On Thursday afternoon, Gregory and Travis McMichael were arrested and charged with the murder of a 25-year-old Georgia man Ahmaud Arbery.
Georgia Police have arrested two suspects, father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael, more than two months after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Georgia man who was shot dead when he fled in February.
Arbery’s story and the public’s outcry for an arrest have gone viral after the video footage of the killing last week was made public, which sparked a demand for justice across the Internet.
Top people, from Joe Biden to LeBron James, to Southern Baptist Conference President Russell Moore, weighed in on the matter and demanded the arrest of suspects who were investigated by police but never arrested.
Before his arrest, the local chapter of the NAACP had planned a rally outside the Brunswick Court of GA on Friday morning. It would have been Arbery’s 26th birthday. The chapter’s vice president, Gerald Griggs, said the rally will continue as planned.
“We are going to send a message, the message is this: We will not allow unarmed African-Americans to be killed in this state without punishment.
The indictment video in Ahmaud Arbery murder
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was killed while walking out of a jock at Saddle Shores, 15 minutes from Brunswick, a quiet middle-class location.
Gregory McMichael, a 64-year-old former police officer and his son, Travis, 34, both of whom live in Chateau Shores, began hauling Arbery into their pickup truck. They were armed with a rifle and a .357 Magnum pistol.
Elder McMichael later told police that Aubrey looked like a man who wanted many breaks in the area, which is why they followed him that day.
The video of the confrontation between McMichaels and Arbery was taken from a short distance by a fourth person, depicting a two-lane man driving on the Arbery pickup truck.
After disappearing in the back of the truck for a while, you can hear the two men physically having trouble with Arbery before reappearing. Three gun blasts echo and Arbery dies.
The slow road to justice
Many consider the case of Ahmaud Arbery, who his parents called “modern lynching,” the only event in the longest history of racial violence in the American South.
The delayed legal response to the killing has provoked outrage, particularly in light of video evidence, which undoubtedly shows that Abery was shot in public.
GEORGE E. GEORGE, attorney for Georgia. Barnhill, who was appointed weeks ago and ultimately defended himself in a conflict of interest, has been prompted by Clinton County police to issue a warrant against McMichael’s, according to documents in The New York Times.”
Barnhill insisted that McMichael’s was carrying their weapons legally under Georgia law and that Travis McMichael was legally “allowed to use deadly force to defend himself” against unarmed Arbery because Arbery appears to have started the conflict.
The case has been reassigned to District Attorney Tom Durden, who announced that, amid this week’s outrage and media attention, he will ask the Glynn County grand jury to determine whether warrants should be issued.
He also called on the Georgia Intelligence Agency to get involved.
On Thursday afternoon, Gregory and Travis McMichael were arrested and charged with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.
United condemnation
Voices from across the political spectrum have been raised over the mismanaged case.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican and his former Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, called for an in-depth investigation into the matter, with Kemp tweeting that “Georgians are the best,” and Abrams writes, “Our law enforcement and judicial systems must be of the highest standard.”
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Thursday that Arbery “was killed before our eyes” and that events “remember the darkest chapters of our history.” President Trump acknowledged that the video was “very disturbing”.
However, despite the widespread consensus that Arbery’s death is tragic, the case reveals the failure of deeper organizations to establish justice in Georgia.
The DA is also responsible for publishing video sources and for the public. Prosecutors’ delayed response to Barnhill’s dismissal from a lawsuit and the arrest of McMichales reflects a general lack of urgency to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Furthermore, laws that have examined McMichael’s, including open-carry laws and your ground safeguards, have made it difficult to hold suspects accountable for murdering an innocent jogger.
Finally, although it is impossible to quantify the role that race played in this particular case, Arbery’s death did not occur in a vacuum. The innumerable linings that have killed black men and women in the American South for centuries have never been investigated.
Although Ahmaud Arbery’s family may still find justice for their son, those lost in the cancellations of history will never.