Murder of Ahmaud Arbery

Ahmaud Arbery was a 25 year old African American man. On February 23, 2020, three white men chased him in trucks and shot him while he was running in Satilla Shores near the town of Brunswick in Georgia. 

His death became famous because a video of the shooting on the internet, because of an #IRunWithMaud Twitter campaign, because there was a long delay before the men who shot him were arrested, and because his death and their arrests happened around the same time as the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the Black Lives Matter protests.  Floyd and Taylor are African Americans who were killed by police.

The three men who chased Arbery were charged with many crimes, including murder.  Their hearings and trials were delayed many times because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were sentenced to life in prison. In February 2022, all three men were found guilty of hate crimes in a United States federal court.

## Shooting
On February 23, Gregory McMichael, 64 years old, and his son Travis, 34 years old, saw Arbery running through the neighborhood. They said they thought he looked like the same man who had been breaking into houses nearby. They got their guns and got into their truck to chase Arbery.  Another man, William Bryan, came with them in his own car.  There was some kind of fight, during which Arbery was shot and killed. According to the Georgia Board of Investigation, Travis, not Gregory, shot Arbery. According to Arbery's family and friends, he was running for exercise and was in Santilla Shores because he lived nearby.

## People involved
* Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man.
* George McMichael, 64, a former police officer.
* Travis McMichael, 34, George McMichael's son.
* William "Roddy" Bryan, another man who recorded a video of the shooting. 

On June 24, 2020, District Attorney Holmes told the public that a grand jury had indicted all three men on nine crimes: one count each of malice murder (intentional murder), false imprisonment, criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment, two counts of aggravated assault and four counts of felony murder.  The highest possible punishment for these crimes is life in prison without parole.

On July 17, all three men pleaded not guilty.  Chatham County Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley decided not to release William Bryan on bail because he was worried Bryan would run away. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation also investigated Bryan for sex crimes.

On November 13, a judge denied bail for Gregory and Travis McMichaels.  This means they stayed in jail until their trial.  They could not return home or prepare for their trial outside of jail.

## Delay
On February 23, Prosecutor George E. Barnhill wrote a letter to the Glynn County police saying he thought the police should not arrest the McMichaels. He said they had been in "hot pursuit" of Arbery, that they had a good reason to believe Arbery had committed a crime, and had told him out loud to stop running.  In Georgia, it is legal for ordinary people to stop and hold a suspected criminal until the police arrive.

The third prosecutor to work on the case, Tom Durden, came from Georgia's Atlantic Judicial Circuit. On May 5, he asked the Georgia Board of Investigation to find the facts. They were charged with felony murder and aggravated assault.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Georgia decided not to have any more grand juries until June 2020.

On May 11, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr put district attorney Joyette M. Holmes on the case.  She was the fourth district attorney to work on the Ahmaud Arbery shooting case.

## Law
Before recusing himself, Barnhill said it is legal in Georgia for the McMichaels to take their guns and chase someone if they believe that person is a criminal trying to escape being caught, but the crime must be a felony, or large crime.  It is also legal for them to defend themselves if that person attacks them.  He gave a copy to the police and then gave a copy to a lawyer named Alan Tucker.

On May 8, Alan Tucker said he was the one who gave the video to the radio station. The McMichaels had talked to Tucker about Tucker working as their lawyer, which he later decided not to do because he knew Gregory McMichael from his work. In late May, Bryan was arrested and charged with criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment and felony murder.  Under U.S. law, that means that if Bryan was helping the McMichaels commit a serious crime, then deaths that happened during that crime are Bryan's fault as well, even if he did not shoot anyone himself.
In May, another video taken on February 23 was released to the public.  It showed Arbery

## Protests
On May 8, thousands of people ran 2.23&nbsp;miles (2 for the month of February and .23 for the 23rd day of February, the date Arbery died). Many of the runners posted the  #IRunWithMaud on social media. Jason Vaughn and Akeem Baker invented the hashtag. Vaughn was the running coach at Arbery's high school and Baker was Arbery's friend. They both said Arbery was an excellent runner and racer.

In June, at the same time as the George Floyd protests, the Georgia NAACP planned a March on Georgia.  Thousands of people marched to the Georgia state capitol building to stop police brutality.  The marchers also said they were marching because Georgia had made it harder for black people to vote by closing so many voting places that the ones that were left had very long lines, because they think Georgia's citizens arrest laws are unfair, because of the killings of Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. The Georgia citizens arrest law is what the McMichaels claim made it legal for them to chase and try to stop Arbery.

## Autopsy
The state of Georgia performed an autopsy on Ahmaud Arbery's body.  They found he had been shot twice in the chest and once on his wrist and had not taken any drugs or alcohol.

## Aftermath
On June 24, after the shooting but before any trials, the Georgia State Senate passed a law against hate crimes.   Many American states already had hate crime laws, but Georgia did not.  Hate crime laws make it a separate, additional crime to harm someone because of what group they belong to or look like they belong to. On October 18, 2021, jury selection for the trial began.  The jury would have eleven white people and one black person.  The trial lasted about two weeks.  Lawyers for the three men said that they were only protecting their neighborhood.  They said the accused men thought Arbery was dangerous.  Travis McMichael got on the stand and spoke to the jury, saying he shot Arbery in self-defense. On November 24, the jury found all three men guilty on most of the counts, including felony murder.

On February 22, 2022, a jury said all three men were guilty of federal hate crimes.

## References