On the Ground at Stop Cop City, Part 1: The Shooting

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.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Around eight am Wednesday, January, a forest defender who went
by Tortuguita 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 Woolwanee Forest in southeast Atlanta.

(00:45):
Encampments have sprung up throughout the forest since November one
in the protest and militant opposition to a proposed militarized
police training facility with a mock city to practice combating
civil unrest in the wake of the corporate funded Atlanta
Police Foundation seeks to control over three hundred acres of

(01:06):
the Willannee or South River Forest to construct this sprawling,
state of the art police compound, with a starting budget
of ninety million dollars for its first phase of construction.
The police raid on January started off pretty similar to
previous raids that had taken place in the prior months,

(01:28):
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

(01:49):
nine am, forest defenders in the woods reported hearing a
rapid sequence of about a dozen gun shots. Quickly, news
spread that Georgia State role 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,

(02:13):
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

(02:34):
luckily I was in the woods on that day. Um.
Just in a whim, I decided to stay in town. Um.
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 tour. The last message that they sent
was at eight am saying morning raid, Please help um,

(02:56):
and the shooting was at nine am. It was a
weird space to be an of knowing that it was
likely towards Gia 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

(03:18):
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

(03:39):
sequence of events that day. We know from speaking to
people who were in the area on that day that
p D m HM the various police agencies that were
involved in the raid began the operation around maybe seven
thirty or eight. Records show that two people were arrested

(04:04):
maybe thirty to forty minutes before Tour It was shot.
Tour It was shot around nine am. Um. Some of
our are 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

(04:28):
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
it's hard to talk about. Um. It wasn't until late

(04:48):
into the night that people in the movement were able
to confirm that the person killed by the Georgia State
Patrol was Manual Tehran, also known by their forest name
to to Gheta, which means little turtle. Torto Guita, was
a young Queer Afro Venezuelan year old forest defender, described

(05:09):
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 in urban farmer, a
train street medic, and heavily involved in mutual aid all
across the South. This is it could happen here. I'm

(05:34):
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 last year. In
two I put it around six hours of audio related

(05:57):
to the forest encampments, protests organized saying weeks of action,
and the forgotten history of the prison farm that operated
on the land Cops 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

(06:19):
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. Episode one, What
You're listening to right Now will largely cover the events
around the shooting itself. Episode two will get into who

(06:43):
Tortuguita was as a person and the stories about them
from friends and comrades. Episode three and four 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 re dubbed voice replacement for some of

(07:07):
the interviews and discussions I had with forest 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. God, I mean, I
can only obviously only speak for myself. Um, for me,
it was terrifying. We we had obviously already lived through

(07:29):
the raid in December, but when we heard someone had
been shot and killed, it was it was terrifying, and
in part because of the complete lack of information. Uh,
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 towards um
and it it was just devastating. I mean, there's not
really words for it. It was like it felt like

(07:50):
the world stopped and then kept going. But it shouldn't
have like it felt like it should have stayed stopped
like it it shouldn't have kept turning. After the dead
the shooting in the morning, the police continued their multi
agency raid of the Wilani Forest in a pretty regular fashion,
with cops reportedly firing pepperballs at people up in treehouses

(08:12):
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 to wart died,
and then one person remained the last tree center. The

(08:34):
last person arrested in the deadly police raid, was up
in the trees overnight and surrounded by police for about
twenty 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 tresa because we had

(08:54):
some communication with them throughout the night. They were just
like perched in in their climbing reg in a tree
um for about twelve hours until a little after sunrise
when the Cab County swat moved in and took them
into custody. I guess you could say as they were

(09:15):
trying to repel back up the tree. They had been
and the tree pretty much the whole day and then
all night. Um they ran out of food and water.
I think sometime after nightfall and then after dark that
they were turning their phone on and off to to
conserve battery, so it was a little sporadic. They were

(09:37):
able to send us some pictures of two cops standing
in the platform of like a a truck you would
used to work on a telephone pole and uh, 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 like
backed up to the tree and just like surrounded there

(10:00):
ree and shown their spotlights up in the tree. And
they didn't the cops didn't that were there overnight. They
didn't say anything. They were just waiting. They were just
waiting for the sun to come up so 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.

