Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was running in a Brunswick neighborhood February 23 when a former police officer and his son chased him down, telling officers later that they thought he looked like the suspect in a series of recent break-ins in the area, authorities said.
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After seeing Arbery jogging, McMichael then alerted his 34-year-old son, Travis, according to the police report.
"Travis, the guy is running down the street, let's go," McMichael said, according to the report.
The two grabbed a shotgun and a pistol and followed Arbery in their truck, police said. Travis McMichael, the driver, followed Arbery and then attempted to cut him off, the report said. Arbery turned around and began running in the opposite direction, the police report said.
They chased Arbery to a nearby intersection where they caught up to him, the report said.
"Stop, stop, we want to talk to you," Gregory McMichael shouted at Arbery, according to the police report.
Travis McMichael then exited truck with the shotgun, the police report said. His father told officers Arbery "violently attacked" his son, the report said, and they struggled over the gun. Travis McMichael fired two shots, the report said, and Arbery fell.
Fuck those fucking pieces of shit who remain free to this day.
This isn't a case of a lawful citizens arrest gone wrong:
Merritt, the family's attorney, told CNN on Sunday, "The decision to rely on the citizen's arrest statute is really a recent invention, prior to that they just simply said it was self-defense." Merritt says now the men are trying to use the law to say they were trying to stop a crime.
"According to that law, you actually have to be observing the crime or be in the immediate knowledge of the crime," Merritt said. "The only thing they have ever said is ... that Ahmaud stopped by a house that was under construction and he looked through the window. We don't know if that happened or not, but even if that did happen that is not a felony that would invoke the citizen's arrest statute that would make this allowable."
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At best, the men had the authority to follow Arbery and send law enforcement to that location, Merritt said. The 911 calls show the call taker was asking the men what Arbery is doing that was of criminal concern, Merritt said.
"They didn't give any answer for that, they said, 'He's a black man running down our road,'" Merritt said.
Defenders of the men are also pointing to a shoplifting conviction in Arbery's past.
"The reference to ... alleged conduct from high school or shoplifting is absurd and has nothing to do with his murder," Merritt said.
100% about race. Not justice, not fighting crime. Fucking race. And the cold blooded murderer should know better...and does, because there's a reason he's not in jail right now.
There have been no charges against the father and son involved in the incident, former police officer Gregory McMichael and his son Travis. CNN previously reached out to Gregory McMichael for comment, but he said he won't be commenting because he is under investigation.
"This is an ongoing investigation," the Glynn County Police Department said in a statement April 28, adding that it "continues to gather and provide information to the District Attorney's Office that the case has been assigned to."
Two other district attorneys had recused themselves over possible conflicts of interest, one of whom wrote that Travis McMichael acted out of self-defense and their actions fell within Georgia's citizen arrest laws.
Now that cell phone video of the execution of a young man by racist fucks (that I'm not linking to for many reasons) shit is finally moving slowly but likely to get lost in the shuffle of people wanting low wage workers to sacrifice themselves for profits and haircuts and aggressive hornets.
Tom Durden, the district attorney for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, wrote he expects to present the case to the next available grand jury in Glynn County to consider whether charges are merited for those involved in Arbery's death.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, courts are currently prohibited from empaneling grand juries.
Durden did not return CNN's calls on Tuesday for comment, but the local branch of the NAACP provided CNN with the document -- labeled as a press release -- which matches a statement Durden gave to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
S. Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Arbery family, said in a statement obtained by CNN that the two men involved in the chase "must be taken into custody pending their indictment."
Vigilante killing of black people in the south is a long, long tradition. But a few years back it was re-codified acceptable when Zimmerman killed a man in 'defense' after stalking him.
This isn't the 'new normal', it's the 'old normal' we decided to do nothing about.
Post your predictions of the complete miscarriage of justice that will likely follow. Whose going to be the first to pose the theory that a high school shoplifting incident is a shootable offense years later while jogging. Or please tell me how a black man alone in the south is supposed to just comply to threatening men with guns and no authority as if that makes even kind of sense.
Let the apologism begin.
