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Ahmaud Arbery killers’ sentencing for federal hate crimes: Live updates

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — The white father and son who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia neighborhood each received a second life prison sentence Monday — for committing federal hate crimes, months after getting their first for murder — at a hearing that brought a close to more than two years of criminal proceedings.

U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood handed down the sentences against Travis McMichael, 36, and his father, Greg McMichael, 66, reiterating the gravity of the February 2020 killing that shattered their Brunswick community. William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, who recorded cellphone video of the slaying, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

“A young man is dead. Ahmaud Arbery will be forever 25. And what happened, a jury found, happened because he’s Black,” Wood said.

The McMichaels were previously sentenced to life without parole in state court for Arbery’s murder and had asked the judge to divert them to a federal prison to serve their sentences, saying they were worried about their safety in the state prison system. Bryan had sought to serve his federal sentence first. Wood declined all three requests.

The sentences imposed Monday brought an end to the second trial against the men responsible for Arbery’s slaying, which along with the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky fueled a wave of protests across the country against the killings of unarmed Black people.

“The Justice Department’s prosecution of this case and the court’s sentences today make clear that hate crimes have no place in our country, and that the Department will be unrelenting in our efforts to hold accountable those who perpetrate them,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release. “Protecting civil rights and combatting white supremacist violence was a founding purpose of the Justice Department, and one that we will continue to pursue with the urgency it demands.”

In February, a federal jury convicted the McMichaels and Bryan of violating Arbery’s civil rights, concluding they targeted him because of his race. All three were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels were convicted of using guns in the commission of a violent crime.

The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after he ran past their home on Feb. 23, 2020. Bryan, a neighbor, joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery with a shotgun. The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a burglar, but investigators determined he was unarmed and had committed no crimes.

“I’m very thankful,” Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, told reporters outside the courthouse after all three sentences had been imposed. “It’s been a long fight. I’m so thankful God gave us the strength to continue to fight.”

The hearings marked the first time the men involved in the deadly chase expressed any remorse to Arbery’s family. Only Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots, chose to remain silent when given a chance to speak in court.

Greg McMichael told Arbery’s family their loss was “beyond description.”

“I’m sure my words mean very little to you, but I want to assure you I never wanted any of this to happen,” he said. “There was no malice in my heart or my son’s heart that day.”

Bryan said he was sorry.

“I never intended any harm to him, and I never would have played any role in what happened if I knew then what I know now,” Bryan said.

In giving Bryan a lower sentence, Wood noted he had not brought a gun to the pursuit of Arbery and preserved his cellphone video, which was crucial to the prosecutions.

Travis McMichael’s attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, said a lighter sentence would be more consistent with what similarly charged defendants have received in other cases, noting that the officer who killed Floyd in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, got 21 years in prison for violating Floyd’s civil rights, though he was not charged with targeting Floyd because of his race.

Greg McMichael’s attorney, A.J. Balbo, also cited the Chauvin sentence as well as his client’s age and health problems, which he said include a stroke and depression.

During the February hate crimes trial, prosecutors fortified their case that Arbery’s killing was motivated by racism by showing the jury roughly two dozen text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Bryan used racist slurs and made disparaging comments about Black people.

Prosecutor Christopher Perras said the trial evidence proved “what so many people felt in their hearts when they watched the video of Ahmaud’s tragic and unnecessary death: This would have never happened if he had been white.”

A state Superior Court judge imposed life sentences for the McMichaels and Bryan in January for Arbery’s murder, with both McMichaels denied any chance of parole. All three defendants have remained jailed in coastal Glynn County, in the custody of U.S. marshals, while awaiting sentencing after their federal convictions.

Because they were first charged and convicted of murder in a state court, they will be turned over to the Georgia Department of Corrections to serve their life terms in a state prison.

Copeland argued unsuccessfully for Travis McMichael to remain in federal custody, saying he has received hundreds of threats that he will be killed soon after arriving at state prison and that his photo has been circulated there on illegal phones.

“I am concerned your honor that my client effectively faces a back door death penalty,” she said, adding that “retribution and revenge” were not sentencing factors, even for a defendant who is “publicly reviled.”

Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., said Travis McMichael had shown his son no mercy and deserved to “rot” in state prison.

“You killed him because he was a Black man and you hate Black people,” he said. “You deserve no mercy.”

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Associated Press writer Sudhin Thanawala contributed to this report from Atlanta.

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Man convicted in Arbery case called DA after shooting, records show

Arbery, 25, was shot on February 23, 2020, while running from Greg McMichael, his son Travis and the McMichaels’ neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia.

The three were convicted last November of Arbery’s murder. In February, a jury found that the three White men had chased Arbery as he was jogging because he was Black. It found them guilty of interference of rights, a federal hate crime; and attempted kidnapping.

The document filed Wednesday was the prosecution’s response to two motions to dismiss criminal charges against Johnson for her role in allegedly mishandling the McMichael case. In the filing, government lawyers argue that Johnson’s legal challenge is untimely, that the evidence supporting Johnson’s indictment was sufficient, and that there was no flaw in the oath administered to grand jury witnesses.

In the wake of McMichael’s conviction in Arbery’s death, the state has also filed a misconduct case against Johnson claiming that she obstructed law enforcement “by directing that Travis McMichael should not be placed under arrest, contrary to the laws of said State.”

The McMichaels were arrested May 7, 2020 — two days after video of the shooting surfaced — and Bryan was taken into custody two weeks later.

A call log included in the state’s response to the motion to dismiss shows 16 calls took place between McMichael and Johnson from February 23, the day of the shooting, to May 5, 2020, with the longest call taking place on April 30 and lasting 21 minutes and 4 seconds.

The court documents also show that McMichael left Johnson a message on the same day as Arbery’s death in which he asks Johnson to call him back saying in part “my son and I have been involved in a shooting and I need some advice right away.”

The document states that some calls took place while Johnson was still the district attorney over the case.

McMichael and Johnson were acquainted because he had worked as a police officer and an investigator in the district attorney’s office.

