Who was Manuel Páez Terán, the Venezuelan who was shot 57 times by the police for defending a forest in the US.

Venezuelan Manuel Páez Terán, 26, died on January 18 of 57 bullets while participating in a protest against the construction of a police training mega-center in a forest in Atlanta, USAaccording to the third official autopsy revealed on Thursday of last week.

“We are devastated to learn that our son, our sweet Manny, was cruelly gunned down by police and sustained 57 gunshot wounds throughout his body,” said Belkis Teran, the mother of Manuel Páez Terán, according to Telemundo Atlanta. “Although the autopsy report provides additional information, it does not answer the questions that the family still has,” she added.

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It should be noted that the first official autopsy spoke of 13 bullets in the young man’s body.

The third autopsy joins the previous independent one that was commissioned by the family and that in February indicated that Manuel Paez Teran he was shot when he was with his hands up.

Fiona Paez holds a photograph of environmental activist Manuel Terán Páez, who was killed by Atlanta police. (Photo by CHENEY ORR / AFP). (CHENEY ORR/)

According to CNN, the second autopsy indicated that the victim was on the ground, with his back upright and his hands up when he died at the hands of the Georgia State Police.

“Manuel was looking death in the face, with his hands up when they killed him,” civil rights attorney Brian Spears said in February, citing the findings of the autopsy. “The second autopsy is a snapshot of what happened, but it is not the whole story. What we want is simple: the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) should meet with the family and release the report of their investigation,” he added.

According to the law firm Spears and Filipovitz, the second autopsy also reveals that Páez Terán’s hands had bullet exit wounds on both palms.

Manuel Páez Terán was an environmental activist.

Manuel Paez Teranwho they called little turtlewas part of a group of environmentalists who protest against the construction of the so-called cop city, a mega-police training center that will occupy a wooded area south of Atlanta. Some of those protests have ended in riots, with people arrested and property damaged, CNN notes.

Manuel Esteban Paez Teran born on April 23, 1996 in Maracaibo, Venezuela, within an evangelical family. His grandfather was a pastor, indicates CNN.

Manuel left Venezuela at 7 or 8 years old. We live in Aruba, in London, in Egypt, in Russia. He was very smart, he learned to speak Arabic ”, his mother told CNN in March Belkis Teran.

In Aruba, Manuel He studied medicine for a year and a half. Her mother said that she left her degree because she was not going to be able to bear losing human lives while practicing her profession.

The family then moved to Panama, where Manuel Páez Terán studied psychology and sociology.

Finally, he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Florida State University with a BA in Psychology in 2021.

His mother told CNN that Manuel read a lot and got involved in many social and environmental causes., such as cleaning beaches or parks in Panama. In that country, he founded and led an environmental club and was also an assistant to a biology professor.

“He respected and cared for people, which is why everyone mourns his absence terribly. Manuel stood out a lot in the community of the forest because he served, cooked, washed the dishes and picked up the garbage, jobs that nobody likes to do ”Belkis recalled.

According to Univision, in Atlanta Manuel Paez Teran was part of a group of environmental activists calling themselves Forest Defenders, who had moved into a 34-hectare area where authorities plan to build a mega-training center for police and firefighters, which protesters dubbed cop city.

The Municipal Council of Atlanta approved the construction of Public Safety Training Center in 2021 and assigned a budget of 90 million dollars.

Manuel Páez Terán died in a forest in Atlanta. (EFE).

The activists maintain that the construction of a shooting range, a “simulated town” to rehearse raids and a track for driving courses It would lead to the felling of hundreds of trees.

the lover of little turtlecalled Vienna, told the AP agency that they started living in the forest to oppose the construction. He was an eco-anarchist committed to the fight against climate change. and with stopping the expansion of a police state, said the woman.

The police assure that on January 18 there was a confrontation with the activists and say that Manuel Paez Teran shot first.

The Georgia Investigation Office maintains that the bullet that injured an agent was fired from a weapon that belonged to Páez Terán, which he had bought in 2020.

However, Univisión points out that the official autopsy did not find “gunpowder residue” on clothing or wounds little turtlewhich would indicate that he would have fired a weapon.

The authorities do not have the recording of a body video camera to clarify the facts.

In summary, the official version says that the young man refused to follow the instructions of the agents and that he fired first at one of them. The agents responded and fired more than fifty shots at him.

According to CBS News, the third autopsy did not find sufficient evidence to determine with certainty what position Páez Terán was in when he was killed.

“Since most shootings involving multiple shots are dynamic events [con movimiento]Attempts to place the deceased in a particular position at a specific time are fraught with potential inaccuracies.wrote the medical examiner.

“There are too many variables regarding the movement of the deceased and the shooters to draw definitive conclusions about the position of the body,” concluded.

Belkis Terán and her family next to a photo of Manuel during a press conference, Monday, March 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Slitz)

Univisión indicates that the official autopsy maintains that there were so many bullets that he received little turtle that one of them “fell from the left sleeve of his shirt” while the forensics undressed the body.

Regarding the cause of death, the forensic doctor determined that it was due to “multiple gunshot wounds” and the manner of death was classified as “homicide.” Univisión points out that forensic doctors usually use the word “homicide” simply to mean death at the hands of another person and not as a criminal law term to designate a wrongdoing.

One of the shots “passed through and collapsed the right eyeball and then entered the cranial cavity through the right orbital roof.”according to the autopsy.

“Gunshot wounds involved the head, torso, and bilateral upper and lower extremities, including hands and right foot”, concluded the official forensic report.

Belkis Terán and her son Pedro in the forest where Tortuguita camped as a protest against the so-called Cop City. (Páez Terán family).

Manuel Páez Terán’s family does not believe he had a weapon. “No, that’s false. He was without weapons, without anything, ”Pedro, his younger brother, told CNN.

On Sunday March 12, the family went to the forest where Manuel died to spread his ashes.

“He was a jovial person, who made jokes, he liked to make art, he painted for that. For Manuel, painting was a way of expressing himself. Because of that, he would never use a gun.”his mother told CNN Belkis.

Belkis said her eldest son, Daniel, was born in Chicago and served in the US Navy for 10 years.

“As a veteran, he is very angry that these things happen in his own country. We are people of faith, we believe in divine justice, and I do believe that there will be justice. I can’t tell you exactly how, but I do believe that there will be justice.”he claimed.

Belkis told CNN that she wants Manuel to be remembered as a cheerful, athletic person.who loved skateboarding, skiing, scuba diving, driving boats, and also having unlimited generosity.

Source: Elcomercio