 we were fighting against them, like this is the type 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:32.240 of thing that they're capable of begs being very shocked 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:34.200 and really scared that like this is where we were, 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:39.399 that like the police were now killing activists and you know, 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:43.360 in all likelihood going to get away with it. It 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:46.080 was a really terrifying implication for the future of the movement, 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:48.400 for the future of all all social strugles. 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:58.399 In the US. 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:13.360 Following news of the shooting, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:18.320 provides bail and legal assistance to political prisoners, protesters and activists, 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.560 put out a statement saying, quote Georgia State Patrol's story 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:27.240 is suspect they've released few details. We are concerned a 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:30.520 police cover up could be underway. We are preparing a 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:34.520 legal team to investigate and pursue a wrongful death suit. Unquote. 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:40.320 Here's Cricket again talking about the trustworthiness of the official 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:42.680 information being released about the shooting. 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:46.040 And I mean, we still have so little information, and 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:49.360 though the information that we do have is so tainted, 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:52.840 it's so untrustworthy that it doesn't actually feel like information 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:55.880 at all. It doesn't feel like we can it doesn't 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:58.520 feel like information we can trust. That's sort of the 0:24:58.560 --> 0:24:59.359 long and short of it. 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:04.040 Last month, over thirteen hundred climate justice and racial justice 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:07.639 groups from across the United States joined Atlanta residents and 0:25:07.720 --> 0:25:12.520 community organizations in calling for an independent investigation into the 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:13.800 killing of Tortaquita. 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:18.520 In any police shooting, you'd like to see an independent 0:25:18.560 --> 0:25:21.200 investigation because how can you let the person who shot 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:24.600 the gun investigate the crime? Right, So it was a 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:26.919 pretty easy thing to call for, but especially given the 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:32.800 inconsistencies in everyone's story. You know, the GBI has said 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:35.480 has changed a couple times, like the sequence of events, 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:41.119 and that first like tort surprised them, then they surprised Tort. 0:25:42.080 --> 0:25:45.200 Then Tort was in a tent. You know, the narrative 0:25:45.240 --> 0:25:49.440 has changed a couple times. GSP Georgia State Patrol also 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:53.800 does not wear body cams, and that's not that's just 0:25:53.840 --> 0:25:56.440 a day to day thing for them. That's hate to 0:25:56.480 --> 0:26:00.199 say it, but that's not something they did specifically for 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:03.080 this raide. Just to screw the movement over, that's it. 0:26:03.280 --> 0:26:06.800 It's actually the pretty well known issue in the state. 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:08.960 There were chosy to wear body camps considering how many 0:26:09.000 --> 0:26:10.240 people they kill every year. 0:26:11.640 --> 0:26:15.080