It Could Happen Here - On the Ground at Stop Cop City, Part 1: The Shooting

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

The Georgia State Patrol kill a forest defender during a police raid on the Weelaunee Forest. Garrison travels to Atlanta to talk with people in the movement; this episode covers the police's escalation of violence and what happened the day of the shooting. https://www.gofundme.com/f/for-family-of-manuel-tortuguita-paez-teran  Music by the Narcissist Cookbook and Propaganda.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast,

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by

an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Around 8 a.m. Wednesday, January 18th, a force defender who went by Torteguita sent out a text message that read, Morning Raid, Please Help. Just minutes prior, a multi-agency coalition of heavily armed law enforcement officers led by the Georgia State Patrol began a raid on the Walani Forest in southeast Atlanta. Encampments have sprung up throughout the forest since November of 2021 in protest and militant opposition to a proposed militarized police training facility

with a mock city to practice combating civil unrest in the wake of 2020. The corporate-funded Atlanta Police Foundation seeks to control over 300 acres of the Wolani, or South River Forest, to construct this sprawling, state-of-the-art police compound, with a starting budget of $90 million for its first phase of construction. The police raid on January 18th, 2023, started off pretty similar to previous raids that had taken place in the prior months. But for the Georgia State Patrol, seemingly it was their first time leading such a raid in the woods. Police shut down the parking lot at Entrenchment Creek Park and nearby streets before entering the tree line with

guns drawn. Within the first hour, SWAT teams arrested two people in the woods and destroyed multiple tents. And then shortly after 9am, forest defenders in the woods reported hearing a rapid sequence of about a dozen gunshots. Quickly, news spread that Georgia State Patrol officers shot and killed a protester in the woods who was defending the forest, and that a state trooper was being sent to Grady Hospital with a bullet wound. After the gunshots rang in the air, police were quick to publicize a palatable sequence of events depicting an exchange of gunfire. Rather predictably, the police claimed that the deceased force defender had surprised the armored SWAT team and fired first. This is Peter, a force defender I talked with a few days after the shooting.

So luckily I was in the woods on that day. Just on a whim, I decided to stay in town. The day of the shooting was really jarring. Trying to figure out who was safe and who was unaccounted for was like the main thing on my mind for most of the day. And by the afternoon, I realized that it was probably tort. The last message that he sent was at 8 a.m. saying, Please help. And the shooting was at 8 a.m. saying,

morning raid, please help. And the shooting was at 9 a.m. It was a weird space to be in of knowing that it was likely tort a Gita that had died, but not being able to grieve yet because not really having confirmation. The only eyewitnesses were the police and then all the other witnesses just like heard noises. In contradiction to the exchange of gunfire narrative, activists on the ground reported hearing a single burst of gunfire and suspected that the injured trooper was hit by friendly fire and cautioned against taking police narrative as fact due to cops track record of lying about police killings and covering for fellow officers.

Here's Sam from the Atlanta Community Press Collective for more information about the sequence of events that day. We know from speaking to people who were in the area on that day that PD, the various police agencies that were involved in the raid, began the operation around maybe 7.30 or 8. Records show that two people were arrested maybe 30 to 40 minutes before Tort was shot. Tort was shot around 9 a.m. Some of our sources that were in the woods at the time

say they only heard like one, I guess you could call it a volley of gunfire followed by a large boom. You can speculate a lot about those statements, but they were pretty independent. They were almost all identical and independent of each other. We know that. Sorry, it's hard to talk about.

Yeah. It wasn't until late into the night that people in the movement were able to confirm that the person killed by the Georgia State Patrol was Manuel Teran, also known by their forest name Tortuguita, which means little turtle. Tortuguita was a young, queer, Afro-Venezuelan, 26-year-old forest defender described by friends and loved ones as your friendly neighborhood anarchist, as a kind, earnest, fierce, welcoming, funny, exceedingly helpful, and brave person. They were an artist, an urban farmer, a trained street medic, and heavily involved in mutual aid all across the South. This is It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis, or just Gare, and after

checking in with friends and various people I know in the movement, I made my way down to Atlanta late Wednesday night. I've been reporting on and writing about the Defend the Forest and Stop Cop City movement since summer of 2021. Last year, in 2022, I put out around six hours of audio related to the forest encampments, protests, organizing, weeks of action, and the forgotten history of the prison farm that operated on the land cop city is slated to be built on. But these new episodes serve as a follow-up to the two-part series from last May titled On the Ground at Defend the Atlanta Forest. But the various updates put out since then will certainly help fill in the gaps. This four-part series will feature interviews with forest defenders, audio clips from On the Ground in Atlanta, and accounts on what's changed the past few months.

