All three white men charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery were convicted of murder Wednesday in the fatal shooting that became part of a larger national reckoning on racial injustice.
The convictions for Greg McMichael, son Travis McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan came after jurors deliberated for about 10 hours. The men face minimum sentences of life in prison. It is up to the judge to decide whether that comes with or without the possibility of parole.
The McMichaels grabbed guns and jumped in a pickup truck to pursue the 25-year-old Black man after seeing him running in their neighborhood outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick in February 2020. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own pickup and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael fatally shooting Arbery.
Arbery’s killing after the graphic video leaked online two months later. Though prosecutors did not argue that racism motivated the killing, federal authorities have charged them with hate crimes, alleging that they chased and killed Arbery because he was Black. That case is scheduled to go to trial in February.
The jury sent a note to Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley soon after returning to court Wednesday morning asking to view two versions of the shooting video — the original and one that investigators enhanced to reduce shadows — three times apiece.
Jurors returned to the courtroom to see the videos and listen again the 911 call one of the defendants made from the bed of a pickup truck about 30 seconds before the shooting.
The disproportionately white jury received the case around midday Tuesday and spent about six hours deliberating before adjourning without a verdict.
The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a fleeing burglar when they armed themselves and jumped in a pickup truck to chase him. Bryan joined the pursuit when they passed his house and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael blasting Arbery at close range with a shotgun as Arbery threw punches and grabbed for the weapon.
On the 911 call the jury reviewed, Greg McMichael tells an operator: “I’m out here in Satilla Shores. There’s a Black male running down the street.”
He then starts shouting, apparently as Arbery is running toward the McMichael’s idling truck with Bryan’s truck coming up behind him: “Stop right there! Damn it, stop! Travis!” Gunshots can be heard a few second later.
The graphic video death leaked online two months later, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case, quickly arresting the three men. Each of them is charged with murder and other crimes.
Defense attorneys contend the McMichaels were attempting a legal citizen’s arrest when they set off after Arbery, seeking to detain and question him as a suspected burglar after he was seen running from a nearby home under construction.
Travis McMichael testified that he shot Arbery in self-defense, saying the running man turned and attacked with his fists while running past the idling truck where Travis McMichael stood with his shotgun.
Prosecutors said there was no evidence Arbery had committed crimes in the defendants’ neighborhood. He had enrolled at a technical college and was preparing at the time to study to become an electrician like his uncles.
(AP)
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16 Responses
So apparently killing an unarmed person, for no reason other than you didn’t like the way he looked, is illegal???? I guess for the WOKE press, that’s a hidush.
Two cases involving “self-defense” with very different fact patterns, state law issues and outcomes. Both appear to be legally correct, although some will challenge based on their emotions, sense of “whats right” etc. Our legal system seems to work if we let it. In the Georgia case, the defense lawyers overplayed their hand starting with using peremptory challenges to eliminate all but one black juror and then using implicitly racist language and symbolism to appeal to what they thought would be a sympathetic white jury. I’ll be interested in hearing whether the jurors actually recognized this racial context and focused on what was arguably a vigilante murder justified by self-defense following their self-initiated “citizens arrest” confrontation.
“11 whites and 1 black stood up in the courtroom and said that BLM”. No….. they said that a human murdered another human and he deserves to be punished accordingly, regardless of race.
So, in the NY Times article about this case it mentions 24 times that the three men were white.
Guess how many times the NY times article about the Waukesha parade attack mentions that the attacker was black… Go ahead, guess…. That’s right – ZERO!
Why oh why does everything in this”progressive” world revolve around how bad white people are?? And when did the Yeshiva World fall into that trap too??
“Why oh why does everything in this”progressive” world revolve around how bad white people are?
In this case, you’d have to have your head where the sun doesn’t shine to not recognize the explicit racial component of the case which the defense attorneys all but acknowledged in their closing arguments incorporating explicit racial stereotypes and code words.
This was the right decision based on the facts and the law, just as the Wisconsin decision was right based on different facts and different law.
Don’t forget …BLM!!!!
Why did the guy who took the video, get charged and convicted of felony murder?!
Can anyone explain what he did wrong?
killing an unarmed person, for no reason other than you didn’t like the way he looked
That is not what happened. Not even the prosecution alleged that what he looked like had anything to do with it. There is no question whatsoever that the shooting was in self defense. Arbery, having successfully run off, stopped, turned around, charged Travis McMichael, and grabbed for his weapon. TM did not shoot until Arbery literally had his hands on the weapon, so there was no question that he intended to grab it. At that point what else was TM to do? Let him grab the weapon and shoot him?!
They were chasing him because they had very good reason to believe he was a burglar. Burglary means entering private property with the intent of committing a crime there. They knew he had burglarized that same house several times before: entering for the purpose of stealing. He was on video doing so. Now they saw him back in the same house; that was at the very least trespassing, but given his history, and the fact that he had no legitimate reason to be in the neighborhood at all, he was very likely there with intent to steal again, which is burglary.
The claim that he was merely an innocent jogger is ridiculous. He was NOT a jogger. His clothing and toenails prove it.
When it doesn’t say that the criminal was black, it’s because it a dovor haposhut. At least in jewish neighborhoods, an overwhelming majority of criminals are black. So that color is naturaly associated to a criminal, so much that it has no meed to be mentioned. Only when he is white, it’s a dovor chidush every time, so they say it with great excitement.
how can you charge the guy who took the video with murder with malice? even if it was wrong to chase the guy he didn’t shoot him. the American justice system is nuts
This house belonged to a neighbor who reported trespassers he saw from his security camera to the police. He did not ask these men to guard his property. Arbery was unarmed and not carrying anything – no threat to them. There were white people who trespassed on the same property- they didn’t rush after them with guns and trap them with their cars. And when the police showed up they didn’t offer medical aid to Arbery, they asked if the white men were ok. Maybe they could have saved him. But they didn’t worry about that.
Wow @yukel face that is an awful thing to say.
Comments like this aren’t helping anyones cause
This case is difficult, but two points:
1- No one saw him in or around private property on the day of the shooting, and Georgias citizens arrest law specifies that you must have witnessed a crime being commited.
2-The long dirty toenails comment by Gregories lawyer in closing arguments sealed the reality of the deep seated racism involved in this encounter; his 911 call only proved it more.
Yukel Face, that is a solid comment. Emes!
The amount of gurgling in the comments is incredible. Bravo chevra truely demonstrating that we are the best and brightest around!
Yukel face:
“At least in Jewish neighborhoods, an overwhelming majority of criminals are black.”
Um . . maybe you mean an overwhelming majority of the nickle-and-dime criminals.
Were you to count criminals who do it on a large scale, the statistics might be a bit different.