The three white suspects accused of murdering unarmed black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia have pleaded not guilty to nine charges including malicious murder and felony murder.
Gregory McMichael, 64, his son, Travis McMichael, 34, and his neighbor William Bryan, 50, were indicted in Chatham County Superior Court on Friday morning after a grand jury He charged them in late June.
The McMichaels were charged with murder and aggravated assault. Bryan was charged with murder and attempted unlawful arrest and confinement.
Arbery, 25, was killed by Travis McMichael on February 23 after he and his father, Gregory McMichael, chased Arbery in his truck and shot him while jogging in his neighborhood in the city of Brunswick. They said they believed Arbery was a robbery suspect.
Bryan joined the McMichaels as they chased Arbery, and took the video of the murder that eventually leaked.
The men were arrested in May, months after the murder, after the material went viral. The delay in filing charges sparked national outrage.
Arbery’s murder has been a key part of recent scrutiny of racism in the United States, as well as police and justice departments’ handling of violence against African-Americans.
The McMichaels say they were acting in self-defense, but at a preliminary court hearing in early June, Richard Dial, a special agent with the state investigative office, said Bryan overheard Travis McMichael making a racial slur after shoot Arbery. Dial also said there were other cases where the young McMichael used anti-black racial slurs, including on Instagram, and a comment made when he was on the coast guard.
During that hearing, Dial dismissed Jason Sheffield, a Travis McMichael attorney, who said McMichael was using self-defense against Arbery.
“I don’t think it was in Mr. McMichael’s own defense,” Dial said. “I think it was in Mr. Arbery’s self-defense.”
Two local district attorney offices initially refused to press charges against the men before the video was leaked by a local criminal defense attorney. Gregory McMichael was a former police officer who had previously worked as an investigator for the district attorney’s office, Jackie Johnson, who passed the case on to another district attorney.
In April, a second district attorney, George Barnhill, also withdrew from the case and wrote in a letter that Arbery’s persecution was “perfectly legal” because Georgia law allows for some forms of citizen arrest.
Once the video was leaked, the state investigative office stepped in and arrested the McMichaels in early May. Bryan was arrested on May 21. The office appointed a special prosecutor, Joyette Holmes, a district attorney for an Atlanta suburb, to oversee the charges.
At a press conference, Holmes said he knew people wanted the case to move forward quickly, but he asked for patience as prosecutors brought the case to court.
She said: “We will make sure to find justice in this case. We know we have a broken family and a broken community in Brunswick. “
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