The office of Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) filed a motion on Tuesday to use the diary of slain “Forest Defender” Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán in the racketeering trial of more than 60 activists allegedly tied to violent protests at the site of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
Police say Terán opened fire on Georgia State Patrol (GSP) troopers at the site of the public safety training center in January, prompting troopers to fatally shoot him. Prosecutors determined the troopers involved in the fatal shooting will face no charges in October.
Prosecutors say that Terán’s “diary entries consist of violent anti-police rhetoric and drawings, notes on meetings in the forest,” and “to do lists” that include lists of crimes to commit, as well as “philosophical musings about the tyranny of government.”
Justifying including the diary in the case, Deputy Attorney General John Fowler argued in the state’s filing that Terán (pictured above) was a co-conspirator of the defendants, and his “own writings corroborate this fact,” as his diary entries “list crimes that should be committed, coordinated meetings for the StopCopCity movement, and overalls embodies the plans and motives of the self-identified ‘Forest Defenders.'”
Terán hand-numbered 239 pages of the diary is included in the filing, but the entries seem sporadic, with some dated to 2021 near the end of the diary. In one such entry on the page Terán labeled 237, he summarized his intention to “revolt” because “all they care about” is “money [and] stuff” but “not people.”
In a nearby, undated entry about law enforcement, Terán seemed to address concerns about “lawlessness,” declaring that Portland and Seattle are doing “just fine.”
Another undated entry on the page Terán labeled 154, which seems to reference the Stop Cop City movement, includes Terán writing that “killing cops is okay.”
Though he acknowledged “killing people is generally a bad thing,” and “fascists and cops count as people,” he justified, “killing them is morally [and] ethically just because they are threats to the safety of so many people.”
“Death is not the end, but it can stop a fascist in their tracks.” Terán wrote, “the ideology also needs to die, but it’s really hard to kill an idea.” He wrote the words “ideas can only be,” then crossed them out, and instead wrote, “Dead cops! Dead cops everywhere!”
Later in the same entry, Terán seemed to indicate his hatred for law enforcement transcends politics, adding, “no communist cops or socialist cops either.”
Near that entry, Terán drew a crude illustration of a classical building and labeled it “APF,” which matches the acronym for the Atlanta Police Foundation. Pillars of the building seem to be labeled “funders, office, community, Board of Directors, local [government], construction, insurance, regulators,” and “weapons,” though some of the text is illegible.
Under the building, Terán drew an arrow and wrote, “destroy targets! All need to be targeted and all need to fall.” Terán seemed to tie his illustration to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center below, in what seems to be a flow chart connecting “construction, permit/zoning, insurance” to “forests” and “top donors.”
Activists attempted to stop the Public Safety Training Center with a petition calling for a public referendum on the facility’s future, but complicated legal decisions have left the fate of the petition effort undecided until a federal appeals court weighs in.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens told the Buckhead Young Republicans the facility was nearly halfway complete in October; polling showed a majority of Georgians back the facility around the same time.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Manuel Terán” by Defend ATL Forest Movement.
