A federal grand jury indicted three White men on hate-crime and attempted kidnapping charges Wednesday in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man whose fatal shooting last year in coastal Georgia sparked a national outcry.
Travis McMichael, 35; his father, Gregory McMichael, a 65-year-old former police detective; and William “Roddie” Bryan, 51, are already awaiting trial on murder charges, accused of confronting and killing Arbery as he was jogging through the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick, Ga., in February 2020. The case went months without arrests until a video of the shooting went viral, drawing condemnations and comparisons to a lynching.
The defendants have pleaded not guilty to murder, and their lawyers argue race played no role — that they pursued Arbery in the belief he was behind neighborhood break-ins. But prosecutors have portrayed the men as racist, pointing to texts and social media posts in court. Bryan, who filmed the fatal confrontation on his phone, told investigators that Travis McMichael used the n-word after shooting Arbery, a claim the younger McMichael’s lawyers denied. Continue reading.