“The evidence shows that Johnson showed favor and affection for McMichael throughout the pendency of the case — including when she was making decisions as the DA over his case,” the government’s brief said.

The government’s brief also points to conversations Johnson had with other officials, suggesting that Johnson tried to influence the handling of McMichael’s case rather than promptly recusing herself from involvement because of their past acquaintance.

CNN has made attempts to reach out to Johnson’s attorney for comment.

In the past, Johnson has denied any wrongdoing in the case, instead telling her constituents during her re-election campaign she was being falsely accused.

“That case is a terrible tragedy for the community,” Johnson said in October 2020 during an online debate between candidates running to be Brunswick district attorney. “It is a tragedy for the family. I’m sorry how things happened. I’m sorry that a lie got started and I could not turn it back.”

After serving a decade as the Brunswick district attorney, Johnson was voted out of office.

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Ahmaud Arbery murder: 2 years later, here’s what’s next after murder and hate crime convictions for his killers

“This hate crime trial actually showed the world what was going on in the minds of the murderers who killed Ahmaud, their state of mind, what type of people they really were,” Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday.

The White men — Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael, along with neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan — pursued Arbery, who was Black, in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside Brunswick before Travis McMichael shot him during a struggle over McMichael’s shotgun on February 23, 2020.

In their federal hate crimes trial, the three were convicted on a hate crime charge of interference of rights in addition to attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels also were convicted of gun charges.
Prosecutors in the federal trial homed in on testimony detailing how all three defendants spoke privately and publicly about Black people using inflammatory and derogatory language, including racial slurs. During closing rebuttal arguments this week, prosecutors emphasized in their argument that Arbery was killed because he was Black.

“The three defendants did not see 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery as a fellow human being,” Assistant US Attorney Tara Lyons said, calling into question a perceived lack of remorse from the defendants after the shooting.

Federal prosecutors and Arbery’s family have said he was out on a jog when the defendants got into trucks, chased and killed him. The defense argued that the pursuit began when the elder McMichael saw Arbery running from the direction of an under-construction home, and that he believed he matched the description of someone who had been recorded there previously. A neighbor testified Arbery ran from the property just as he called police to report him there, though McMichael didn’t know about the call.
Prosecutors conceded Arbery was in the under-construction home that day and several other times — but was in the neighborhood to jog, and never broke into the home as it wasn’t locked, never took anything, and never did anything that would allow the men to pursue or stop him. They also said that White people had visited the site apparently without being chased.
Defense attorneys argued the McMichaels pursued Arbery in a pickup truck through neighborhood streets to stop him for police, and that Travis McMichael shot Arbery in self-defense as they wrestled over McMichael’s shotgun.
Prosecutors argued the defendants falsely told police after the shooting that Arbery had been caught breaking into houses, part of a pattern showing the defendants knew what they had done wrong and were trying to get away with it.
The men were convicted in November in state court on murder charges, with the McMichaels getting life in prison without parole. Bryan, who trailed the McMichaels during their chase of Arbery and recorded video of the shooting, was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

For the federal convictions, the three men now also could get up to life in prison and steep fines. Sentencing will be scheduled after presentencing reports are filed, Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said in court.

Family critical of earlier plea deal

Following the guilty verdicts Tuesday, Cooper-Jones thanked the Department of Justice for its work but chastised prosecutors for a proposed plea deal in January.

Cooper-Jones spoke to DOJ prosecutors and “begged them” to not take the plea deal in the case, she said.

“What we got today, we wouldn’t have gotten today if it was not for the fight that the family put up,” Cooper-Jones said. “What the (Department of Justice) did today, they were made to do today.”

Travis McMichael had agreed to plead guilty to a single hate crime charge — interference with rights — in exchange for prosecutors recommending he serve 30 years in federal prison. After completing the federal sentence, he would’ve been returned to Georgia to finish his sentence of life in prison without parole.

But Wood said she was not comfortable with the sentencing guidelines and rejected the deal. Gregory McMichael withdrew his plea agreement after Travis McMichael’s deal failed, and the three defendants entered pleas of not guilty before trial.

The Justice Department said at the time that the court’s decision would be respected, according to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, but added in a statement that prosecutors “entered the plea agreement only after the victims’ attorneys informed me that the family was not opposed to it.”

In addition to the federal and state sentences faced by the McMichaels and Bryan, attorney Ben Crump, on behalf of the Arbery family, said they plan to bring a civil suit once the criminal proceedings are over.

CNN’s Mike Hayes, Pamela Kirkland, Eliott C. McLaughlin, Angela Barajas, Melissa Alonso and Gregory Lemos contributed to this report.

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Arbery Killers Found Guilty of Federal Hate Crimes: Live Trial Updates

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Credit…Elijah Nouvelage/Associated Press, Stephen B. Morton/Associated Press, Octavio Jones/Getty Images,

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A jury on Tuesday determined that the three white Georgia men who murdered Ahmaud Arbery violated a federal hate-crime statute by depriving Mr. Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, of his right to use a public street because of the color of his skin.

The jury also found the three men — Travis McMichael, 36, his father, Gregory McMichael, 66, and their neighbor William Bryan, 52 — guilty of attempted kidnapping and found the McMichaels guilty of one count each of brandishing or discharging a firearm during a violent crime.

The men now face up to life in prison for the federal crimes, on top of the life sentences they received earlier this year in state court after being convicted of Mr. Arbery’s murder, with only Mr. Bryan eligible for parole. The federal convictions ensure that the defendants will receive significant prison time even if their state convictions are overturned or their sentences reduced on appeal.

The victory will also be important, symbolically and emotionally, for Mr. Arbery’s family, as well as other observers who believed that the pursuit and fatal shooting of Mr. Arbery on a Sunday afternoon in February 2020 amounted to what the Rev. Al Sharpton called “a lynching in the 21st Century.”

During the federal trial, lawyers for the three defendants argued that the men had not been motivated by racial animus, but rather because Mr. Arbery seemed to them like a potential crime suspect. Prosecutors, however, presented copious evidence that showed that the men harbored coarse racist views about Black people.

