The Ahmaud Arbury Murder Trial

The trial has begun of three men accused of killing a jogger last year in Georgia.

The three men who got in their vehicles and chased down the jogger were white. They grabbed a pistol and a shotgun before they gave chase. The defendants’ names are Gregory and Travis McMichael, and William Bryan.
The jogger was black. His name was Ahmaud Arbery.

The three men say they suspected Arbery of committing a crime, and were going to chase him down, do a citizen's arrest, and detain him until the police came. Arbury's father and his friends say that Armaud was out for a jog, as he was known to often do in that area.

The defendants say that they tried five times to block Arbury from continuing to run. They say they then approached him on foot and were going to detain him, but Arbury reached for the shotgun, so they – fearing for their life – shot him three times in self-defense. Arbery took two shotgun blasts to the torso, and a grazed shot to the face.

In the video that defendant William Bryant took, you can see the men try to block Arbury with a truck, and then when Arbury tries to go around the truck, you see the men confront him, a brief struggle, and then you hear three shots and see Arbury fall.

Two months passed before the three men were arrested. One of state’s prosecuting attorneys prevented their arrest. More about that below.
Jury selection ended with 11 white jurors and one black juror. The judge said in a public statement that “the court sees intentional discrimination in the selection of jurors”, but let the case go forward.

The prosecutor in this case is the fourth to be assigned. The first recused herself because the elder McMichael had worked for her.
The second recused himself because his son had worked for Ms. Johnson, the first prosecutor. He was a good candidate for recusal because it was he who had prevented any arrests or prosecutions of the three men for so long, arguing that they had clearly been trying to uphold the law by performing a citizen’s arrest.
The third was removed and replaced because the State Attorney general believed that his law firm only had experience with local, coastal, and rural issues and was too small to handle a case of this magnitude.
The fourth prosecutor works for one of Georgia’s largest law firms, with 45 lawyers and an annual budget of 8.5 million dollars.

This case is reminiscent to me of the trial of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. In both cases, white men acting in no official capacity tried to exert authority over a black male and detain him, leading to a struggle and the black man’s death.

(It’s also a little like the Kyle Rittenhouse case, in that someone who
approached a situation armed ends up killing someone and saying they had to because they feared for their life.)

Zimmerman got away with it.
I guess we’ll see what happens in this case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ahmaud_Arbery
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/us/mcmichaels-hearing-ahmaud-arbery/index.html