Picture courtesy of Wondery
On January 18, 2023, gunshots rang out within the South River Forest. When the smoke cleared, a Georgia State Patrol trooper had been shot within the facet, and Manuel “Tortuguita” Téran was useless, shot 14 instances by legislation enforcement. Tort, as they had been known as by pals, had been residing in a tent within the South River Forest for months with a dedicated group of self-styled Forest Defenders. They had been protesting the development of the Atlanta Public Security Coaching Middle, recognized by critics as Cop Metropolis.
The Cease Cop Metropolis motion started in 2021 and engaged 1000’s of Atlantans, lots of whom joined protest marches and signed a referendum to vote on the development challenge. However throughout the town and within the media, opinions in regards to the tree-dwelling Forest Defenders various wildly—particularly after Tort’s demise, the main points of which had been hotly contested from the very starting.
Was Tort a murdered martyr, or an armed “outdoors agitator?” Had been the Forest Defenders home terrorists hell-bent on destroying non-public property, or righteous protestors utilizing eco-justice practices to cease the expansion of the police state?
Picture courtesy of Wondery
A brand new podcast takes a deeper have a look at the Forest Defender motion, and what actually occurred on that tragic day within the woods. In We Got here to the Forest, a podcast by Wondery, Campside Media and Tenderfoot TV, Atlanta-based journalist Matt Shaer interviews Cease Cop Metropolis protestors, Tort’s family, the Atlanta Police Chief, and lots of others to piece collectively a vivid timeline of the motion. Two voices present an intimate image of the core protesters: Vienna, a Forest Defender who was Tort’s associate till their demise, and Matthew Johnson, a neighborhood pastor who helped to construct solidarity between the Forest Defenders and the broader neighborhood of Atlantans against Cop Metropolis.
Shaer and his producer Tommy Andres acquired never-before-reported audio and paperwork for the podcast, together with the complete GBI file on Tort’s demise. No matter your opinions on the Cease Cop Metropolis motion, We Got here to the Forest can have you considering a lot more durable about this battle.
Right here, we chat with Shaer in regards to the making of the podcast, what he discovered as a journalist and an Atlantan—and how you can perceive the legacy of the Cease Cop Metropolis motion, even because the coaching middle is because of open quickly.
Atlanta Journal: How did this podcast challenge come to be?
Matt Shaer: Tommy and I had been shocked by how little nationwide protection there was of this story. We felt that it was extremely impactful on a nationwide scale; every thing that occurs in Atlanta, with all these dynamics of energy, gave the impression to be taking part in out nationally, too. However once I talked to pals in Massachusetts or New York, they’d be like, “Cop Metropolis? I don’t know what you’re speaking about.” And I used to be simply actually stunned by that—as a result of bear in mind there was a time when each cease check in Atlanta had the “Cop Metropolis” stencil underneath it? In order that was the impetus of the story.
Tommy and I had by no means labored collectively earlier than. However he made the King Slime podcast in regards to the Younger Thug trial, and a good variety of the attorneys concerned in that case are concerned within the Cop Metropolis one too, so he knew a bit bit about this. We simply began small. We didn’t know who we had been going to get to speak on the file.
AM: You each write and podcast. Why did you resolve to inform this story by means of audio?
MS: First, there’s a tremendous quantity of archival audio accessible from the protests: from police cams, from physique cams, from surveillance footage. Then there’s the facility of those voices. Vienna was one of many first those who we actually interviewed in size. As soon as I began speaking to her, it was like, You have got an attention-grabbing story to inform. Then we met Matthew [Johnson]—you realize, when he talks, you hear.
I believe individuals like to listen to voices, they like to listen to individuals considering by means of one thing in actual time. And Matthew and Vienna had been each good about that. They’re each reflective individuals and had been in a position to be sincere in regards to the components of the motion that had been troublesome or thorny; neither of them introduced an airbrushed image of Tort or the motion. I believe they each understood that that will have been counterproductive.
AM: You obtained some never-before-reported paperwork, together with the complete GBI report on Tortuguita’s demise. How did that occur?
MS: It was an actual course of. The GBI handles each investigation of a legislation enforcement–concerned capturing within the state, and usually after the case has been adjudicated, you’re allowed entry to the movies and depositions. However right here they mentioned, “No, we’re not going to offer them to you as a result of it’s a part of the RICO trial.” Their rationale was that Tort was allegedly a co-conspirator within the case.
So we went backwards and forwards with the GBI spokesperson for a very very long time, after which employed a very good lawyer, Pleasure Ramsingh, who does First Modification legislation. We went by means of the courts for about six or seven months, and it obtained to the purpose the place the GBI was going to need to both give us the recordsdata or go to trial to defend their determination to not. After which we obtained the recordsdata.
[The GBI file] is as shut as you may get to understanding precisely what occurred, with the caveat that the officers who shot Tort weren’t truly carrying physique cameras. However it’s as shut as we’re most likely ever going to have the ability to get to it.
AM: This challenge actually provides a voice to individuals who had been usually portrayed in broad strokes as “home terrorists” or “outdoors agitators.” What did you be taught in regards to the Forest Defenders?
MS: I love how a lot of themselves they had been in a position to put into the motion, how a lot they cared. It’s very simple—right here I’m talking for myself—to get overwhelmed down, to suppose that protest doesn’t matter or that you would be able to’t change something. And I used to be actually taken by how a lot the individuals on this present believed and the way a lot they had been in a position to categorical themselves by means of activism. I believe that’s superb.
On the flip facet, by way of the motion as an entire, it additionally makes you notice that when the “Powers That Be” need one thing, they are going to often discover a option to make it work. And that’s a bit disheartening. I believe, sadly, that there was by no means a state of affairs during which protest would have led to a change within the final result. At the least, I can’t see it. I believe management in Atlanta is fairly used to having its method on the subject of this type of stuff. That’s been true through the years.
AM: The Public Security Coaching Middle is slated to open quickly. What do you suppose meaning for the legacy of the Cease Cop Metropolis motion?
MS: We’ve requested this of so many various individuals we’ve met, and we get completely different solutions. Folks say, from a motion perspective, that it’s an extended wrestle. You anticipate to lose battles alongside the best way, however historical past goes backwards and forwards. I believe that’s proper. The Rayshard Brooks protest, the Black Lives Matter motion, it did all really feel like an actual step ahead, after which it felt like an actual step again afterwards. And to sure activists, Cop Metropolis getting constructed appears like a part of that step again.
However you attempt to take a look at it in the long run, and hope that it modified minds. And for individuals like Vienna, she feels that she was a part of an exquisite neighborhood and that issues to her, makes her really feel seen and acknowledged, and that each one of this had worth on an even bigger scale.
AM: What do you hope listeners of We Got here to the Forest will take with them?
MS: I hope that, even when individuals have an opinion on Cop Metropolis, professional or towards, that they go away their thoughts open a bit bit on either side. To consider the noble facets of what the protesters did, and the troubling facets to it—and above all, why it didn’t work ultimately. There are classes in there.
We’re used to considering of those protest actions as a unified, top-down effort the place everybody’s in lockstep. However they’re truly fractious, collective issues made up of individuals from all completely different backgrounds, who’re all looking for their method by means of it.
It’s completely different from what you’d learn in a Wikipedia entry, which has a method of flattening every thing into pro- or anti- or state-versus-activists. And naturally it’s simply not like that in any respect; it’s a extra difficult factor.
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