After a graphic video of his fatal shooting went viral in 2020, Mr. Arbery joined a grim list of African American victims of recent violence that has triggered a broader conversation about the treatment of Black people at the hands of law enforcement and in everyday situations. This week’s verdict offered another example of the judicial system’s varied responses to these incidents, coming 10 months after a jury found Derek Chauvin, a white former Minneapolis police officer, guilty of murdering a Black man, George Floyd, and a few days after another white former police officer, Kimberly Potter, was sentenced to two years in prison for shooting Daunte Wright, a Black motorist, at a traffic stop.

Social justice advocates were generally pleased with the outcome of Mr. Chauvin’s trial, but some have expressed frustration that the sentence given to Ms. Potter, who was found guilty of manslaughter, seemed too lenient.

The Georgia hate-crimes trial followed a dramatic murder trial in state court concerning the Arbery killing. Key aspects of that trial were televised and the case attracted scores of demonstrators, including well-known Black activists like Mr. Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, to the small coastal city of Brunswick. A large group of activists chanted and cheered outside the Glynn County courthouse on the day before Thanksgiving, when a nearly all-white jury issued the guilty verdicts.

In the murder case, prosecutors treaded lightly on the topics of race and racism, focusing instead on the rash and dangerous decisions the men made when they decided to jump into a pair of trucks and chase the unarmed Mr. Arbery, who was on foot, through their quiet South Georgia neighborhood.

Even before the federal trial began, it was expected to be different because the men’s racist views — evidence of which was divulged or hinted at in pre-trial state hearings and court filings — would take center stage, with jurors forced to determine whether racism had been a motive in the actions of the defendants that day.

In January, the McMichaels appeared to be heading off the possibility of going through a federal trial, having reached plea deals with the U.S. Department of Justice in which they would have been sentenced to 30-year sentences to run concurrent with their state sentences. However, Mr. Arbery’s parents came to court and pleaded for U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood to reject the deals, in part because they would have allowed the men to spend the bulk of their sentences in the federal prison system, which is generally thought to be a less harsh environment than the Georgia state system. Judge Wood ended up rejecting the pleas.

When the evidence of the defendants’ racism was finally laid out in court, it proved to be both voluminous and harsh, including numerous uses of racist epithets and racial insults. Along with video of Mr. Arbery gasping for his final breaths on the pavement and testimony that the defendants did not render aid to him, the government’s case seemed to take an emotional toll on jurors, some of whom could be seen crying. Last week, one of the jurors asked court officials if counseling was available.

Even the defense lawyers acknowledged to the jury — made up of eight white members, three Black members and a Hispanic member — that their clients’ views were reprehensible. J. Pete Theodocion, a lawyer for Mr. Bryan, referred to racism as “among the lowest of human emotions.”

Text messages recovered from Mr. Bryan’s cellphone showed that he opposed his daughter’s relationship with a Black man, using a racist slur to describe the boyfriend in a text exchange four days before Mr. Arbery’s killing. A witness said Gregory McMichael made disparaging comments about a Black tenant who rented from him and about the civil rights leader Julian Bond.

Travis McMichael, the man who used his Remington shotgun to fatally shoot Mr. Arbery three times at close range, was revealed to have repeatedly used racist slurs, and expressed the desire to see violence and death visited upon Black people.

The government introduced no evidence to show that the men directed their racist language toward Mr. Arbery specifically. But prosecutors noted that some of the racist language had been used a few days or months before the killing. They also seemed to bet on the jury being revolted by how much evidence of racism there was, with the quantity of insults showing that these were more than accidental slips of the tongue.

“At the end of the day, the evidence in this case will prove that if Ahmaud Arbery had been white, he would have gone for a jog, checked out a house under construction and been home in time for Sunday supper,” Bobbi Bernstein, a Justice Department lawyer, told the jury. “Instead he went out for a jog, and he ended up running for his life. Instead he ended up bleeding to death, alone and scared, in the middle of the street.”

Gregory McMichael’s lawyer, A.J. Balbo, told the jury that Mr. McMichael had not been out to hunt down a Black person that day, but rather to go after Mr. Arbery specifically, after a police officer showed security camera images of Mr. Arbery entering a nearby house that was under construction.

Mr. Arbery had entered the house numerous times in the weeks before the shooting, including the moments before the chase began, though there is no evidence he stole or disturbed the property inside. Twelve days before the shooting, Travis McMichael had also seen Mr. Arbery outside the house and had called 911, claiming he saw Mr. Arbery reach toward his waistband, a gesture, Mr. McMichael said, that made it seem like he could have been reaching for a gun.

Travis McMichael’s lawyer, Amy Lee Copeland, noted that her client had been shocked, rather than “gleeful” after the shooting, which occurred after Mr. Arbery, pinned in by the two trucks, clashed with the younger Mr. McMichael, who had by that point stepped out of his truck with his shotgun in his hands.

Mr. Theodocion noted that his client, Mr. Bryan, did not know anything about Mr. Arbery’s history with the McMichaels, or his visits to the house, when he saw Mr. Arbery run by his house, with the McMichaels in full pursuit. Mr. Bryan joined the chase assuming that Mr. Arbery had done something wrong enough to warrant the pursuit, Mr. Balbo said.

The death of Mr. Arbery was met with revulsion from both conservative and liberal lawmakers in Georgia. It prompted state legislators to significantly weaken a citizen’s arrest law that one local prosecutor had cited soon after the shooting to argue that the three men should not be arrested. It also prompted them to pass a state hate-crime law.

This month, the legislature also passed a resolution declaring Wednesday, the two-year anniversary of the killing, “Ahmaud Arbery Day.”

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Ahmaud Arbery murder: Jurors are set to begin second day of deliberations in federal hate crimes trial of three men convicted

Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were previously given life prison sentences in state court, but federal charges they face — including a hate crime, interference with rights — would bring additional punishments for acts prosecutors say were racially motivated.

During the closing rebuttal arguments on Monday, prosecutor Tara Lyons emphasized the state’s position that “this offense happened” because Ahmaud was Black.

“On February 23, 2020, the three defendants did not see 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery as a fellow human being,” Lyons said.

