ATLANTA– Georgia authorities allege that in January, state troopers shot and killed an environmental protester who opened fire on authorities after the trooper fired pepperballs at a protester’s tent, according to incident reports obtained Friday by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The newspaper received several reports of Georgia Department of Public Safety use of force incidents upon request for open records. The records offer the authorities’ most complete account of the January 18 assassination of Manuel Paez Terán, who went by the name Tortugita and used the pronoun they.

Paez Teran was killed in the South River Forest in DeKalb County as officers tried to clear activists camped near the site of a planned police and training facility that protesters derisively call “Police City.”

Protesters questioned officials’ claim that officers shot Paez Terán in self-defense after a 26-year-old man shot a soldier. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is continuing its investigation into the shooting and has released few details about the incident, except that preliminary evidence supports the authorities’ claims and that the soldier was hit by a bullet from a handgun Paez Teran legally purchased in 2020.

According to recent reports of the incident, Paez Teran spoke briefly to the officers who approached the protesters’ tent and refused their demands to leave the area, prompting the authorities to fire pepperballs. Authorities say Paes Teran then fired several shots from the tent and six police officers returned fire, shooting the activist more than a dozen times.

“I knew the suspect in the tent was shooting at us because I heard the shots from inside the tent,” the report, written by a Georgia Department of Public Safety Corporal, says, “I could see the front of the tent.” the door slammed as the bullets pierced it, and I could hear the bullets hitting the vegetation around me.”

The corporal authorities claimed to have met Paez Teran inside the tent, and at one point the activist told the officers, “No, I want you to leave.”

The corporal said that Paes Teran “very confidently” asked the authorities to leave, and “it was immediately obvious” that the protester “has no intention of cooperating.”

The corporal also wrote that before the shooting, he told Paez Teran that the officers were going to shoot poisonous substances at the tent and that Paez Teran would be charged with trespassing.

Paez Terán’s death and their commitment to opposing the training center propelled the “Stop Cop City” movement onto the national and international stage, with left-wing activists from across the country picketing and encouraging some to travel and join the protest movement that began in 2021. They say officers at the 85-acre (34-hectare) center will be trained on how to become more militarized and crack down on dissent while hundreds of trees are cut down, damaging the climate and mitigating the effects of flooding in the impoverished, predominantly black neighborhood.

Several protests escalated into violence, including earlier this month when more than 150 masked activists left a nearby music festival and stormed the proposed training center site, setting fire to construction equipment and throwing rocks at retreating law enforcement officers.

The Atlanta City Council has approved construction of the proposed $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in 2021, saying a modern campus will replace substandard offerings and boost police morale, which is suffering from hiring and retention struggles following violent acts. protests against the racial injustice that has swept the city since the killing of George Floyd by police in 2020.

For more than two months, Paez Terán’s family and their lawyers have been calling on officials to provide information about the shooting. According to the family’s autopsy, Paez Teran was sitting cross-legged with his hands up at the time they were shot. The autopsy report also noted that it was “impossible to determine” whether the activist was holding a firearm at the time of the shot.

The family ordered an autopsy after the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an initial examination. Officials did not release the DeKalb County report, so it is not clear if they came to a similar conclusion that Paez Teran raised his hands, palms inward, during the shooting.

Lawyers for the family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As local newspapers grapple with shrinking budgets and overburdened journalists, some newsrooms are experimenting with an idea that skeptics say threatens the very role of reporters: integrating artificial intelligence into the newsroom.

Editors remain cautious about the use of AI in reporting, one of the main reasons for which is that it cannot distinguish fact from fiction. But used responsibly, they say, it can provide a cost-effective set of tools to lighten the burden on local journalists and expand their reach, such as through AI-generated city council meeting summaries.

Renee Richardson, Editor-in-Chief of Brainerd Dispatch in Brainerd, Minnesota, is an AI integration pioneer in her local newsroom. Their artificial intelligence experiment will begin in June to automate public safety announcements from police bulletins. Ms. Richardson hopes to maximize the efficiency of her staff’s workflow and give the dispatch reporters back something priceless: time.

“We are constantly asking our employees to do more and provide more information in a variety of ways. Whether it’s social media, video podcasts, audio segments, all of our photos, or all the parts that go into them. We rarely do anything that turns back time for them. The advantage I see in this is to finally give them back that time.”

As local newspapers grapple with shrinking budgets and overburdened journalists, some newsrooms are experimenting with an idea that skeptics say threatens the very role of reporters: integrating artificial intelligence into the newsroom.

Editors remain cautious about the use of AI in reporting, one of the main reasons for which is that it cannot distinguish fact from fiction. But used responsibly, they say, it can provide a cost-effective set of tools to lighten the burden on local journalists and expand their reach, such as through AI-generated city council meeting summaries.

Silicon Valley AI company OpenAI helped spark interest and debate around writing and reporting on AI by releasing its conversational chatbot ChatGPT in late 2022. The AI-based program can quickly respond to text commands, and then write essays, summarize books. and prepare financial reports. Its release attracted nationwide attention and additional funding from Microsoft.

In California’s Humboldt County, 300 miles north of Silicon Valley, Hank Sims and his local Lost Coast Outpost newsroom began experimenting with ChatGPT last year. The web-only newsroom used the program to develop its own version, dubbed LoCOBot. The program downloads and summarizes the agendas of local community meetings.

Mr. Sims says LoCOBot replaces the human need to review planned lengthy agendas for city council and other meetings, and frees up journalists to investigate larger events.

Miami-Dade County Attorney’s Office has charged two home health care assistants with multiple felonies after an investigation concluded they stole more than $225,000 from a 90-year-old woman with dementia.

Natsky Nelson, 48, of Miami, and José Mito Pierre-Toussaint, 55, of Pembroke Pines, stole the money and also amended the woman’s revocable trust deed to leave them more money, according to warrants released Friday from the office of Katherine Fernandez Rundle. .

Nelson has been arrested and is on $125,000 bail, but police say Pierre-Toussaint is at large.

They started working for their wife Lorraine Laderman in October 2017 through Avanti Home Health Services. They were sent to Laderman’s home to take care of her daily.

Laderman was 92 when she hired Nelson and Pierre-Toussaint, and they continued to work for her until she died in February 2021 at the age of 97, according to sworn testimony from Miami Police Detective Sonia Fernandez.

The sworn letter states that during their time at Laderman, Nelson and Pierre-Toussaint withdrew approximately $227,100 from several of her accounts and transferred the money to the company they founded.

On December 31, 2020, the Laderman trust was completed and amended to leave Nelson with $200,000, the affidavit says.

“This investigation found that the victim was mentally or physically unable to make a legal decision or understand and agree to the revocable trust deed dated December 31, 2020, and was also unable to consent. both [defendants] took advantage of the physical and mental deterioration of the victim with the intent to permanently deprive the victim of their funds,” Fernandez wrote in a March 21 sworn letter.