the ground in Atlanta and accounts on what's changed the past few months. Episode 1, which you're listening to right now, will largely cover the events around the shooting itself. Episode 2 will get into who Tortuguita was as a person and the stories about them from friends and comrades. Episode 3 and 4 will cover protests in the wake of the police killing, state repression, and how the movement might evolve going forward. Due to increasing state repression, we will be using a mix of voice distortion and redubbed voice replacement for some of the interviews and discussions I had with forest defenders on the ground in Atlanta. defenders on the ground in Atlanta. Speaking of, the next forest defender you're going to hear from is Cricket, talking about their experiences the day of the shooting. I mean, I can only obviously only speak for myself. For me, it was terrifying. We had obviously already lived through the raid in December, but when we heard someone had been shot and killed, it was terrifying, in part because of the complete lack of information. We had so few details for so long,

and it wasn't, at least for me, it wasn't until the following day that I found out that it was tort. And it was just devastating. I mean, there's not really words for it. It felt like the world stopped and then kept going, but it shouldn't have. Like, it felt like it should have stayed stopped. Like, it shouldn't have kept turning. After the deadly shooting in the morning, the police continued their multi-agency raid of the Walani Forest in a pretty regular fashion, with cops reportedly firing pepper balls at people up in tree houses and making arrests throughout the day, into the night, and even the next morning. I think a total of seven folks were arrested in the forest that day.

It might have been six. Six arrested on the day Tort died, and then one person remained the last tree sitter. One person remained the last tree sitter. The last person arrested in the deadly police raid was up in the trees overnight and surrounded by police for about 20 hours straight. All seven people arrested in the forest were charged with criminal trespassing and domestic terrorism. There was one person who remained in a tree sit because we had some communication with them throughout the night. They were just like perched in their climbing rig in a tree for about 12 hours until a little after sunrise when DeKalb County SWAT moved in and took them into custody, I guess you could say, as they were trying to repel back up the tree. They had been in the tree pretty much the whole day and then all night.

They ran out of food and water, I think sometime after nightfall. And then after dark, they were turning their phone on and off to conserve battery. So it was a little sporadic. They were able to send us some pictures of two cops standing in the platform of like a truck you would use to work on a telephone pole. And they both had like the SWAT operator helmets on and one of them had a long gun. And then later on in the evening, four or five police cars just backed up to the tree and just surrounded the tree and shown their spotlights up in the tree. And the cops that were up there overnight, they didn't say anything. They were just waiting. They were just waiting for the sun to come up so SWAT could move in.

They were just waiting for the sun to come up so SWAT could move in. The night of the shooting, before we even knew who was killed, there was a small vigil turned to march in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta. The first 24 hours after the shooting were extremely hectic, as many people were not even sure who the police had killed. Obviously, the first thing on everyone's mind was who was killed. And by late Wednesday night, some folks that help us source our reporting came to us saying that they believed it was this person, that they believed it was Tort. A lot of people's friend was just murdered by the police and folks wanted to get ahead of the police narrative.

And as a community press collective, of course, we wanted to support the community in that. So we just immediately offered like to post whatever towards family, and I believe their partner consented to. That was the primary thing once the community had kind of definitively identified that it was tort, was obtaining consent from those closest to tort to publish their name, any pictures, details. And we wanted to give people a way to help tell everyone who was about to be paying a lot of attention to the story who TORT actually was and not who the police would like people

to think Tork was. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground playground for billionaires from the chaotic world of generative ai to the destruction of google search better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of

tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose this season i'm going to be joined by everyone from nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and i'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts.

Check out betteroffline.com. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. State agencies were swift in their attempts to control the narrative surrounding the deadly raid.