Defense attorneys have not denied the use of their language yet argued the facts of the case show their response to Arbery was not due to his race.

The McMichaels have claimed they pursued Arbery, who prosecutors and his family say was jogging at the time of the attack, in their vehicle because they suspected him of burglary of a home under construction near their residence outside Brunswick, Georgia. Bryan told authorities he followed the McMichaels after seeing them give chase.

Upon reaching Arbery, Travis McMichael got out of his truck with a firearm, and after a brief struggle, shot and killed Arbery.

The three men were tried in a Georgia court and found guilty on multiple murder counts in November. The McMichaels were sentenced to life in prison without parole, while Bryan — who recorded video of the shooting — was given life with the possibility of parole.
Before the federal trial, the McMichaels initially agreed to plead guilty, but the judge overseeing the case rejected the plea deal because of concerns about the sentence. The three men have since pleaded not guilty.

Jurors deliberated for more than two hours Monday before being excused for the evening. Deliberations will recommence at 9 a.m. ET.

The jury is made up of eight White jurors, three Black jurors and one Hispanic juror, according to details provided in court. Three White people and one Pacific Islander have also been selected as alternates.

Closing statements wrapped on Monday

Prosecutor Christopher J. Perras spoke at the start of the prosecution’s closing arguments Monday by going through some of the evidence presented during trial, including Facebook posts made by Greg McMichael, texts and posts by Travis McMichael, and Bryan’s use of a derogatory phrase in messages to friends.

In one example, under a Facebook video appearing to show a group of primarily Black teenagers beating a White teen, Travis McMichael commented, “I say shoot them all,” and referred to the group as “monkeys,” according to testimony from an FBI intelligence analyst.

Perras claimed the defendants also made false statements to the police by saying Arbery had been caught breaking into houses, during interviews with investigators.

“This wasn’t about trespassing. It wasn’t about neighborhood crime. It was about race. Racial assumptions, racial resentment and racial anger,” said Perras. “All three defendants saw a young Black man in their neighborhood, and they thought the worst of him.”

How the defendants acted was part of a pattern that they knew what they did was wrong, Perras said, and did what they could to try to get away with the murder. The men were not charged until more than two months after the shooting.

Defense attorneys on behalf of each of the three men also spoke Monday in closing remarks, pushing back against prosecutors’ arguments.

J. Pete Theodocion, a defense attorney for Bryan, said his client was put into a situation, which, “for all intents and purposes look like the individual had committed a crime.”

Amy Copeland, a defense attorney for Travis McMichael, said there is no evidence her client used a racial slur on the day Arbery was murdered, no evidence he was part of a hate group, no evidence of racial violence committed by McMichael and no evidence he talked about Arbery’s death in racial terms.

The defense attorney for Greg McMichael told the jury his client had tenants who were people of color.

“Those are his private facilities,” attorney A.J. Balbo said. “Gregory McMichael invited people of color, African Americans to make use of his private facilities.”

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, was seen overcome with emotion in the courtroom during the defense’s closing arguments, including when Balbo detailed the moments leading up to the fatal attack.

“He described Ahmaud as turning toward Travis and attacking Travis, which we all know now that wasn’t true,” she told reporters outside the courthouse during Monday’s lunch break. “When Ahmaud turned to Travis, Travis already had that shotgun pulled toward him.”

The timing of the closing of the trial is “great,” Cooper-Jones said, as it nears the two-year anniversary of Arbery’s death. “The anniversary date is the 23rd, and hopefully we’ll have a good verdict by the 23rd,” she said.

After recounting what Balbo claimed about her son, she said, “this has been very draining, and I’m thankful that it’s almost over.”

CNN’s Pamela Kirkland, Kevin Conlon, Maria Cartaya, Jason Hanna, Christina Maxouris, Eric Levenson, Sam Perez, Jaide Timm-Garcia and Alta Spells contributed to this report.

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Jury Begins Deliberations in Arbery Hate Crimes Trial

Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times

Three white men were found guilty in November of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, after suspecting him of committing a series of break-ins in their South Georgia neighborhood. The men were sentenced to life in state prison in January and now face federal hate crimes charges.

Here is what we know about the circumstances of Mr. Arbery’s death.

Ahmaud Arbery, a former high school football standout, was living with his mother outside the small city of Brunswick, Ga. He had spent a little time in college but seemed to be in a period of drift in his 20s, testing out various careers, working on his rapping skills and living with his mother. He also suffered from a mental illness that caused him to have auditory hallucinations.

On Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020, shortly before 1 p.m., Mr. Arbery was running in a suburban neighborhood called Satilla Shores, when a man standing in his front yard saw him go by, according to a police report. The man, Gregory McMichael, said he thought Mr. Arbery looked like a man suspected in several break-ins in the area and called to Travis McMichael, his son.

According to the police report, the men grabbed a .357 Magnum handgun and a shotgun, got into a pickup truck and chased Mr. Arbery, trying unsuccessfully to cut him off. A third man, William Bryan, also joined the pursuit in a second truck, according to the report and other documents.

In a recording of a 911 call, which appears to have been made moments before the chase began, a neighbor told a dispatcher that a Black man was inside a house that was under construction on the McMichaels’ block.

During the chase, the McMichaels yelled, “Stop, stop, we want to talk to you,” according to Gregory McMichael’s account in the police report. They then pulled up to Mr. Arbery, and Travis McMichael got out of the truck with the shotgun.

Gregory McMichael “stated the unidentified male began to violently attack Travis and the two men then started fighting over the shotgun at which point Travis fired a shot and then a second later there was a second shot,” the report states.

Mr. Arbery was unarmed.

Shortly after the shooting, the prosecutor for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, Jackie Johnson, recused herself because Gregory McMichael had worked in her office.

The case was sent to George E. Barnhill, the district attorney in Waycross, Ga., who later recused himself from the case after Mr. Arbery’s mother argued that he had a conflict because his son also worked for the Brunswick district attorney.

But before he relinquished the case, Mr. Barnhill wrote a letter to the Glynn County Police Department. In the letter, he argued that there was not sufficient probable cause to arrest Mr. Arbery’s pursuers.

