Police Release Body Cam Footage from Shooting of Non-Binary Suspect During Domestic Terrorism Raid
Newly released police bodycam footage reveals the moment Georgia law enforcement heard the police shooting of a man in an antifa encampment.
The footage — obtained from the Atlanta Police Department — shows nearby officers reacting to the moment when a Georgia State Trooper was shot while clearing an encampment occupying a site intended for the construction of a law enforcement training center.
Footage of the Jan. 18 shooting was released on Wednesday.
The moment of the shooting comes with a volume of gunfire one might expect to see in a video from Syria or Ukraine.
Police initially appear confused after the gunshots, only for a radio transmission to clarify that an officer had been shot.
“Got one officer down,” a witness indicated on a police radio, according to PJ Media.
The footage in question doesn’t feature the moment of the shooting itself on camera — only audio from nearby law enforcement.
The recording officers proceed to fire non-lethal munitions into a green tent later in the footage, securing the area.
Progressive activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran was killed in the counter-terrorism operation — which occurred as law enforcement sought to clear a wooded area in metro Atlanta illegally occupied by left-wing militants.
Five antifa militants occupying the site were charged with domestic terrorism in December.
Teran, known colloquially as the non-binary activist “Tortuguita,” became a cause célèbre for left-wing activists after his death, according to NBC News.
Antifa militants inflicted criminal damages on an Atlanta police union facility after the shooting, in a riot that spurred a significant police response.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation asserted that Teran fired at a state trooper with a 9mm handgun during the operation, an act that led to his own fatal shooting.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says this was the gun in the possession of Manuel Esteban Paez Teran and used to shoot and injure a state trooper at the planned police training site in So. Dekalb County (WED). GBI says the 26-year-old was then shot and killed by police. pic.twitter.com/lH5ZKVe4qA
— Alex Helmick (@HelmickWABE) January 21, 2023
The GBI clarified that one police officer’s claim that the shot officer had been shot by law enforcement was incorrect after the release of the footage, according to NBC News.
“In those videos, at least one statement exists where an officer speculates that the Trooper was shot by another officer in crossfire,” the agency said in a statement.
“Speculation is not evidence. Our investigation does not support that statement.”
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