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| © John Bazemore/AP People pray during a rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man Friday, May 8, 2020, in Brunswick Ga. Two men have been charged with murder in the February shooting death of Arbery, whom they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)Add caption |
By Cleve Wootson, Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post
The state attorney general pledged to investigate the handling of a young black man’s murder as a furious public demands action against the local officials who waited more than two months to arrest the suspected killers.
A graphic video taken of the final moments of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery’s life show him jogging on a residential road here when two white men approach him in a pickup truck. The men tussle, gunshots are heard and Arbery stumbles to the ground. The release of that grisly footage earlier this week sparked widespread horror, leading authorities to charge two men with murder on Thursday night — 74 days after Arnery was killed.
But the arrests of father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael, did little to quell the outrage of a reeling public clamoring for an explanation of how so much time could have passed without an arrest.
“I will be looking into how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement to The Washington Post. “The family, the community, and the state of Georgia deserve answers. We need to know exactly what happened, and we will be working tirelessly with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Brunswick community and others to find those answers.”
Glynn County commissioner Peter Murphy said he also plans to call for an investigation into the prosecutors and police agencies that investigated Arbery’s shooting over the past two months.
Murphy echoed widely held concerns that three separate district attorneys had reviewed the video, but that the McMichaels were only arrested after the footage was publicly released and pressure intensified.
“When the highest levels of our federal government are criticizing what’s happening here, I think that speaks to the needs of not just a look at Arbery’s killing, but at the entire system that investigated it,” he said.
The video of Arbery’s February death was met with swift and emotional responses from a cadre of public officials that included former vice president and likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, basketball great LeBron James and Oprah Winfrey.
Fer-Rell Malone Sr., the pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church, in Waycross, led several dozen protesters through city streets to call attention to an effort to recall the area’s prosector, George E. Barnhill, in connection with the Arbery shooting investigation.
Barnhill, of nearby Waycross, was the second prosecutor to examine the case, but he later recused himself under pressure from Arbery’s mother, who raised concerns that Barnhill’s son used to work with Gregory McMichael in the Brunswick District Attorney’s Office, according to a letter Barnhill wrote to the Glynn County Police Department.
But on his way out, Barnhill took the unusual step of telling law enforcement he did not see grounds for the arrests of the McMichaels, arguing their actions were lawful because they were making a citizen’s arrest of a person they believed to be involved in a burglary.
“It appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived,” Barnhill wrote. “Under Georgia Law this is perfectly legal.”
But several legal experts told The Washington Post that Barnhill’s application of the state’s citizen’s arrest law is flawed.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is now conducting the investigation with District Attorney Tom Durden of the neighboring Atlantic Judicial Circuit, now the third prosecutor on the case.
When asked if his agency would expand its probe to the Glynn County Police Department or Barnhill’s office, GBI director Victor Reynolds replied: “It will only expand to what’s relevant to this murder investigation.”
See more at The Washington Post
The state attorney general pledged to investigate the handling of a young black man’s murder as a furious public demands action against the local officials who waited more than two months to arrest the suspected killers.
A graphic video taken of the final moments of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery’s life show him jogging on a residential road here when two white men approach him in a pickup truck. The men tussle, gunshots are heard and Arbery stumbles to the ground. The release of that grisly footage earlier this week sparked widespread horror, leading authorities to charge two men with murder on Thursday night — 74 days after Arnery was killed.
But the arrests of father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael, did little to quell the outrage of a reeling public clamoring for an explanation of how so much time could have passed without an arrest.
“I will be looking into how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in a statement to The Washington Post. “The family, the community, and the state of Georgia deserve answers. We need to know exactly what happened, and we will be working tirelessly with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Brunswick community and others to find those answers.”
Glynn County commissioner Peter Murphy said he also plans to call for an investigation into the prosecutors and police agencies that investigated Arbery’s shooting over the past two months.
Murphy echoed widely held concerns that three separate district attorneys had reviewed the video, but that the McMichaels were only arrested after the footage was publicly released and pressure intensified.
“When the highest levels of our federal government are criticizing what’s happening here, I think that speaks to the needs of not just a look at Arbery’s killing, but at the entire system that investigated it,” he said.
The video of Arbery’s February death was met with swift and emotional responses from a cadre of public officials that included former vice president and likely Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, basketball great LeBron James and Oprah Winfrey.
Fer-Rell Malone Sr., the pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church, in Waycross, led several dozen protesters through city streets to call attention to an effort to recall the area’s prosector, George E. Barnhill, in connection with the Arbery shooting investigation.
Barnhill, of nearby Waycross, was the second prosecutor to examine the case, but he later recused himself under pressure from Arbery’s mother, who raised concerns that Barnhill’s son used to work with Gregory McMichael in the Brunswick District Attorney’s Office, according to a letter Barnhill wrote to the Glynn County Police Department.
But on his way out, Barnhill took the unusual step of telling law enforcement he did not see grounds for the arrests of the McMichaels, arguing their actions were lawful because they were making a citizen’s arrest of a person they believed to be involved in a burglary.
“It appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived,” Barnhill wrote. “Under Georgia Law this is perfectly legal.”
But several legal experts told The Washington Post that Barnhill’s application of the state’s citizen’s arrest law is flawed.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is now conducting the investigation with District Attorney Tom Durden of the neighboring Atlantic Judicial Circuit, now the third prosecutor on the case.
When asked if his agency would expand its probe to the Glynn County Police Department or Barnhill’s office, GBI director Victor Reynolds replied: “It will only expand to what’s relevant to this murder investigation.”
See more at The Washington Post