Mr. Barnhill noted that the McMichaels were legally carrying their firearms under Georgia’s open-carry law. He said they had been within their rights to pursue what he called “a burglary suspect” and cited a state law that says, “A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge.” That so-called citizen’s arrest law was largely dismantled in response to the Arbery case.

Mr. Barnhill also argued that if Mr. Arbery attacked Travis McMichael, Mr. McMichael was “allowed to use deadly force to protect himself” under Georgia law.

Anger over the killing and the lack of consequences for the McMichaels grew when a graphic video surfaced, showing the shooting on a suburban road.

The cellphone video, shot by Mr. Bryan, is about a half-minute long. It shows Mr. Arbery running along a shaded two-lane residential road when he comes upon a white truck, with Travis McMichael standing beside its open driver’s side door with a shotgun. Gregory McMichael is in the bed of the pickup with a handgun.

Mr. Arbery runs around the truck and disappears briefly from view. Muffled shouting can be heard before Mr. Arbery emerges, fighting with Travis McMichael outside the truck as three shotgun blasts echo.

Mr. Arbery tries to run but staggers and falls to the pavement after a few steps.

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Ahmaud Arbery murder: Closing arguments to begin in hate crimes trial

After four days of testimony from 21 witnesses — only one for the defense — the government and defense teams rested their cases Friday, with several prosecution witnesses testifying the defendants used racist language in messages and conversation.
Travis McMichael; his father, Gregory McMichael; and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan were convicted in a state court in November of felony murder and other charges for the February 2020 killing of Arbery, a Black man, after they chased him in a neighborhood outside Brunswick, Georgia.

The jury in the federal trial in Brunswick will decide whether Arbery was killed because of the color of his skin. The three men are each charged with interference with rights — a hate crime — and attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels also face charges related to the use of firearms during a violent crime.

The defendants, who pleaded not guilty in this trial, are already serving life sentences in prison for the murder convictions, though Bryan is eligible for parole after serving 30 years, and each plan to appeal the verdicts. Convictions in this trial could bring steep fines and more life sentences.
Federal prosecutors and Arbery’s family have said he was out for a jog when he was killed. Defense attorneys in the state trial contended the McMichaels, suspecting Arbery of trespassing multiple times at an under-construction home, pursued him through neighborhood streets to conduct a citizen’s arrest. Travis McMichael argued he shot Arbery in self-defense as they wrestled over McMichael’s shotgun.
Bryan had pursued Arbery with his own vehicle and recorded video of the pursuit and shooting.
Prosecutors at the state trial said Arbery was at the construction site several times including the day of the shooting, but always without breaking in or taking anything. They argued the pursuers acted on rumors of wrongdoing; that White people visited the site apparently without being chased; and that the pursuers did not actually see Arbery at the site that day and had no immediate knowledge he’d committed a crime.

Prosecution witnesses testified about racial slurs from defendants

In the hate crimes trial, prosecutors called several witnesses last week who testified the men had used racial slurs in dialogue or in texts and social media.

One witness testified that Gregory McMichael, in talking about Black people in 2015, said “I wish they’d all die,” and “all these Blacks are nothing but trouble.”

The witness said this was followed by an “angry rant” against Black people lasting about two minutes, which she described as “really shocking.”

An FBI intelligence analyst testified texts and social media messages taken from the phones of Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan included racist insults about African Americans.

One witness was so upset recalling her interactions with the McMichaels, she left the stand in tears.

The defense’s only witness last week was a resident of the Satilla Shores neighborhood where Arbery was killed and where the defendants lived. The witness said she had lived in the neighborhood for 48 years but had never met the McMichaels or Bryan.

Her testimony was connected to a nonemergency call Gregory McMichael made about a White man possibly living under a bridge near the neighborhood — a defense effort to show the elder McMichael was worried about anyone, regardless of race, who may have been a threat to his neighborhood.

The defense has argued while the men may have used racist language, Arbery’s race was not a motivation in the fatal incident.

The panel is made up of eight White jurors, three Black jurors and one Hispanic juror, according to details provided in court. Three White people and one Pacific Islander have also been selected as alternates.

Prosecution argues defendants followed Arbery because of perceptions about Black people

The defense argued at the state murder trial that the pursuit began when the elder McMichael saw Arbery running from the direction of the under-construction home, and that he believed he matched the description of someone who’d been recorded there previously — and of someone Travis McMichael had encountered and called police about 12 nights earlier.
Unbeknownst to the McMichaels on the day of the shooting, a neighbor had just called police to report that Arbery was at the construction site alone, and that Arbery ran as the neighbor called, according to testimony.

The prosecution in the murder trial conceded surveillance videos did show Arbery at the construction site multiple times, including the day he was killed, but said that he never broke in or took anything.

During the murder trial, witnesses testified that the McMichaels did not know for certain that Arbery was at the site that day, or whether the man in the videos had ever taken anything.
In opening statements for the hate crime trial, a prosecutor said the defendants previously used racist language and followed Arbery because of their perceptions of Black people.

“At the end of the day, the evidence in this case will prove that if Ahmaud Arbery had been White, he would have gone for a jog, checked out a cool house under construction, and been home in time for Sunday supper,” Assistant US Attorney Barbara Bernstein told the jury last week. “Instead, he went out for a jog and ended up running for his life.”

The defendants’ attorneys, making separate opening statements last week, acknowledged the men had used racist language — but said that their actions toward Arbery were not related to race.

“Greg and Travis McMichael followed Ahmaud Arbery not because he was a Black man, but because he was the man who had been illegally entering the house that was under construction,” A.J. Balbo, Gregory McMichael’s defense attorney, said last week.

CNN’s Pamela Kirkland, Alta Spells, Kevin Conlon and Nick Valencia contributed to this report.

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Ahmaud Arbery killers used racial slur in messages, witness testifies in trial

FBI analyst Amy Vaughan testified about several text messages between Travis McMichael — who fatally shot Arbery, a Black man, in February 2020 — and friends using offensive language and racist slurs.

