Ahmaud Arbery

Ahmaud Arbery was a 25 year-old black man killed by a gun, on February 23rd 2020, in Brunswick, Georgia. Ahmaud was not armed, and shot dead by a white officer and his son.

He was jogging in the neighborhood of Satilla Shores when a truck, driven by Gregory McMicheal, a retired police officer, stops him. 

At this moment, a neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, films a 36-second video of the scene, from his car, who was following Arbery too.

The driver, Gregory, is in the car, while his son, Travis McMicheal, 34years old, holds a shotgun pointed at Arbery. As Ahmaud approaches the pick-up truck, we can hear shouting in the video. Ahmaud tries to take the gun from Travis, for his safety, and three shots can be heard. Arbery tries to run away, but falls to the ground a few steps later. Travis walks away, while his father Gregory, who had a gun in hand but did not fire, runs to his son, that marks the end of the video. Later, the police will find out he said: "f***ing n*****" while standing close to his body.

After the video was in the hands of the police, the McMicheals say in their defense that they "confused him with a thief". He was approaching a house still in construction so they saw him as a threat and start following him. They say they had a "solid reason" into thinking he was a threat and had the right to intervene, as the Georgian law says.

The police, who did not have the video, responded with an interview with Gregory McMicheal, described as witness. He said he was in his yard when he saw Arbery and "recognised him from an incident the other night", so he grabbed his son and they started pursuing him. Gregory brought a revolver, while Travis a shotgun. They said he had caused a lot of burglaries in the neighborhood, but police confirmed there had only been one robbery in the past months. Gregory said that he cut off Ahmaud and he started running back from where he came, contradicting the video completely. He said to the police that he tried "calmly" to talk to him, and his son got out of the truck. He also said that Ahmaud started attacking violently Travis, 

The McMicheals walked out free until May 5th, 75 days after the murder, the video gets viral on Youtube and Twitter, where we demanded justice for Ahmaud.

On March 8th, Jackie Johnson was accused of preventing the immediante arrest of the father and son McMicheal. The police was about to arrest them but she "shut them down" to protect her friend. 

The GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation)  then arrested both Travis and Gregory on May 7th. They were charged of felony murder and aggravated assault. The next day, they were both denied bond.

Then, on May 21st, William "Roddie" Bryan was charged of felony murder and attenpted false imprisonment. 

On June 4th, an investigator testified saying that none of the three men called the police, but chased down and executed Arbery, and stated that it was self-defence from Arbery: he got chased and had two choices: run away from a man with a shotgun in his hand or fight, and he chose to fight.

Travis and Gregory McMicheal were arrested May 7th, with murder charges. Justice was served! We hope to see more succesful stories soon.