(10:24):
The first twenty four 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 who was killed, and by late Wednesday night, some

(10:44):
folks that helped us source a reporting um came to
us saying that they believed it was this person, UM
that they believed it was toward 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

(11:07):
community in that UM, so we just immediately offered like
two post whatever um towards family and I believe their
their partner consented to um that that was the primary thing.
Once the community had kind of definite, definitively identified that

(11:27):
it was tour it was obtaining consent from from those
closest to to work 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 to actually was and

(11:49):
not who the police would like people to think to
Work was a state. Agencies were swift in their attempts

(12:16):
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 g b I spookesperson explained the purpose of the raid.
The operations goal is to secure the site of the

(12:37):
future City of Atlanta Public Safety Training Center next. Gb
I 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 scifety training facility.

(12:58):
This morning, the g b I, with other local state
law enforcement agencies such as the CAB p D, Atlanta
p D, the Georgia State Patrol, and Georgia d n R,
conducted a planned clearing operation to remove them individuals who
were illegally occupying the area. At approximately nine o'clock this morning,

(13:18):
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 gb I is working

(13:41):
the officer involved shooting and the investigation is still active
and fluid. The circumstances was an individual confronted law enforcement, uh,
and I don't think that he was seen until he fired.
I'm not sure right leader. That day, a g BI
statement claimed that officers located tour to inside a tent

(14:04):
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 twenty five campsites were located and removed Wednesday, and
that quote mortar style fireworks, edged weapons, pellet rifles, gas masks,

(14:28):
and a blowtorch were recovered unquote, after people pointed out
that the list of recovered items was absent any firearms.
The next day, the gb I released a photo of
a nine millimeter handgun allegedly found at the scene of
the shooting. It was the only firearm police claimed they
found in their extensive sweep of the forest. The gb

(14:52):
I has been as the independent agency investigating all of this.
Um 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 nine am,
not to grant the police and hegative leafy at all
because buck Um but it was a rapidly evolving situation,

(15:16):
as they say. That said, the story changed kind of
dramatically over the first few days. They released an initial
list of items that had recovered, but it didn't mention
a gun. And then when the community kind of said, hey,
he said, torch shot this this trooper, where's the gun?

(15:39):
Then a gun was produced. Then when people still didn't
believe it, the g b I said that they had
a bill of sale for the gun. The g b
I 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

(16:00):
were released on February third. It found thirteen gun shot wounds.
Attached to the report was a statement from Tortuguita's family,
of which I will read quote. The g b I
has claimed that many shot an officer and that the
bullet matches the gun possessed by many, but even if
that is true, there are still many unanswered questions. The

(16:22):
g b I has selectively released information about Manny's death,
says civil rights attorney Jeff Philipovits. They claim many failed
to follow orders. What orders the g b I has
not talked about the fact that many faced a firing
squad when those shots were fired, or who fired them.
While the g b I has publicly stated there's no

(16:43):
body camera footage on 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
g b I 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,

(17:05):
even if it's only an audio recording, will help the
family piece together what happened on the morning of January.
This information is critical and in this 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 towards death, personally,

(17:27):
I doubt that will ever know what happened for sure,
but regardless, the killing of a force defender at the
hands of police, coupled with the domestic terrorism charges, marks
a significant escalation in the fight against cops. City and
even environmental activism in this country at large, as this
seems to be the first killing of an environmental protester

(17:49):
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 two, police were already
talking on scanners about using deadly force against stop coops
city protesters. Right, how old you force encounter? So last

(18:14):
time I was like in the woods for a decent
amount of time, was like last last spring, last summer?
What how is in what ways haves 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 um the day to day life in
the woods and the past several months is that the

(18:36):
raids by the police have been more thorough and so
it's required a lot of 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 Willani People's Park to the
flattening of community gardens and the trashing of make shift

(19:00):
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

(19:20):
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 where they
described their interactions with law enforcement as such, quote, they
threatened to shoot me. They didn't draw their guns, but

(19:41):
they talked about it. Several showed their side arms 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 it's been on my mind that, you know, there's
a possibility of people dying in the woods, ever since

(20:02):
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 defenders because it would look bad for them.
Just a month prior to the deadly January raid, another
police rate took place a couple of weeks before Christmas,

(20:24):
which resulted in the first domestic terrorism charges being levied
against 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

(20:45):
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 cops city. The use of

(21:08):
infleted charges 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 g b I
director himself, as director of l said, I'm director Mike

(21:29):
Register of the g b I 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 protests against the building of this facility.

