Tortuguita was 26. They were a non-violent environmental defender — Venezuelan-born, raised in the United States and Panama, trained as a teacher, living in a tent in the Atlanta forest the city was about to clear-cut for the Public Safety Training Center known to its opponents as Cop City. Six Georgia State Patrol troopers opened fire on them at close range during a multi-agency "clearing operation" on the morning of January 18, 2023. They were shot 57 times.
The state\'s account
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia State Patrol claimed Tortuguita shot at troopers first, wounding one. They produced no body-camera footage of the encounter — Georgia State Patrol troopers were not at the time required to wear body cameras and were not wearing them on the morning of the shooting. They produced no clear photographic record of the moments preceding the shooting. They produced a GSP-commissioned ballistics analysis that they said tied the bullet that wounded the trooper to a handgun Tortuguita is alleged to have purchased.
The independent record
The Terán family commissioned an independent autopsy by Dr. Kris Sperry, a former Georgia chief medical examiner. The Sperry autopsy found that Tortuguita had been shot at least 57 times; that the entry wounds were consistent with their hands being raised; and that the trajectory of certain wounds was inconsistent with them firing a weapon at the moment of the shooting. The DeKalb County medical examiner\'s own later autopsy reached similar conclusions on the hands-raised question.
Through 2023 and 2024, independent journalists (Unicorn Riot, the Atlanta Community Press Collective, the Marshall Project), legal observers, and civil-rights litigators built out a parallel evidentiary record from open-source mapping, body-camera footage from cooperating officers (some of which contradicted the GSP\'s account), and audio recordings.
The civil case
The Terán family filed a federal civil-rights suit against the state of Georgia and the individual troopers in 2023. Through 2024, the suit moved through early discovery — with the state contesting essentially every disclosure obligation, claiming sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, and the unavailability of trooper depositions. The family\'s lawyers, including Brian Spears and Jeff Filipovits, continued to press. The case is on a multi-year track.
What 2024 actually was
The first anniversary of Tortuguita\'s death was marked by memorial actions in Atlanta, across the United States, and in Panama and Venezuela. The campaign to compel the state of Georgia to release the body-camera and forensic record continued. The case was named in U.N. Special Rapporteur communications on environmental defenders. The Stop Cop City legal-defense network grew.
The state of Georgia has not, as of the end of 2024, charged any officer involved in the shooting. The DeKalb County district attorney announced in 2023 he would not pursue charges. The fact pattern that has been built into the public record — 57 rounds at close range, no body-camera footage, contested ballistics, hands consistent with surrender — is now part of the durable historical record. The state\'s account is part of that record too. They are not consistent with each other.
NPPC marks January 18 every year and will continue to publish on the Terán case as the civil suit moves through federal court.
