Epigraph
Every human life is precious and sacred and killing one is like triggering a genocide. (Al Quran 5:32/33)
Guilty verdicts in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers met with relief and joy in Georgia and beyond
Brunswick, Georgia (CNN) A jury Wednesday found three White men charged in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, guilty on multiple murder counts, as well as other charges.
The verdict, delivered by nine White women, two White men and one Black man, came after more than 11 hours of deliberation spanning two days. It followed eight days of testimony, involving 23 witnesses.
Arbery’s parents appeared alongside civil rights stalwarts outside the courthouse following the verdict. They praised the prosecution and supporters who joined the family in their fight for justice for their son, whose killing drew national outrage and helped cast a spotlight on other racially driven crimes around the country.
The defendants each faced the same nine counts, and verdicts were as follows:
• Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery, is guilty on all charges: malice murder, four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony;
• His father, Gregory McMichael, who rode armed in the bed of a pickup as his son pursued Arbery, is not guilty of malice murder but guilty on the other eight charges.
• And William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., a neighbor who joined the pursuit and filmed Arbery’s final moments, is guilty of three counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony. Bryan was cleared on the charge of malice murder, felony murder involving aggravated assault with a firearm and the count of aggravated assault with a firearm.Their attorneys have said they will appeal.
Categories: Racism, The Muslim Times
A judge has denied mistrial requests at the trial of three white men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery after defense attorneys claimed jurors were tainted by weeping from the gallery where Arbery’s parents sat with the Rev Jesse Jackson.
Monday morning’s testimony was interrupted by arguments in the jury’s absence over Jackson’s appearance. The judge said he found one defense lawyer’s complaints last week about Black pastors to be “reprehensible” and no group would be excluded from his courtroom.
Greg and Travis McMichael, a father and son, armed themselves and pursued the Black 25-year-old in a pickup truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood on 23 February 2020. Their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times with a shotgun.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/15/ahmaud-arbery-killing-jesse-jackson-trial
Like many other recent episodes involving the killing of Black people, the confrontation was captured on video. Unlike many of the others, the video was made not by a bystander but by one of the defendants, Mr. Bryan.
Jackie Johnson, the local prosecutor who initially handled the case, lost her bid for re-election in 2020 and was indicted this year by a Georgia grand jury, accused of “showing favor and affection” to Gregory McMichael, a former investigator in her office, and for directing police officers not to arrest Travis McMichael. The case was ultimately tried by the district attorney’s office in Cobb County, which is roughly 300 miles away from Brunswick in metropolitan Atlanta.
The case brought political and legal upheaval. Mr. Kemp signed a hate crimes statute into law, and sided with state lawmakers when they voted to repeal significant portions of the state’s citizen’s arrest statute.
During the trial, defense lawyers relied on that citizen’s arrest law, which was enacted in the 19th century. They argued that their clients had acted legally when, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in February 2020, they set out in two pickup trucks in an effort to detain Mr. Arbery, an avid jogger and former high school football player who spent nearly five minutes trying to run away from them.
Eventually trapped between the two pickup trucks, Mr. Arbery then ended up in a confrontation with Travis McMichael, who was armed with a shotgun and fired at Mr. Arbery three times at close range. Mr. McMichael testified that he feared that Mr. Arbery, who had no weapon, would get control of the shotgun from him and threaten his life.
Over the 10 days of testimony in the trial, prosecutors challenged the idea that an unarmed man who never spoke to his pursuers could be considered much of a threat at all.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/24/us/ahmaud-arbery-murder-trial?action=click&auth=login-email&block=storyline_menu_recirc&is_new=false&login=email&name=styln-georgia-shooting&pgtype=Article®ion=TOP_BANNER&variant=show
‘They almost got away with it’: How a leaked video led to convictions in the Ahmaud Arbery case
Nearly two years before a jury convicted three white men in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, authorities had said there was no need to arrest them.
On Wednesday, an almost all-white jury found Travis McMichael, his father, Gregory McMichael, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan guilty in the murder of Arbery in Georgia. But the three might never have been indicted in the first place had it not been for a leaked video that prompted calls for attention to his death.
“I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but what if that video had not come out several months later?” Michael Irvin, a teacher from the Orlando, Florida, area told NBC News outside the courthouse Wednesday. “A young Black man would have been taken from his family and community with no one held responsible. That part, I can’t ignore. So, I’m happy justice was served.”
The McMichaels and Bryan were not arrested until months after they chased Arbery in a pickup truck in Satilla Shores, their neighborhood near Brunswick, on Feb. 23, 2020. Travis McMichael shot Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, with a shotgun at close range. Bryan filmed the fatal encounter on his cellphone. Only after video footage of the fatal shooting leaked online May 5, 2020, did authorities arrest the trio on felony murder charges.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/-almost-got-away-leaked-video-led-convictions-ahmaud-arbery-case-rcna6690
was it not one of the defendants who took the video? He must be cursing himself for the rest of his life