(21:54):
I'm going to read a short quote from an article
for the Inhabits Territories the 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

(22:17):
every tactic to bad mouth, harass, threaten, surveill, criminalize, and
attack participants. Unquote. One of the forced defenders I spoke with,
who goes by Noah, talked about coming to terms with
something that everyone kind of knew was the possibility, but
still had this element of shock and disbelief. I think

(22:39):
it was really shocking. I think any time you introduced
police into a situation, you have the possibility of somebody
buying what I think anybody who's in the fish, anybody
who spent time in around activision against the police like

(23:00):
thing that can happen to um two people fighting against
various types of state power. But it was it was
really really shocked, and I think everyone was just kind
of a last I personally, I mean, it's just kind
of like I saw it 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

(23:23):
that like these were the people, we were there, we
were we were fighting against them, like this is the
type of thing that they're capable of. Is being very
shocked and really scared to like this is where we were,
that like the police were now killing activists and you know,
you know likelihood going to get away with it. It

(23:43):
was a really terrified implication for the future of the movement,
for the future of all social struct listening evans. Following

(24:10):
news of the shooting, the Atlantis Solidarity Fund, which provides
bail and legal assistance to political prisoners, protesters and activists,
put out a statement saying, quote Georgia State Patrols story
is suspect. They have released few details. We are concerned
a police cover up could be underway. We are preparing

(24:30):
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 though the information that
we do have is so tainted, it's so untrustworthy that

(24:51):
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 that's sort of the long and short
of it. Last month, over 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

(25:12):
killing of tortu Quita and 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 it was a pretty easy thing to
call for, but especially given the inconsistencies in everyone's story.
You know, the g B I has said has changed

(25:33):
a couple of times, like the sequence of events, and
that first like towards surprise to them, then they're surprised TOWRT,
then Towart was in a tent you know, the narrative
has has changed a couple of 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.

(25:55):
That's hate to say it, but that's not a something
that did specifically for this rate. Just to screw the
movement over, that's it's it's actually the pretty well known
issue in the state. There were twose little war body
camps against centering how many people they kill every year.
There has come at that ap D says that they
have bodycamps. After the incident, Yes, um, we know the

(26:18):
raid was kind of a joint operation between Georgia Breau
of investigation, Georgia State Patrol, Atlanta Police Department, to Cab
County Police Department, UM 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 the shot toward. UM. Atlanta Police first came out

(26:41):
and said that there was no body camp 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 bodycam of the incident, but we're not going
to release it like on the incident itself or like
like during the time of yes, of what their officers

(27:04):
were doing in the part of the rate they were doing,
they were enacting um when twere a shot. I have
seen claims from both local media and law enforcement that
the gb I investigation does qualify as independent, framing the
g b i's investigation into the actions of the Georgia
State Patrol as this separate, non biased operation, despite the

(27:29):
g b I being fellow participants in the deadly raid.
As an interesting little side note, the Georgia State Patrol
and the Bureau of Investigation began in late nineteen thirties
as two branches of the same agency, the Georgia Department
of Public Safety, so the standard and the State. I'm
sure a lot of places when a person is shot

(27:50):
by the police, you get it's supposedly independent agency to
review it. In Georgia, it's usually the Georgia Bureau of Investigation,
But the g b I was a participant in the raid.
The GBI has been involved in the g b I
has been present for several forest raids. Um open records

(28:14):
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. We're probably in the woods
when tour It was shot. In addition to that, they're
both state agencies. In addition to that, there's still police.

(28:35):
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 camp footage from the forest around the
time of the incident, not only from the State Patrol,
but also from the Atlanta and Decab County Police departments.

(28:58):
Two days after the police killing, Atlanta p D spokesperson
said that ap D 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 eight, the
Atlanta Police Department released bodycam footage from four officers who

(29:22):
were in the woods at the time of the shooting.
An officer in the group estimated that they were just
one hundred feet away. I'm not gonna 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

(29:43):
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 ap D officers. Shortly
after tearing apart and slicing up two tents with a
pocket knife, suddenly four gun shots are heard nearby, followed

(30:08):
a second and a half later by a large volume
of gunfire. I estimate over thirty gun shots fired by
multiple weapons. No verbal commands were picked up by the microphone.
Two chest mounted cameras were rolling before the shooting. Forty
seconds after the gunfire, ap D officers were told to
turn on their body cams and two more cameras began rolling.

