Ahmaud Arbery was chased and gunned-down while jogging

As a former high school football standout, it wasn’t abnormal for 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery to stay fit and to see him run around the neighborhood, his friend’s say. 

What happened to Ahmaud Arbery 

On February 23, 2020 in a small town of near Brunswick, GA, Arbery was doing his routine run when he passed 64-year-old Gregory McMichael in his yard. The elder McMichael called out to his son, 34-year-old Travis McMichael, to get their guns and they got into a truck and began to follow Arbery. According to a police report, Gregory McMichael told the cops that Arbery resembled a suspect in a string of break-ins in the neighborhood.

“Stop, stop,” they shouted at Ahmaud Arbery, “we want to talk to you.”

Moments later, after a struggle over the shotgun, Arbery was killed, shot at least twice by Travis McMichael. 

Arbery’s case sounds eerily similar to Trayvon Martin, the unarmed African American teenager who was shot and killed by Florida neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman. Ironically, Arbery was killed three days before the anniversary of the 2012 killing of Martin. 

Ahmaud Arbery was followed and unarmed when he was fatally shot. The McMichael’s, who are white, say they acted in self-defense, just like the Zimmerman case. 

Ahmaud Arbery, Facebook

No arrests made

It’s been two months since Arbery’s murder. No one has been arrested or charged. 

The New York Times obtained documents that show a prosecutor who had the case for a few weeks told the police that the McMichael’s had acted within the scope of Georgia’s citizen’s arrest statute, and that Travis McMichael, who held the shotgun, had acted out of self-defense.

To complicate things, Gregory McMichael is a retired investigator for the district attorney’s office. The prosecutor who wrote the letter, George E. Barnhill, the district attorney for Georgia’s Waycross Judicial Circuit, recused himself from the case after Arbery’s family complained that he had a conflict of interest. 

The case will now be taken up by Tom Durden, in the city of Hinesville, Georgia, who will decide whether the case should be presented to a grand jury for possible indictments.

An Atlanta lawyer who formerly served as a U.S. attorney in Georgia, Michael J. Moore, reviewed Barnhill’s letter to the Glynn County Police Department along with the police report at the request of the  New York Times and called Barnhill’s take “flawed.” In Moore’s view, the McMichaels appeared to be the aggressors.

Ahmaud Arbery’s family demands justice

Arbery’s murder has gotten little attention. His family and friends are concerned that the case, similar to the other senseless killings of Black people that have sparked protest around the country, might go unnoticed in the Deep South community due to the social-distancing restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“We can’t do anything because of this corona stuff,” said Wanda Cooper, Arbery’s mother.

“We thought about walking out where the shooting occurred, just doing a little march, but we can’t be out right now.”

Social justice campaign 

Ahmaud Arbery’s family has started a Facebook page and have organized a pressure campaign, emailing law enforcement officials and local newspapers.

There are hashtags, #IRunWithMaud and #JusticeForAhmaud, and T-shirts have been printed. But few people are on the streets to see their message.

“There are a lot of people absolutely ready to protest,” said Jason Vaughn, a football coach at Brunswick High School who coached Arbery, who was an outside linebacker.

“But because of social distancing and being safe, we have to watch what’s going on with the coronavirus.”

Is Ahmaud Arbery case being swept under the rug?

Arbery was jogging in Satilla Shores, a predominately white neighborhood about 15 minutes from Brunswick. Family and friends stated that he had been wearing a white t-shirt, khaki shorts, Nike sneakers, and a bandanna while exercising.

On the day before the shooting, another neighbor in the area called 911 stating that a Black man in a white t-shirt was inside a house that was under construction.

According to a report by the New York Times, Barnhill, the prosecutor, noted in a letter before he recused himself that Arbery had a criminal past. Court records show that Arbery was convicted of shoplifting and of violating probation in 2018. Five years earlier, according to The Brunswick News, he was indicted on charges that he took a handgun to a high school basketball game.

Even if Ahmaud Arbery committed a crime on the afternoon he was killed, activists and family members said it would not have warranted a chase by armed neighbors resulting in his murder.

“This incident was at the least a case of overly zealous citizens that wrongfully profiled the victim without cause,” Brunswick’s NAACP President wrote in an email. “These men felt justified in taking the law in their own hands.”

Arbery’s mother said she believed the men had racially profiled her son. She does not believe he committed any crimes that day. If he had, she said, “he should have been handled by the police.”

According to a Facebook post, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt has been retained as the Arbery’s family attorney.