The first text message introduced into evidence was between Travis McMichael and a friend, dated March 16, 2019, in which Vaughan said they were discussing Travis’ new job and why he liked that he didn’t work with Black people.

“They ruin everything. That’s why I love what I do now. Not a n****er in sight,” McMichael said in the message, according to Vaughan.

Vaughan also testified messages found in defendant William “Roddie” Bryan’s phone showed evidence of racial animus.

She found messages using the n-word as well and the word, “bootlip,” which she described as “Mr. Bryan’s word of choice.” She went on to explain that “bootlip” is a derogatory term for a Black person, referencing a stereotypical characterization of a Black person’s face, in her testimony.

When a prosecutor asked her if she found evidence of racial animus against African Americans during her investigation, Vaughan said she had.

The analyst also testified about a number of messages and social media posts from Travis McMichael that came up in her investigation related to racial violence. On a Facebook video of what Vaughan described as a mob beating a White teenager, McMichael posted a public comment suggesting shooting the group of primarily Black teenagers.

The three White defendants — McMichael, 36; his father, Gregory McMichael, 66; and their neighbor Bryan, 52 — were convicted in November of felony murder and other charges for Arbery’s February 2020 killing in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside Brunswick, Georgia.
In this federal trial in Brunswick, the three men are each charged with interference with rights — a hate crime — and attempted kidnapping. The McMichaels also each face a weapons charge. The McMichaels initially agreed to plead guilty, but the judge overseeing the case rejected the plea deal because of concerns about the agreed-upon sentence. The three men have since pleaded not guilty.
Federal prosecutors and Arbery’s family have said he was out for a jog when he was killed. Defense attorneys in the state trial contended the McMichaels, suspecting Arbery of trespassing multiple times at an under-construction home, pursued him through neighborhood streets to conduct a citizen’s arrest. Travis McMichael argued he shot Arbery in self-defense as they wrestled over McMichael’s shotgun. Bryan had pursued Arbery with his own vehicle and recorded video of the pursuit and shooting.
Prosecutors at the state trial said Arbery was at the construction site several times including the day of the shooting, but always without breaking in or taking anything. They argued the pursuers acted on rumors of wrongdoing; that White people visited the site apparently without being chased; and that the pursuers did not actually see Arbery at the site that day and had no immediate knowledge he’d committed a crime, which is required to claim a citizen’s arrest.

Last year’s state murder trial avoided discussion of race. This federal hate crimes trial is more clearly focusing on race, as prosecutors must prove the men acted out of racial animus.

The defendants are already serving life sentences in prison for the murder convictions, although they have said they plan to appeal the verdicts. Convictions in this trial could bring steep fines and more life sentences.
The jury was finalized Monday morning and consists of eight White jurors, three Black jurors and one Hispanic juror, according to details provided in court. Three White people and one Pacific Islander have also been selected as alternates.

US District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood had warned jurors that they would hear evidence of racist statements made by the defendants.

“You may consider each statement against the defendant who made it,” the judge said, adding the jury may not consider the evidence to decide if the defendant engaged in the action or to judge the defendant’s character, but they may use it to determine whether the defendants acted because of race.

The jurors appeared to be very attentive Wednesday, looking at their individual screens while the evidence was shown but didn’t appear to express any emotion.

Leigh McMichael, mother of Travis and wife of Gregory McMichael, appeared solemn. The defendants appeared stoic and emotionless during Vaughan’s testimony, looking at the screens in front of them where the evidence could be seen.

Speaking outside the federal courthouse on Wednesday afternoon, Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she hoped for “another guilty verdict” by the anniversary of her son’s death, February 23.

“Ain’t no quitting until we get justice for Ahmaud,” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., said as he was leaving the courthouse.

More messages from Travis McMichael

Vaughan testified Wednesday she reviewed the cell phones of Travis McMichael and Bryan; Instagram posts of Travis McMichael; Facebook files for all three defendants; and the Facebook account of the Satilla Shores neighborhood.

Vaughan said she had extracted the text messages from Travis McMichael’s phone the day Arbery was killed.

A text message dated January 21, 2019, referenced Travis McMichael meeting a friend at a local Cracker Barrel restaurant. Vaughan read the conversation aloud in court. The friend tells Travis, “This Cracker Barrel up here is full of some other kinds of people.” Travis’ reply used a racist slur about African Americans.

As this discussion was happening, Arbery’s father walked out of the courtroom shaking his head. He returned a short time later, still shaking his head as the testimony continued.

A Facebook message that Travis McMichael sent another friend, Vaughan testified, included a video with a Johnny Rebel song containing a racist slur. The video was played as part of the evidence in court.

The song had been edited onto another video showing a segment from “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” with a young Black boy dancing. The actual video from the show does not use the offensive song.

In another message entered into evidence, dated November 1, 2016, the day after Halloween, Travis McMichael is sent a photo from a friend. Vaughan said the photo appeared to be a “crude attempt” to depict Trayvon Martin after he was killed. The text was laughing about a man in blackface with a red splotch on a hoodie, the friend called it “the winner of Halloween 2016.”

Evidence was also entered into record that Vaughan described as showing vigilantism from the older McMichael. Vaughan described a comment from Gregory McMichael on a social media post about a stolen surfboard where he suggested he might catch the culprit, and added: “We still hang horse and board thieves up here. Woe be to the sticky-fingered bastard.”

Bryan used slurs against Black people in messages about Martin Luther King Jr. Day, witness testifies

Vaughan testified Bryan regularly used slurs against Black people in messages on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

In what appeared to be a personal joke, Bryan was referred to as the “Grand Marshal” in a message from a friend. Vaughan testified that this was a joke that referred to the idea that Bryan would be the grand marshal of an MLK Day parade.

“He would never do that, because he doesn’t particularly care for Black people or MLK Day,” Vaughan testified as she explained the joke.

Also introduced into evidence was a WhatsApp message dated January 20, 2020, from Bryan to a friend, that was read aloud in court.

“Happy Bootlip Day,” Bryan wrote. Bryan went on to say, “I worked like a n***er today,” according to Vaughan.