Hours after the killing, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation set up a press conference as the raid was very much still ongoing. First, a GBI spokesperson explained the purpose of the raid. A GBI spokesperson explained the purpose of the raid. The operation's goal is to secure the site of the future City of Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Next, GBI Director Mike Register gave his account of the day's events so far. As you are aware, a few weeks ago, several individuals were arrested for domestic terrorism in the area around the future site of the public safety training facility. This morning the GBI with other local state law enforcement agencies,

such as the DeKalb PD, Atlanta PD, the Georgia State Patrol, and Georgia DNR conducted a planned clearing operation to remove individuals who were illegally occupying the area. At approximately 9 o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, an individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper. Other law enforcement personnel returned fire and self-defense and evacuated the trooper to a safe area. The individual who fired upon law enforcement and shot the trooper was killed in the exchange of gunfire. The GBI is working, the officer involved shooting, and the

investigation is still active and fluid. The circumstances was an individual confronted law enforcement and I don't think that he was seen until he fired. I'm not sure, right? Later that day, a GBI statement claimed that officers located Tort inside a tent in the woods and that they did not comply with verbal commands from law enforcement officers. The day after the shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation also announced that there is no body cam footage of the incident. They also claimed that 25 campsites were located and removed Wednesday, and that, quote, mortar-style fireworks, edged weapons, pellet rifles, gas masks, and a blowtorch were recovered, unquote. After people pointed out that the list of recovered items was absent any

firearms, the next day, the GBI released a photo of a nine millimeter handgun allegedly found at the scene of the shooting. It was the only firearm police claim they found in their extensive sweep of the forest. The GBI has been, as the independent agency investigating all of this, has changed their story a little bit, which it was a breaking news story. I think they first went before the cameras at noon when it happened at 9 a.m., not to grant the police any kind of leeway at all, because fuck them them but it was a rapidly evolving situation as they say that said the story changed kind of dramatically over the first few days they released an initial list of like items that had recovered but it didn't mention a gun and then when the community kind of said, hey, you said torch shot this trooper, where's the gun?

Then a gun was produced. Then when people still didn't believe it, the GBI said that they had a bill of sale for the gun. The GBI and Georgia State Patrol have also come out and said that they won't release the identity of the trooper for concerns about their safety. Results from an independent autopsy were released on February 3rd. It found 13 gunshot wounds. Attached to the report was a statement from Tortuguita's family, of which I will read, quote, the GBI has claimed that Manny shot an officer and that the bullet matches the gun possessed by Manny. But even if that is true, there are still many unanswered

questions. The GBI has selectively released information about Manny's death, says civil rights attorney Jeff Filipovitz. They claim Manny failed to follow orders. What orders? The GBI has not talked about the fact that Manny faced a firing squad, when those shots were fired, or who fired them. While the GBI has publicly stated there's no body camera footage of the shooting, it has not stated whether there is any audio or other video from other sources, such as aerial drones or helicopters that were used during the time of the incident. The family has contacted the GBI and specifically requested that it released whatever audio and video exists of the incident or any other information that would shed light on what happened.

Any evidence, even if it's only an audio recording, will help the family piece together what happened on the morning of January 18th. This information is critical and it is being withheld, said Brian Spears, a civil rights attorney with nearly five decades of experience litigating police shootings. Unquote. Whatever you believe about the exact series of events that led to Tort's death, personally, I doubt that we'll ever know what happened for sure. But regardless, the killing of a forced offender at the hands of police, coupled with the domestic terrorism charges, marks a significant escalation in the fight against Cop City. And even environmental activism in this country at large, as this seems to be the first killing of an environmental

protester by US law enforcement. As horrific as this escalation is, it's not out of the blue as one might think. All the way back in May of 2022, police were already talking on scanners about using deadly force against Stop Cop City protesters. Oh yeah, right? Told you, deadly force encounter. So last time I was like in the woods for a

decent amount of time was like last, last spring, last summer. What, how has, in what ways has like living in the woods changed since then? Like what, what, what sort of developments I guess has, has there been? Well, one thing that's changed in the day-to-day life in the woods in the past several months is that the raids by the police have been more thorough. And so it's required a lot more vigilance to live in the woods and a lot more being aware of places to run and hide and escape routes. The past few months, police raids have been increasingly violent and destructive.

