Father and son who chased and killed black jogger charged with murder

Almost eight years to the day after Trayvon Martin’s death, Ahmaud Arbery, who was quietly jogging in Georgia, was chased and shot dead by a father and son armed with a revolver and a shotgun in late February. If the drama first remained local, in full coronavirus, the indignation exploded this week in all the United States because the two suspects had still not been arrested, more than two months after the facts. But Thursday, the day after the family lawyer released a video, state officials finally announced that the father and son had been arrested and charged by a grand jury for the murder of this young man. Afro-American.

Gregory & Travis McMichael have been arrested for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. There will be a press conference tomorrow morning at 9 AM in Brunswick, GA (1 Conservation Way). https://t.co/jBhe4eIpeW pic.twitter.com/PEsOdnyXdR

– GA Bureau of Invest (@GBI_GA) May 8, 2020

What happened ?

On February 23, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was jogging in a residential neighborhood in Brunswich, Georgia, a coastal city in this historically segregated former South. Travis McMichael, 34, and his father, Gregory McMichael, a 64-year-old former police officer, chase him in a white pickup truck. In a 28-second video released Tuesday by runner’s family lawyer (link here, beware, the images are shocking), we see Ahmaud Arbery running along the road. As he bypasses the pickup truck the father is standing on, he is stopped by the grabbing son. The two men seem to be fighting. We hear a shot, then a second. Ahmaud Arbery takes a few steps and then collapses.

Why did it take two months before the suspects were arrested?

According to the police report, Gregory McMichael claims to have thought that Ahmaud Arbery was a thief who raged in the neighborhood, “strutting around” in front of his house. He says he grabbed his revolver, his son his gun, and both went after him. A first prosecutor considered that there was no reason to charge them because the father and the son had, according to him, the right to carry out a “citizen arrest”, and that the son had acted in self defense during the altercation. It’s the same doctrine that allowed George Zimmerman to be acquitted of the murder of Trayon Martin in Florida in 2018. “Stand your ground” laws vary by state, but being armed does not necessarily make a person the perpetrator. As popular outrage rose, the first prosecutor recused himself, and a second decided to let a “grand jury” decide. On Thursday, the jury charged the father and the son with murder.

How did we get here ?

The authorities’ inaction caused a stir. First in Georgia, where family and activists organized races of 2.23 miles – the distance traveled by Ahmaud Arbery – to protest. And then in the rest of the country, with African-American celebrities who gave voice on social networks, including Zoe Kravitz and LeBron James. “We are literally hunted EVERY DAY / EVERY TIME we set foot outside our home,” yelled the Lakers star.