Another set of WhatsApp messages discussed Bryan discovering that his daughter was dating a Black man. A message between Bryan and friend dated February 19, 2020 — four days before Arbery’s killing — had Bryan using a slur in reference to the boyfriend.

Vaughan said Bryan’s daughter’s relationship remained an ongoing theme in messages. A photo posted on Facebook of Bryan’s daughter and her Black boyfriend together was sent to Bryan in a WhatsApp message on April 8, 2020. Bryan responded that if his daughter did not care about herself, “Why should we?”

Prosecution argues defendants followed Arbery because of perceptions about Black people

The defense argued at the state murder trial that the pursuit began when the elder McMichael saw Arbery running from the direction of an under-construction home, and that he believed he matched the description of someone who’d been recorded there previously and of someone Travis McMichael had encountered and called police about 12 nights earlier.
Unbeknownst to the McMichaels on the day of the shooting, a neighbor had just called police to report that Arbery was at the construction site alone, and that Arbery ran as the neighbor called, according to testimony.

Travis McMichael also testified during the state trial that he’d seen — and called police about — a Black male near the property on a night nearly two weeks before the shooting. Because that person reached for his waistband area, he assumed the person was armed that night, he said.

The prosecution in the murder trial conceded surveillance videos did show Arbery at the construction site multiple times, including the day he was killed, but always without breaking in and without taking anything.

During the murder trial, witnesses testified that the McMichaels did not know for certain that Arbery was at the site that day, or whether the man in the videos had ever taken anything.
In opening statements for the hate crime trial, a prosecutor said the defendants previously used racist language and followed Arbery because of their perceptions of Black people.

“At the end of the day, the evidence in this case will prove that if Ahmaud Arbery had been White, he would have gone for a jog, checked out a cool house under construction, and been home in time for Sunday supper,” Assistant US Attorney Barbara Bernstein told the jury Monday. “Instead, he went out for a jog and ended up running for his life.”

The defendants’ attorneys, speaking separately, acknowledged the men had used racist language — but said that their actions toward Arbery were not related to race.

“Greg and Travis McMichael followed Ahmaud Arbery not because he was a Black man, but because he was the man who had been illegally entering the house that was under construction,” A.J. Balbo, Gregory McMichael’s defense attorney, said Monday.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Amy Vaughan’s last name.

CNN’s Kevin Conlon and Nick Valencia contributed to this report.

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McMichaels, Bryan used racist slurs and memes, FBI testifies at Arbery hate-crimes trial

“We used to walk around committing hate crimes all day,” he wrote in another text conversation a few months before the shooting.

The second day of testimony in the federal hate-crimes trial over Arbery’s death opened Wednesday with an FBI analyst detailing dozens of racist social media posts and messages allegedly sent by the three men who chased and killed Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, in their coastal Georgia neighborhood in early 2020.

Prosecutors are seeking to prove that Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan attacked Arbery out of racial bias. All three men were convicted of murder last fall and sentenced to life in prison, with Bryan eligible for parole after 30 years.

Their murder trial, in state court before a nearly all-White jury, avoided direct allegations of racism, even though the killing of Arbery helped spark nationwide social-justice protests. The federal trial, in contrast, focuses squarely on whether the McMichaels and Bryan targeted Arbery because he was Black, and is the first trial stemming from several high-profile killings of Black people in 2020 to do so.

Arbery’s family has said he was out for a jog in the Satilla Shores neighborhood when the defendants chased him down in pickup trucks and confronted him. Travis McMichael fatally shot Arbery and claimed self-defense, an argument that a local district attorney quickly accepted before Bryan’s video of the shooting went viral and forced new scrutiny. Arbery did not have a weapon.

FBI intelligence analyst Amy Vaughan testified Wednesday about investigators’ review of the defendants’ phone messages and social media. She spent most of her time on Travis McMichael, 36, walking the jury through a litany of conversations in which he denigrated Black people, often while calling them the n-word. McMichael associated Black people with criminality, spoke explicitly about committing violence against them and blamed them when he struggled to get a commercial driver’s license, accusing them of “running the show,” Vaughan testified.

“I say shoot all of them,” he commented on a video that showed a group of mostly Black teenagers attacking a White teenager. He also appeared to advocate running over protesters in response to a video of a car hitting Black women. When someone sent McMichael a video in which a Black man plays a prank on a White man, he used a racial epithet in saying he’d kill the prankster.

Turning to Bryan, 52, Vaughan testified that text messages showed Bryan’s running joke with a friend about serving as “grand marshal” of a parade on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. “I think the joke is that he would never do that,” she told the jury. While texting about the holiday, Vaughn added, Bryan referred to Black people using multiple racial slurs and referenced a “monkey parade.”

Four days before Arbery was shot, the prosecutor said, Bryan used the n-word to refer to his daughter’s boyfriend, who was Black.

Greg McMichael was less active than his son on Facebook, Vaughan said, and law enforcement agents were unable to break through the encryption on his phone to see his messages. But they gleaned some information from online backups of the device and found the elder McMichael sometimes posted memes on Facebook, including the one that said White Irish slaves were treated worse than other enslaved groups. “When was the last time you heard an Irishman b—-ing about how the world owes them a living?” the meme continued, according to Vaughan.

Members of the jury — eight White people, three Black people and one Hispanic person — leaned forward and watched intently as the evidence was presented. Leigh McMichael, Travis’s mother and Greg’s wife, sat in the courtroom without a visible reaction.

The McMichaels have said they pursued Arbery not because of his race but because they suspected him of break-ins and potentially theft. Arbery had entered an under-construction home in their area a few times in the months leading up to the shooting, and did so again on the day he was shot, Feb. 23, 2020. But police had told Gregory McMichael — a former police officer and investigator with the district attorney’s office — and his son that surveillance footage did not show Arbery taking anything from the property on those earlier visits.

Bryan said he saw the McMichaels pursuing Arbery on Feb. 23 and joined the chase in his own pickup truck, figuring that the young man had “done something wrong.” Arbery had not taken anything from the house that day, either, authories say.

In their opening statements on Monday, defense lawyers for the McMichaels acknowledged that their clients have said reprehensible things about Black people, but noted for jurors that such words are not illegal. Bryan’s lawyer said the jurors would see “different levels” of racism and argued that “Roddie is not a man who sees the entire world through the prism of race.”

On Tuesday, the first day of government witness testimony, the jury heard from Satilla Shores residents who lived near the scene of the shooting and did not see Arbery as a threat.

Matthew Albenze, a longtime neighborhood resident, said he had called police on a previous day after seeing Arbery in an under-construction house. But Albenze testified that he had called a non-emergency police line and that he did not think Arbery, whom he did not know, was doing anything other than looking around.

Another resident, who is White, said he is a frequent runner who often jogged in the neighborhood without arousing suspicion from his neighbors.

Prosecutors also called Richard Dial, an investigator with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who was assigned to the case and testified to the findings of the state probe in the shooting.

Dial and the other witnesses said there was no evidence that the McMichaels sought to provide aid or comfort to Arbery as he lay bleeding to death on the pavement. Cross-examining Dial, defense lawyers sought to establish that there had been reports of stolen items, including guns, in the neighborhood in the weeks leading up to the shooting, and that neighbors had discussed those incidents on social media.

Coker reported from Brunswick, Ga.

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Arbery hate-crimes trial jury selected

Bernstein emphasized that the federal prosecution “does not require proof of hate. What it requires is proof the defendants acted because of race … meaning in this case, the defendants made assumptions about Ahmaud based on the color of his skin, chased him down and threatened and tried to catch him themselves — and that wouldn’t have happened if he was White. That’s exactly what the evidence shows.”

She cited texts and social media posts in which Travis McMichael, now 36, allegedly used the “n-word” about Black people and also referred to them as “animals, criminals, monkeys, subhuman savages.”

Defense lawyers rebutted the accusations by telling jurors the men were inspired to chase Arbery after they saw him running in the street, at a time when neighbors were on “high alert” over reports of potential property theft and trespassing. One homeowner had shared surveillance videos from a residential security camera, viewed by the McMichaels, that captured Arbery exploring his property, which was under construction.

The defense team called Arbery’s death an “American tragedy” and acknowledged that their clients — already convicted of murder in state court — were responsible for actions that caused his death. They said the epithets the men have used to describe African Americans were repugnant. But the lawyers for Bryan and the McMichaels emphasized that such language is not illegal and said the men had set out to follow Arbery in their pickup trucks to help their neighbors apprehend the man they suspected of the trespassing.

“As tragic and as unfortunate as the death of Ahmaud Arbery is, the evidence will show that Greg McMichael followed Arbery because he believed he was the man from the video at the home,” said A.J. Balbo, a defense lawyer. “And Greg McMichael was right.”

The opening statements in the high-profile case came shortly after U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood had seated a 12-member jury composed of eight White people, three Black people and one Hispanic person — a more diverse panel than in the state murder trial. Wood said she expects the trial to last between seven and 12 days.

In providing jury instructions, Wood said the burden of proof for the federal government is “quite high” in a case that civil rights advocates have said could have broad social implications at a time of rising white nationalism and an ongoing reckoning over racial justice.

The federal charges focus not on Arbery’s killing but rather on accusations that the McMichaels and Bryan intimidated Arbery and interfering with his right to use a public street because of his race, which qualifies as a hate crime. The defendants also are charged with kidnapping, and the McMichaels are facing a separate federal count of using firearms during a crime of violence.

Among those inside the courtroom on Monday were Arbery’s parents, Marcus Arbery and Wanda Cooper-Jones, and his sister, Diane Jackson.

Gregory McMichael’s wife, who is Travis’s mother, also was present.

Marcus Arbery, who left the courtroom during Bernstein’s opening statement, told reporters outside the courthouse that he was emotional after hearing her describing how his son was killed. He called the racist language that prosecutors said the defendants had used as “a sickness” and added that it was difficult “listening to all this hate.”

In describing the case, Bernstein sought to paint the defendants as making the leap, without evidence, that a Black man seen on the home surveillance video was responsible for reported thefts at the property — even though the homeowner told police the man had not taken anything and the videos appeared to show Arbery, in running shorts and a T-shirt, leaving the house without disturbing any property.

The McMichaels “persisted in their insistence that the black guy had to be up to no good,” Bernstein said. When Gregory McMichael, now 66, a former police investigator, saw Arbery running past his home in the Satilla Hills neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020, he ran inside to get his son, Travis. The two men grabbed firearms and chased Arbery in a pickup truck, with Bryan, now 52, joining the chase in his own truck.

Prosecutors described the men cutting off Arbery’s route as he tried to escape and cornering him, forcing him to try to disarm Travis McMichael, who responded by shooting him. Bryan, who recorded the incident on a cellphone, told investigators that Travis McMichael used a racial epithet after the shooting — an allegation the younger McMichael has denied.

Defense lawyers sketched a picture of a neighborhood in which residents were sharing stories of increasing crime and urging each other to be more vigilant. They said a local police officer had canvassed the neighborhood and discussed with Gregory McMichael the reports that a man had been seen trespassing on the surveillance video.

“The government is describing a vigilante, which makes me think of Batman and Robin,” said Amy Lee Copeland, a lawyer for Travis McMichael. “Travis was trying to be a good neighbor. He and father were trying to help everybody … even if it had disastrous results.”

Barbara Arnwine from the Transformative Justice Coalition, which is supporting the Arbery family, said outside the courtroom that she was shocked when prosecutors described Gregory McMichael allegedly ranting to a colleague about Black people being “nothing but trouble” during a conversation about the death of Julian Bond, a civil rights leader, in 2015. At the time, McMichael was working as an investigator for the local district attorney.

“He was a police officer! A police officer with those kind of views and working in a city that is mostly Black,” Arnwine said. “The truth is too overwhelming here. These are their full words out of their own mouths. They really don’t have a hiding place. Their own lawyers have had to say today that it’s reprehensible. Sadly for them, it’s the facts.”

Nakamura reported from Washington.

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