From the demolition of the gazebo in Wolani People's Park to the flattening of community gardens and the trashing of makeshift cafes and kitchens within the forest. Using consistently escalated violent tactics, police have routinely attacked protesters with chemical weapons and rubber bullets, have cut tree limbs and safety lines from under them, and reportedly threatened lethal force, often targeting just peaceful people who were sitting in trees or walking through the public park. In an article for the Bitter Southerner, an unnamed tree sitter spoke about a police raid in September of 2022, where they described their interactions with law

enforcement as such, quote, they threatened to shoot me. They didn't draw their guns, but they talked about it. Several showed their sidearms while locking eyes with me. They very easily could have killed my friend in the other tree sit. It was fucking nuts, unquote. And here's a bit from Peter again. Ever since the beginning, it's been on my mind that, you know, there's a possibility of people dying in the woods. Ever since I started living in the woods, beginning of the encampments, it was just something that kept coming up into my mind as a possibility. I think before this happened, though, people were generally under the impression that the police wouldn't murder forest offenders because it would look bad for them.

Just a month prior to the deadly January raid, another police raid took place a couple weeks before Christmas, which resulted in the first domestic terrorism charges being levied against people arrested near the forest. people arrested near the forest. In the aftermath of this raid, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Solidarity Fund talked about the developing pattern of police escalation against the protest movement and warned that steadily increasing police repression would lead to protesters being killed. And it's clear that if the public doesn't respond, if the public doesn't do something about this, that escalation is going to continue. Are we going to end up in a situation where the police are murdering protesters in order to advance not public safety, but their particular political agenda in building Cop City? like domestic terrorism not only make life for the people charged a living hell, it also lays the narrative groundwork to justify extreme physical escalations of force and increasingly brutal crackdowns. Take it from the GBI director himself.

As Director Lyle said, I'm Director Mike Register of the GBI. And over the last several months, law enforcement and portions of our community have experienced growing criminal behavior and terroristic acts committed by individuals and groups concerning the building of Atlanta's new public safety training center. These individuals and groups have attempted to disguise their activities as being protest against the building of this facility. I'm going to read a short quote from an article for the Inhabit Territories newsletter that sums this up nicely. Quote, the violent escalation which led to this murder comes during increased and coordinated

repression against the movement to defend the Atlanta forest. Where the movement has built a diverse and welcoming community through years of organizing. The police have used every tactic to bad mouth, harass, threaten, surveil, criminalize, and attack participants.

Unquote. One of the force defenders I spoke with who goes by Noah talked about coming to terms with something that everyone kind of knew was a possibility, but still had this element of shock and disbelief? I think it was really shocking. I think any time you introduce police into a situation, you have the possibility of somebody dying. That's what cops do.

They murder with impunity. So I think anybody who was out in the forest, anybody who spent time in and around activism against the police knows that this is a thing that can happen to people fighting against various types of state power. But it was really, really shocking. I think everyone was just kind of at a loss. I personally, I mean, it just kind of like, I don't know, I sat with it for a really long time. It was just kind of like, there was an area of disbelief to it, just kind of knowing that like, these were the people that we are fighting against, and like this is the type of thing that they're capable of, but just being very shocked and

really scared that like this is where we were, that, like, the police were now killing activists and, you know, how likely they're going to get away with it. It was a really terrifying implication for the future of the movement and for the future of all social struggles in the U.S. Before you flush and bone, before you build on, before they chop them down, there was a forest. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network,ailable on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline Podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look

at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Check out betteroffline.com. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world

as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head. Search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it.

Following news of the shooting, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides bail and legal assistance to political prisoners, protesters, and activists, put out a statement saying, quote, Georgia State Patrol's story is suspect. They've released few details. We are concerned a police cover-up could be underway. We are preparing a legal team to investigate and pursue a wrongful death suit, unquote. Here's Cricket again talking about the trustworthiness of the official information being released about the shooting. And I mean, we still have so little information. And the information that we do have is so tainted. It's so untrustworthy that it doesn't actually feel like information at all.

It doesn't feel like we can, it doesn't feel like information we can trust. That's sort of the long and short of it. Last month, over 1,300 climate justice and racial justice groups from across the United States joined Atlanta residents and community organizations in calling for an independent investigation into the killing of Tortiquita. In any police shooting, you'd like to see an independent investigation into the killing of Tortiquita. In any police shooting, you'd like to see an independent investigation because how can you let the person who shot the gun investigate the crime, right? So it was a pretty easy thing to call for, but especially given the inconsistencies in everyone's story, you know, the GBI has said, has changed a couple times, like the sequence of events, and that first, like, tort surprised them, then they surprised tort, then tort was in a tent.

