Known Assailants Finally Charged With Murder of Ahmaud Arbery

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After Months of Inaction, 2 White Men Are Charged With Murder of Ahmaud Arbery

The two white men involved in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man jogging through their Georgia neighborhood, were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault on Thursday.

The arrests of the father and son — Gregory McMichael, 64, a retired district attorney investigator and police detective, and Travis McMichael, 34 — come after Arbery’s family released a video on Tuesday showing the last moments of the 25-year-old’s life. The footage sparked outrage among criminal justice advocates across the country, and led a Georgia prosecutor to call for a grand jury to investigate more than two months after the fatal shooting.

On February 23, 2020, Arbery was shot and killed by Travis McMichael after he and his father armed themselves and followed Arbery in a pickup truck after seeing him jog by; they later told police officers they believed Arbery to be a suspect in two burglaries in the Satilla Shores area. Prior to the video’s release, the only public record of Arbery’s final moments were the statements the McMichaels gave to police.

Arbery’s death has been compared with the shooting deaths of many other unarmed black people, including 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and Botham Jean, who was killed in his Dallas apartment in 2018. The release of the video has sparked protests in Georgia — where social distancing requirements were recently relaxed — with hundreds of people marching through Satilla Shores on Tuesday, promising to “run with Maud” and chanting, “We want justice!”

“The video is very clear that they were on the truck with guns hunting him down,” civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents Arbery’s father, told the Associated Press. “I don’t know what more you need to make an arrest.”

Before Thursday’s arrests, an investigation into the shooting had been limited, as a series of prosecutors recused themselves from the case. This has frustrated Arbery’s supporters, who argue that his killing — and the subsequent actions of local law enforcement — shows how little has changed in an area of Georgia that’s been described as dotted with Confederate flags, with a history of mobs of white men taking justice into their own hands in a manner that leaves black men dead.

SOURCE ⇒ VOX

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