Three white men from the state of Georgia will be tried from Monday for the shooting death of a black runner that sparked a national protest and fueled demands for social justice in the United States.
Gregory McMichael, 65, his son Travis, 35, and his neighbor William Bryan, 52, have been charged with murder and aggravated battery after pursuing Ahmaud Arbery, 25, and shooting him in February 2020.
The father and son followed Arbery in a van, while Bryan followed Arbery in his own vehicle and filmed the scene.
After an altercation, Travis McMichael opened fire and killed Arbery. The three men claim they mistook the broker for an active thief in the area and invoked a Georgia law that allows ordinary citizens to make arrests.
Local prosecutors, for whom Gregory McMichael, a retired police officer, had worked for a long time, made no arrests in the case for nearly three months.
It was only after the video of the shooting spread online and went viral on social media that the case was transferred to the state police and the three suspects were arrested and charged.
George Floyd’s death two weeks later at the knees of a white police officer in Minneapolis reignited a national debate about racial justice and police violence against African Americans, and Arbery became one of the symbols of the national Black Lives protests. Matter.
"A black man should be able to jog without fear for his life"President Joe Biden tweeted on the anniversary of Arbery’s death.
"Lynching"
The jury selection is expected to last for several days, given the intense media scrutiny of the case.
The defendants will likely argue that they were acting in self-defense and that Arbery was resisting legal arrest.
Prosecutors will insist that the victim was unarmed and that nothing linked her to a series of robberies that occurred in the neighborhood where she was jogging.
Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who has represented several African American families in high-profile police violence cases, said he hopes the court "do justice to Ahmaud and his family".
"If these killers get away without consequences, a message is being sent that the lynching of black men in 2021 carries no sanction.".
Since Arbery’s death, Georgia has passed a law imposing additional penalties for crimes motivated by racial hatred, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics of the victim.
Arbery’s mother has filed a separate civil lawsuit demanding $ 1 million against McMichaels and Bryan, but also against local authorities, accused of trying to cover up the case.
One of the local prosecutors, Jackie Johnson, was charged last month with violating his oath of office and allegedly obstructing the investigation into Arbery’s death.
The three defendants also face separate federal hate crime charges and a trial is scheduled for February.
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