You know, the narrative has changed a couple times. GSP, Georgia State Patrol, also does not wear body cams. And that was, that's not, that's just a day-to-day thing for them. I hate to say it, but that's not something they did specifically for this raid, just to screw the movement over. It's actually a pretty well-known issue in the state. They're refusing to wear body cams, considering how many people they kill every year.

It has come out that APD says that they have body cams after the incident. Yes. We know the raid was kind of a joint operation between Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Patrol, Atlanta Police Department, DeKalb County Police Department, and some other state agencies. Georgia State Patrol seems to have been the ones in the immediate area when it seems to have been a trooper that shot Tort. Atlanta police first came out and said that there was no body cam footage, that they weren't there. And it seems to be true that they weren't in the immediate area when the shot was fired.

But they kind of later had to correct themselves and say, well, we have body cam of the incident, but we're not going to release it. Like of the incident itself or like during the time of the incident? Yes. Of what their officers were doing in the part of the raid they were enacting when to work a shot. I have seen claims from both local media and law enforcement that the GBI investigation does qualify as independent, framing the GBI's investigation into the actions of the Georgia State Patrol as this separate, non-biased operation, despite the GBI being fellow participants in the deadly raid. As an interesting little side note, the Georgia State Patrol and the Bureau of Investigation began in the late 1930s as two branches of the same agency,

the Georgia Department of Public Safety. So the standard in the state, I'm sure a lot of places when a person is shot by the police, you get a supposedly independent agency to review it in Georgia. It's usually the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. But the GBI was a participant in the raid. The GBI has been involved in, the GBI has been present for several forest raids. several forest raids. Open records requests show that they've been involved in emails and conversations about the forest for quite some time now. We know their agents were on scene or probably in the woods when tort was

shot. In addition to that, they're both state agencies. In addition to that, they're still police police are going to cover for each other. We know this by now. A day after the shooting, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation stated that there was no body cam footage of the incident. But open records requests were filed asking for body cam footage from the forest around the time of the incident, not only from the state patrol, but also from the Atlanta and DeKalb County Police Departments. Two days after the police killing, an Atlanta PD spokesperson said that APD officers were not in the area of the shooting and that no footage from Wednesday's operation would be released, citing the ongoing investigation. And then a whole three weeks after the shooting on February 8th,

the Atlanta Police Department released body cam footage from four officers who were in the woods at the time of the shooting. An officer in the group estimated that they were just 100 feet away. I'm not going to play audio of the gunshots or any use of police weapons, but I'll be including a few brief snippets of police chatter that I and others found relevant. Most of the clips will only be a few seconds long, so you can skip ahead if you want. I'll give you a heads up. At time of recording, there are four videos released, and they show a self-described quote-unquote clearing operation being done by a single group of APD officers. Shortly after tearing apart and slicing up two tents with a pocket knife, suddenly four gunshots are heard nearby, followed a second and a half later by a large volume of gunfire. I estimate over 30 gunshots fired by multiple weapons. No verbal

commands were picked up by the microphone. Two chest-mounted cameras were rolling before the shooting. 45 seconds after the gunfire, APD officers were told to turn on their body cams, and two more cameras began rolling at that point. Officer down started getting repeated over the radio, but initially there were questions among officers about how much of the sounds heard were fireworks versus gunshots. Multiple officers identified hearing suppressed gunfire, meaning the use of a quote-unquote silencer. Here's two clips totaling around 15 seconds.

8-5, is that a firework or is somebody shooting at us? silencer. Here's two clips totaling around 15 seconds. Just minutes after police opened fire and killed Tortuguita, an APD officer on the ground said this in response to the Georgia State Patrol trooper that was shot. You fucked your own officer up. Possibly said in response to other officers noting that the gunshots sounded suppressed. Confirmation spread on the ground that a state trooper was shot, but never once mentioning anything about a protester firing. Police continued advancing toward a nearby tent with guns drawn and officers yelling back and forth to check their crossfire. As teams were organizing the evac of the injured trooper and warning about crossfire,

police stated that they did not want to cause another incident. Yeah, we just need to hold until we can get them out. Get the officer out first. We don't want to cause another incident. At this point, there was a great deal of intentional coordination of officer movement and a lot of effort being put into preventing police officers from being in each other's line of fire. This next batch of audio will be a little bit longer, about a minute. Hey, watch crossfire over there. Watch crossfire. We're on the other side.