(30:31):
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 gun shots. Multiple
officers identified hearing suppressed gunfire, meaning the use of a
quote unquote silencer. Here's two clips totaling around fifteen seconds

(30:57):
access that sounded like suppressed gunfire. Here just minutes after
police opened fire and killed Tortuguita, an ap D officer
on the ground said this in response to the Georgia
State Patrol trooper that was shot. You fucked your own

(31:23):
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

(31:45):
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.
You know, we just we just need a hole until

(32:07):
we can get them out, get the all side at 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 badia will be a little bit longer,

(32:27):
about a minute. Hey, wat's cause fire order, Wat's cause
far We're on on the side. Let's say listen. Listen,
I say everyone is back here because we need to shift.
There's everyone is back here, so y'all shoot from that side.

(32:50):
There's more officers over here, so we need to shift
back on this side. Pump intent. Hey, so the hill
potter come this way and lots this way part of call.
All right, okay, cool, we're going on the other side. Wait,

(33:14):
wait are there? I got you? I got you right there.
This is the banks of our art semi circle. Everyone
ne could pick back this way. Hey, he coming this way,
He's coming back this way. Good? Anybody get a contact?

(33:38):
What they want from? Who are you talking about here?
They need who? Police started firing off flash bangs and
prepping chemical weapons as they moved further into the woods
near where the deadly police shooting just took place moments prior.
Holy hey, nine, are you will be bit and you're

(34:02):
gonna find out From another angle. You can hear a
cop laugh in response to his fellow officer threatening funk
around and find out just minutes after police killed a protester. Ya.
If you listen carefully, you can hear an officer muttering
about how large the police presence is, saying, we've got

(34:26):
so many resources. We don't need to rush this ship.
We guess so many resources rushes cops shot off quote
unquote les lethal pepperballs 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,

(34:48):
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 and the injured troopers secrets going to shooting there.
Huh we we get shot that music not first lear

(35:11):
worked the first one now for three round the high water.
Remember that just two hours after the shooting, even before
the Georgia Bureau of Investigations first press conference, the Defend
the Force twitter account said quote, we have reason to

(35:32):
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 g b I put out
a statement commenting on the evidence during their ongoing investigation,
cautioning against quote unquote speculation and that quote memory and

(35:52):
perception are fragile and the myriad of factors can influence
perception and memory unquote. The morning after or the body
cam footage went public, a statement was released by Tortoguita's family, saying, quote,
the videos show the clearing of the forest was a
paramilitary operation that set the stage for the excessive use

(36:13):
of force and also call into question previous reporting regarding
the events leading up to the police shooting unquote. Towards
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 US to
defend Manuals memory. I'm convinced that they were assassinated in

(36:37):
cold blood, and I'm going to clear Manuals name. They
killed them like they tear down the trees in the forest,
a forest Manual loved with a passion unquote. There is
an official go fund me for Tortuguita, managed by and
for their family, with funds going to funeral expenses, plus travel,

(36:59):
legal USTs, and to support the family in general during
this time of events 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

(37:19):
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, um, a lot of trying to
think through like what would tort do? Wwt D, and

(37:42):
like loving one another and supporting one another keeps being
one of the first things on that list. We will
hear more about Tortuguita 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 Torteguita quote the abolitionist mission isn't done

(38:05):
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 Narcissists Cookbook and Propaganda. See
you on the other side. Yeah, the rain on leaves tickling,

(38:29):
and the earliest the instruments. The melody we mimic in
is the sound of wind whistling long before the safety.
It's channing under the stars on camp under the organic
pe She sang a song, and she was far silent,
No virus or violets, but the fragrance of the flowers
that continued to invite us a medicine materials of vitamins,
of minerals and all that is essential, which just grew

(38:51):
right beside us, and Tyson started bying over the gifts
that she provides, scorching the very soil that all of
us derived from. That when empires learning can't withstand biole,
we returned to the land where our ancestors rain dance.
We are all her creatures, We still bear her features. Then,
one and only reason all living things is breathing. The
City's deceive even leave go see the jert Young go

(39:14):
be among the lungs of mother Earth. Cusey, yeah yeah,

(39:35):
down for that shot them down. There was a forest.
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zone Media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could

(39:58):
Happen Here, updated monthly. Cool Zone me to dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening.