Video has emerged that allegedly depicts an incident involving the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man in Georgia. A district attorney has announced simultaneously that the case will appear before a grand jury.
The incident involved 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging down a neighborhood street on February 23 in the town of Brunswick. He was shot and killed while struggling for a shotgun held by 34-year-old Travis McMichael.
Travis and his father, Gregory, 64, were allegedly following Arbery because they suspected that the 25-year-old was involved in a string of robberies in the neighborhood.
“Travis, the guy is running down the street, let’s go,” Gregory McMichael said, according to a police report.
Travis grabbed a shotgun while Gregory grabbed a handgun, and they soon caught up to Arbery.
“Stop, stop, we want to talk to you,” Gregory McMichael shouted at Arbery, according to the police report.
It isn’t clear from the video how much interaction had already occurred between the three men before the footage begins.
SEE ALSO: Employee Jailed After Shooting Would-Be Thief Who Broke into His Store
Arbery can be seen running in a white t-shirt while the McMichaels wait for him farther down the road. The police report indicates that prior to this point, the McMichaels had already tried to cut Arbery off, and he had turned around and run in the opposite direction, according to CNN.
In the video, Travis McMichael can be seen standing beside the driver’s side of the truck while his father stands in the bed of the truck. Arbery runs around the right side of the truck and comes around the front towards Travis McMichael.
The two appear to struggle for the shotgun, and a shot can be heard right before Arbery begins striking Travis McMichael. A second shot is fired off camera, and when the two appear back on the screen, Arbery strikes McMichael several more times while a third shot is fired.
Arbery sustained three wounds and died shortly thereafter.
The first two prosecutors on this case recused themselves over possible conflicts of interest. Gregory McMichael is a former police officer as well as a former investigator for the district attorney in the Brunswick Judicial Circuit.
One of those prosecutors, George E. Barnhill, refused to prosecute the two men because Arbery’s attempt to grab Travis McMichael’s gun justifies deadly force under Georgia law, according to the New York Times.
SEE ALSO: Poll: 70 Percent of Americans Say Gun Stores Should Be Closed
Barnhill also contended that the father and son acted within the scope of Georgia’s citizen’s arrest statute.
Barnhill pointed to a 911 call that took place moments before the chase began in which a neighbor told a dispatcher that a black man in a white T-shirt was inside a house that was under construction and only partially closed in.
“And he’s running right now,” the man told the dispatcher. “There he goes right now!”
S. Lee Merritt, an attorney for the Arbery family, disagrees with Barnhill’s assessment. At best, the men had the authority to follow Arbery and send law enforcement to that location, Merritt told CNN.
“According to that law, you actually have to be observing the crime or be in the immediate knowledge of the crime,” Merritt said. “The only thing they have ever said is … that Ahmaud stopped by a house that was under construction and he looked through the window. We don’t know if that happened or not, but even if that did happen that is not a felony that would invoke the citizen’s arrest statute that would make this allowable.”
The new district attorney, Tom Durden, believes the case deserves to be heard before a grand jury, which will determine whether to indict either of the McMichaels for their actions. Durden wrote in a news release that he expects to present the case to the next available grand jury in Glynn County.
The NRA-certified CCW instructor told us at least a dozen times during the day:
Don’t deploy your weapon unless your life is in immediate danger.
And don’t go looking for reasons to use it.
a needless death for sure. I wonder what the outcome would have been if he had complied their requests to stop and talk? kind of the same situation when white cops attempt to stop a black person, they always want to run or fight rather than comply?
So…. Let me know the day you’re unarmed and 2 armed black guys pull up and demand you stop.
There is a difference between uniformed officers and a couple of armed yahoos in a pickup truck.
How was Ahmaud supposed to know that they supposedly just wanted to talk to him instead of rob, kidnap, or kill him?
If you’re brandishing a shotgun and telling me to, “come over here”, you had better be ready for a fight. The difference is that I will be armed.
He was not required to stop and talk with some random armed person. I wonder what the situation had been if those two were approached by armed citizens of Tijuana who just wanted to talk.
You sound like a coward and unworthy to be USA citizen
I don’t understand your assessment. Are you a LEO? “They always want to run or fight rather than comply” sounds like you either speak from experience, or you watch too much COPS.
I agree that maybe things could have gone differently if he stopped, but I also understand his decision to run. Two guys pull up in a truck, one in the bed all redneck-style, it’s conceivable that he thought they were a couple of good ole boys who wanted trouble, so he fled.
Even if he was guilty of whatever they thought he was doing (which at most might be trespassing, since they never recovered any stolen property from him), that’s not justification for an openly armed confrontation.
Guys like those two morons make the rest of us look like cousin-f-ing idiots who are just itching to $hoot someone. Above all else, I’m sad for the man shot. I don’t presume to know his story or innocence, I only know that in that instance, he did not need to be shot.
Freeze, flight, or fight. Seems to me with three people in pursiit, unfortunately, the only choice is to fight.
People like these two give law-abiding gun owners a bad name. This is just more “ammunition” for the anti-gun crowd to go after us. I bet these 2 wouldn’t have been so eager to confront the jogger if they weren’t armed.
Morons.
This should not be left to gun control advocates to protest. The protest should come from responsible gun owners. When will it be tome to speak up. Saying this is unfortunate, is not enough.
From this point forward, i will not leave the house without my gun. that includes going for a jog
looks justified to me..appears like he went out of his way to confront/attack/disarm .. stupid move..and he paid the price…next.
Looks to me like all 3 of these men made poor choices that affected their lives in an instance.
Did you read the article, or just watch the video?
The men attempted to stop him before, and Ahmaud turned and ran the other way.
If someone had attempted to stop me on the street, the second time standing outside the vehicle with a shotgun, I would think that their intent was to do me harm, and I would do everything in my power to keep that from happening.
Ahmaud was unarmed. He likely didn’t turn around and run away again because figured he would just get shot in the back. He probably figured that his only way out would be to take his chances in a fight.
This is the case of an ex-cop who was still high on the power of the badge. He took the law into his own hands, unnecessarily, and now one man is dead, and two are likely to spend the rest of their lives in jail when all they had to do was call the actual police, and follow him at a safe distance while keeping the dispatcher informed of his location.
Sure, have a gun or two with you in case he is armed and tries to confront you, but by initiating the conflict, they are responsible for the outcome.
Thank you for your well presented analysis.
Southern justice?
Lol. Looks like you forgot the last k in your name. You also should take your hood off and look at the video again
I’m sure these 2 good ole boy x-cops will be very popular in prison.
Well this story adds more information to what I have been able to discover so far. Still looks like a bad shoot.
Shot while running. For being a ‘suspect’. None of know the whole story, but this looks really bad. What do we do when we think something suspicious is happening? Watch. Call 911. Keep ourselves safe. Don’t make things worse. Stay calm and be smart. These guys appear to have broken every rule of responsible citizenship. Dumb guys wanting to use their guns!
In my 50 years of voting I have always known that both the right and left has their share of nuts, thus I don’t vote for a so called Party. Now I support our LE, but there were way to many years that they were taught to shoot to quick at any sign they thought was a threat, shoot the guy a bunch of times, and then check to see if there was really a threat, and of course c how many of those rounds actually hit the guy and if he was dead or not. I am a WAM white american male just as these boys, and they do not deserve to ever see the light of day again. As for The Blue Line that protected them at first it is time to Man Up and attrest those that appear to have taken Our Laws into their own hands. I might be wrong, but at least make the arrest with the info u have which at first glance looks like Murder to me. God Bless US All
Why do you find it necessary to put the victim’s RACE in the title? I bet if the victim was any other race you wouldn’t have mentioned it. That’s the type of BS that incites riots in this country and it’s bad journalism. Knock it off.
Those two morons give “rednecks” a bad name, and I’m a redneck. From what I’ve read and seen, it’s a crime if they are not charged with Manslaughter.
Trayvon Martin all over again. Idiots confronting someone they have no business with. People need to realize that Clint Eastwood’s movies are not training videos.
Fools like this will get all OUR rights restricted. They weren’t concealed-carrying, but you can expect this incident to be used as evidence in arguments against concealed carry anyway, for example.
It’s sad this happened. People shouldn’t take up burglary as an occupation, or even a sideline.
Undoubtedly that’s the stupidest statement I’ve read in a long time. If you have a license to carry, it should be revoked. How can you ascertain from that video that that young man burglarized anything? Even if he is a thief, he certainly wasn’t a threat to the lives of those two in the truck and that’s the only grounds to use deadly force is when your life is a risk and your attacker must posses the ability to do you harm and you’ve done everything in your ability to avoid a confrontation.
A am a firm believer of the Second amendment but statements like yours convince me that we need to change the laws.
Your voting rights should be rescinded because you obviously are uninformed, willfully ignorant, and you don’t use critical thinking skills.
Hinson, you are racist.
Scott Mahoney is full of baloney.
Technically these guys acted within the law when it comes to a citizens arrest. However common sense and being a responsible gun owner should tell you that you do not engage the criminal/suspect if you can avoid it but tail them while remaining on the line with the 911 operator so that on duty law-enforcement can engage them. This is a bad look for the second amendment and we should not be giving irrational liberals a reason to attack it.
They don’t need a reason to attack. I don’t structure my opinions based on my enemy’s prejudices.
It is obvious that the McMichaels are guilty and there should have been no hesitation in their arrests. It is this type of reckless misuse of firearms that give anti-gun legislators ammunition against us reasonable law-abiding gun owners.
Pre meditation both had guns as you can see when the father gets out of the rear of the truck ( pistol ) Police are the enforcers not two hicks who think he was stealing.Cold blooded murder !
“One of those prosecutors, George E. Barnhill, refused to prosecute the two men because Arbery’s attempt to grab Travis McMichael’s gun justifies deadly force under Georgia law, according to the New York Times.”
Brandishing the shotgun in the first place qualified as deadly force. The right of self-defense was Arbery’s, not his killers’.
The human right to armed self-defense emphatically does not include a right to create a situation is which you may end up fighting for your life.
No reason to have confronted this man with a shotgun…..no reason for Ahmaud to try and grab a shotgun…..3 lives ruined by stupidity that starts with the McMichaels, who should’ve known the law better than anyone else.
Yes – There was (reason to grab the shotgun). He could tell what they were after and he likely saw it as his only fighting chance. You know – “rather be judged by 12 then carried by 6″…
This isn’t self defense, this is cold blooded murder. They should have called police, they were in no danger what so ever.
I HOPE THAT THIS SHOOTING WILL BE ” REMEMBERED ” WHEN THEY ARE PUT IN PRISON AND REAL JUSTICE WILL BE DONE !!