Listen, listen, listen to what I'm saying. Everyone is back here, so we need to shift. Everyone is back here. So if y'all shoot from that side, there's more officers over here. So we need to shift back to this side of the tent. Hey, Sergeant, Sergeant Hill, Potter, come this way. We we need to shift back on this side of the table hey so it's on the hill Potter come this way we watch this way I got you, I got you, I got you. I got you. This is the base of our semi circle. Everyone needs to switch back this way.

Hey, keep coming this way. Keep coming back this way. You good? You got me? Anybody get in contact with anyone from either the police or the police? I got you. I got you. I got you.

I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. I got you. Hey, keep coming this way. Keep coming back this way. You good?

You done? Anybody get in contact with anyone from the GSP area? Who is that right there? The sergeant. The Chandler? They need who? Police started firing off flashbangs and prepping chemical weapons as they moved further into the woods near where the deadly police shooting just took place moments prior.

Police! K-9! Or you will be bit! Fuck around and you're gonna find out! From another angle, you can hear a cop laugh in response to his fellow officer threatening, fuck around and find out, just minutes after police killed a protester. Fuck around and you're gonna find out just minutes after police killed a protester. If you listen carefully, you can hear an officer muttering about how large the police presence is, saying, we've got so many resources. Cops shot off quote-unquote less lethal pepper balls at an unoccupied green tent and only ended up gassing themselves as they had to walk through the peppered up trees on their way to the tent.

Literally, there was over a minute and a half of just straight coughing. When they arrived at the tent, officers got into a brief conversation about the deadly shooting that just took place after the shooting, even before the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's first press conference, the Defend the Forest Twitter account said, quote, we have reason to believe the officer shot today was hit by friendly fire and not by the protester who was killed, unquote. In an extremely uncharacteristic move, the GBI put out a statement commenting on the evidence during their ongoing investigation, cautioning against, quote, unquote, speculation and that, quote, memory and perception are fragile and a myriad of factors can influence

perception and memory, unquote. The morning after the body cam footage went public, a statement was released by Tortuguita's family saying, quote, the videos show the clearing of the forest was a paramilitary operation that set the stage for the excessive use of force, and also call into question previous reporting regarding the events leading up to the police shooting, unquote. Tort's own mother, who recently arrived in the United States on an emergency visa, said weeks ago in an interview for The Guardian, quote, I will go to the U.S. to defend Manuel's memory. I'm convinced that they were assassinated in cold blood, and I'm gonna clear Manuel's name. They killed them, like they tear down the trees in the forest, a forest Manuel loved with a passion, unquote. There is an official

GoFundMe for Tortuguita managed by and for their family, with funds going to funeral expenses, plus travel, legal costs, and to support the family in general during this time of immense grief. The fundraiser will be linked in the show notes. This first episode has been a lot, tackling many of the most gruesome aspects of the struggle thus far. Cricket talked about one way of responding to this influx of anger and grief that everyone's been experiencing since the shooting. Yeah, I mean, there's just been, there's been so much grief and so much anger and so many people coming together and so many people trying to support one another. There's been a, at least among the folks I know, a lot of trying to think through like, what would Tort do, WWTD, and like

loving one another and supporting one another keeps being one of the first things on that list. We will hear more about Tortugita in the next episode. Memories and stories from friends, partners, and comrades based on conversations and moments from the vigil. But today I'll leave us with the words of Tortuguita, quote, the abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty, when there are no more cops, when the land has been given back, that's when it's over. I don't expect to live to see that day, necessarily. I mean, I hope so, but I smoke. Unquote. Music for this episode by The Narcissist's Cookbook and

Propaganda. See you on the other side. The earliest of instruments, the melody we mimicking is the sound of wind whistling Long before the sapiens chanting under the stars, her camped under a canopy She sang her own song and she was far from silent, no virus or violence But the fragrance of her flowers, it continued to invite us Her medicine, materials, our vitamins, our minerals And all that is essential, it just grew right beside us And Tysa started fighting over the gifts that she'd provide us Scorching the very soil that all of us derived from And when empires learn and can't withstand fire

We return to the land where our ancestors reigned and We are all but creatures, we still bear her features The one and only reason all living things is breathing The cities deceive and leave, go see the dirt Young'll be among the lungs of mother earth yeah before you take your throne It could happen here is a production of cool zone media. For more podcasts from cool zone media, visit our website, cool zone media.com,

or check us out on the I heartartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. app, Apple Podcasts, and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran

with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from.