A newly released autopsy report reveals that the protester killed by Georgia state troopers in January suffered at least 57 gunshot wounds.
As Axios learned in an open records request, the autopsy performed by the DeKalb County medical examiner differs from the independent autopsy ordered by Manuel Paez Terán's family.
The Terán family previously requested to release the DeKalb autopsy report as well as additional evidence; authorities said the 26-year-old activist had shot and wounded a trooper during a "clearing operation" at "Cop City" on Jan. 18.
Several bullets penetrated Terán's right eye, chest, stomach, arms, and legs, and any attempt to place him "in any particular position at a specific point in time is fraught with potential inaccuracies."
"There are too many variables with respect to movement of the decedent and the shooters to draw definitive conclusions" on Terán's positioning, the report states.
However, according to the report, the medical examiner did not find gunpowder residue on the activist's hands.
In the family's autopsy released earlier this year, it was determined Terán was likely sitting and his hands were up when he was killed.
Although there is no evidence that Terán was first shot in the head, none of the other shots "would have caused him to become immediately unconscious or incapacitated", as recorded in the DeKalb report.
Because the officers who shot at Terán were not wearing body cameras, as reported by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Terán's family filed a lawsuit last month for additional records and documentation about the shooting.
The state of Georgia previously declined any requests to release them, citing an investigation in progress.
Despite the construction progressing, protesters of the center have turned Terán's death into a rallying cry for continued resistance against "Cop City."
The killing of Manuel Paez Terán at Cop City was a tragic result of widespread police terrorism, which he bravely resisted. Cop City represents a case of organized resistance to state-sanctioned violence, which is routinely met with that very violence.
Source: Axios
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