White father, son accused of murder in the Ahmaud Arbery case

The white father and son fell silent Friday (US time) as the judge read the murder and aggravated assault charges against them in the fatal shooting of a black man who was running through his Georgia neighborhood. In just a few minutes, his first court appearance was over. It was a time that many in the Ahmaud Arbery community waited more than two months, as a series of prosecutors refused to press charges against the men.

Earlier in the day, on what would have been Arbery’s 26th birthday, a bustling crowd of several hundred people, most wearing masks to protect themselves against the coronavirus, gathered outside the Glynn County Courthouse for about 90 minutes and they sang “Happy Birthday” in his honor. .

With the coronavirus dominating the news and dramatically altering the lives of Americans, the Arbery shooting initially drew little attention outside of Brunswick, some 70 miles (115 km) south of Savannah. The working-class port city of approximately 16,000 also serves as a gateway to beach resorts on neighboring St. Simons and Sea Islands.

The Satilla Shores neighborhood, where Arbery was killed on February 23, sits on the edge of Brunswick, with comfortable brick and stucco houses nestled alongside the swamps. A wooden cross and flowers left as a monument near where Arbery died were decorated with aluminum birthday balloons on Friday.

A video of the shooting widely shared on social media on Tuesday put the case in the national spotlight and sparked widespread outrage. The investigation led by local authorities appeared to have stalled, and amid the national uproar, a specially appointed prosecutor last month requested the involvement of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. On Thursday night, the GBI announced the arrests of Gregory and Travis McMichael.

Although the arrests were well received, Arbery’s family and supporters expressed frustration at the long wait and fear that the justice system will fail them.

Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, told police they chased Arbery, with another person who videotaped them, after seeing him running in his neighborhood. The father and son said they believed it matched the appearance of a robbery suspect who they said had been recorded on a surveillance camera some time ago.

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, said she believes her son, a former high school soccer player, was jogging in the Satilla Shores neighborhood before he was killed.

Apparently, part of the encounter was recorded in two calls to 911, with a dispatcher trying to understand the problem.

“There is a black man running down the street,” says a caller.

“I just need to know what I was doing wrong,” replies the dispatcher, in part.

On a second call, six minutes later, someone can be heard shouting “Stop … Damn. Stop.” Then, after a pause, “Travis!”

The arrest warrants for Gregory and Travis McMichael filed in court on Friday confirmed, according to the initial police report, that Travis McMichael “aimed and fired a shotgun … at Ahmaud Arbery.” But there were no new details.

The wrongful death charges against the McMichaels mean that a victim was killed during the commission of an underlying serious crime, in this case aggravated assault. The charge requires no intention to kill. A murder conviction in Georgia carries a minimum sentence of life in prison, with or without parole.

In a letter to Glynn County Police in early April, a prosecutor previously assigned to the case outlined reasons why he believed there was “insufficient probable cause to issue arrest warrants” in the case. Waycross District, Atttorney George E. Barnhill, argued that the McMichaels’ actions were legal under Georgia’s laws on citizen arrests, open bearing of weapons, and self-defense.

The leaked video shows a black man running at a slow pace. The truck stops on the road ahead of him, with one of the white men standing in the truck and the other by the open door on the driver’s side.

The running man tries to pass the van on the passenger side, moving slightly past the truck, briefly out of camera view. A shot sounds, and the video shows the runner fighting a man over what appears to be a shotgun or rifle. A second shot can be heard, and the runner can be seen hitting the man. A third shot is fired at point-blank range. The runner wobbles a few meters and falls face down.

“They did not arrest Ahmaud Arbery’s killers because they saw the video,” Arbery’s family lawyer Ben Crump said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. “Ahmaud Arbery’s killers were arrested because we saw the video, the public saw the video and it went viral. It was shocking. People were amazed.”

Crump criticized the handling of the case by police and local prosecutors, saying he wants the GBI to “investigate the entire case from top to bottom.”

Gregory McMichael retired last year as an investigator for Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson, and the connection caused her to recuse herself. Barnhill then received the case before recusing himself under pressure from the Arbery family because his son works at Johnson’s office.

“The only thing that matters is what the facts tell us,” the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Vic Reynolds, said Friday, saying “every stone will be discovered.”

Addressing the issue of racial intent, Reynolds noted that Georgia does not have a hate crime law. That has prompted many civil rights activists to call for a federal investigation.

“The work is just beginning,” John Perry, president of the NAACP chapter of Brunswick, told the crowd gathered outside of court on Friday morning. “We cannot stop now. We cannot lose focus and we must ensure that the prosecution is carried out.”

Anthony Johnson, 40, said Arbery was his neighbor for about a decade. He said he wants to see the McMichaels receive the same treatment in the legal system as black defendants.

“Just arresting them, that’s doing nothing,” said Johnson. “We want them to be sentenced. We want them to be sent to prison for life.”

– AP