Everyone is entitled to voice their “speculation,” even police officers. That’s called “opinion” and isn’t actual evidence of anything. Progressive liberals at The Intercept love twisting the recent events near Atlanta, Georgia, to advance their side of the narrative. Here at The GOP Times, we like to spin it back around in their face.
Police speculation fits narrative
Before delving into the controversial speculation, being custom fitted into the liberal propaganda, there are a whole bunch of well established facts. Law enforcement agencies decided to build an expensive and sprawling training center in the forest near Atlanta, Georgia. Tree hugging activists, most of them Antifa® affiliated anarchists from out of state, immediately set up an occupation encampment in protest.
Coincidentally, a whole bunch of “guerrilla” like sabotage incidents and anarchist style nuisance crimes spiked across metropolitan Atlanta. Things like major retail stores including Walmart and Target being torched. Allegedly, as a distraction for petty shoplifting.
After weeks of controversy, Georgia State Troopers moved in, along with assistance from other area agencies, to clear the protest camp. That’s when conservative and liberal stories start to really split. The official law enforcement narrative, supported by investigation, is that protester Manuel Terán shot first, wounding a trooper.
BREAKING: In Atlanta PD body cam from Cop City protests on Jan 18, u hear 4 shots fired—& then a barrage of what sounds like a dozen + shots in 7 seconds. Georgia Bureau Investigation claimed Manuel Terán shot at them first & they shot back. Also claimed their body cams were off pic.twitter.com/fRZhtlIJz5
— Status Coup News (@StatusCoup) February 9, 2023
The Intercept’s narrative, based on “speculation,” is that the troopers shot first, hitting their own man. Liberals want you to think that troopers murdered “Tortuguita” to cover their screw up. Just like the officer they rely on to support that, The Intercept is also entitled to their “opinion.” We say it’s wrong and so does law enforcement.
First off, there’s the little turtle’s gun. The Intercept admits, grudgingly, that “forensics showed that the round matched a gun found nearby, which Terán had bought.”
What they carefully left out was the part explaining the “round” which matched was the one which hit the trooper. Their tap dancing was worthy of Fred Astaire. They ignore that fact entirely in the rest of their story while they try to convince you he was an innocent martyr, minding his own business. Then comes the big speculation part.
Raw body camera footage
Terán had been struck 13 times by return fire, which means there was a lot of it. With cordite smoke still wafting on the wind, an Atlanta PD officer who had been on the outskirts of the shooting can be heard on his camera unit’s audio observing “Man…you [bleeped] your own officer up?” That’s speculation. The evidence doesn’t back it up.
The officer did say it. The statement also appears to be in the form of a question. That theory is supported by what he said next. After walking up to a pair of brother officers, he asks “they shoot their own man?” No, they didn’t. End of story. Not to progressives.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation insists that “Terán had not complied with officers’ commands and shot the trooper during the clearing operation.” That wasn’t all they had to say.
NEW: Atlanta PD Releases Bodycam Footage from Deadly Jan. 18 #StopCopCity Forest Raid: https://t.co/lyYy1mQRcB
The footage does not directly show the fatal shooting of Manuel 'Tortuguita' Paez Terán but reveals the details of what Atlanta PD officers said & thought at the time.
— UNICORN RIOT ? mastodon.social/@UnicornRiot ? (@UR_Ninja) February 9, 2023
The Intercept also admits that they were told, “in those videos, at least one statement exists where an officer speculates that the Trooper was shot by another officer in crossfire. Speculation is not evidence. Our investigation does not support that statement.”
Atlanta PD initially wasn’t talking to the Intercept. They changed their mind when they saw the article, so the progressives had to publish an update. “The Atlanta Police Department sent a statement to The Intercept after this story was published,” they sheepishly write.
According to Sergeant John Chafee, “in reviewing our officers’ body worn cameras’ footage, it is apparent the shooting situation evolved quickly and our officers had no immediate knowledge of the events at the shooting site at the time the shooting occurred.” In other words, none of them knew anything and the speculation was wrong. “Several responding officers are heard commenting about the shooting as they approached the site. We have found no evidence to suggest these officers had any information on the events surrounding the shooting prior to their comments.“
