Ahmaud Arbery’s case was an eye-opener into race relations in the US and how the judicial system reacts to such issues. The Americans are constantly facing backlashes with how they deal with a crime involving different races, especially if it involves a white perpetrator and a black victim or another minority race in the US.
The murder of Ahmaud Arbery
Reports show that Ahmaud (25) was murdered on 23 February 2020 around the afternoon in Brunswick. Surveillance footage in the area together with a cell phone recording shows that Ahmaud was jogging and it is believed that this was his afternoon jog. Greg Michael (65), his son Travis McMichael (35) and their neighbour William “Roddie” Bryan (52) went after the jogger armed with guns. Because they had seen him running, they were alarmed and assumed he might have been running away from a crime scene.
Such an assumption was triggered because of unlawful entry cases which are rampant in their area, so they wanted to confront him. The McMichaels grabbed guns and drove off in a pickup truck pursuing him as he was running outside the Georgia port city. Bryan followed them in his own pickup truck and recorded the whole incident on his cell phone.
However, things unfolded in a completely different way as Ahmed did not take lightly being confronted by a white man holding a shotgun. Video footage shows him trying to fight off Travis who had the firearm, and the shotgun went off thrice killing Ahmaud at the spot.
Racial Tensions on the case
Mr Arbery’s murder caused a buzz among Americans, similar to the George Floyd incident and attracted demonstrations from the black community. Tensions rose because it took more than two months for the McMichaels and Bryan to be arrested, and this was a cause for concern. Demonstrators questioned why the police took so long to take in the suspects who were actually confirmed to be shooting the 25-year-old black man. To them, the authorities are always hesitant when the victim is of a Black-American descendant. Usually, if a murder happens, suspects are quickly brought in for questioning. Even if the incident is labelled self-defence, people are interrogated by police.
Another cause of concern was related to why these three white men automatically fingered him as a robber when they saw him jogging. If the races were flipped, would they have reacted the same if it was a 25-year-old white man jogging in that area? Greg Michael told the jury that Ahmaud “resembled the suspect in a series of local break-ins” [Source]. Prosecutors condemned this line of thinking and despised the three by saying “All three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions – not on facts, not on evidence”.
Travis tried to change the plot by describing the whole incident as an act of self-defence. In reference to a battle of the gun which happened between him and the deceased, he argued that “It was obvious that he was attacking me, that if he had gotten the shotgun from me, it was a life-or-death situation”. But prosecutor Ms Dunikoski said, “You can’t create a situation and then go ‘I was defending myself”. She posited how the defendants’ actions were solely on the fact that Mr Arbery “was a black man running down the street”.
Race Relations vis-a-vis the US judicial system and police authorities in this case
Once again, the US judicial system and the police force were found wanting after being blamed for bias and misconduct. It now seems like every unfortunate incident befalling a black person calls for a series of demonstrations before judgement is finally delivered. Black people have to mobilise themselves and confront authorities while airing out intense outcries to get justice while white people have it the easy way.
In this particular case, after a delay in arresting the suspects, the trial was also deemed unnecessary in the early stages of investigations. The Evening Standard reported that “The February 2020 slaying drew limited attention at first. But when a video of the shooting leaked online, Mr Arbery’s death quickly became another example in the US’ reckoning of racial injustice [Source]. Travis’s father had pinned his hopes on the video which might have proved their innocence on self-defence, but it actually became his crucifixion sword. This also suggests that without the video, the three defendants would have been roaming freely in America looking for the next black man who resembles a burglar in their territory.
When the matter was tried in 2020, prosecutors protested the selection of the 12-person jury which only had one black person, but their efforts were in vain. Defence lawyers managed to rule “out some African-American candidates for the panel, citing their possible preconceived bias on the case under questioning”. But this argument did not mean anything when it came to having white people on the jury. Some analysts believe it was not fair to say a black person would have been biased but a white person would have been ‘objective’.
Defence lawyers had strategized to make this case an unfortunate attempt of a citizen’s arrest incident which went wrong and a self-defence act. Defence attorney Jason Sheffield spoke on how Travis spent adequate time in the US Coast Guard where he was “learning about duty and responsibility” and added that “You do have the right to stop a person and hold them and detain them for the police. There’s a risk with that, and tragic consequences that can come from that”. Laura Hogue who was representing Gregory McMichael shared the same sentiments and said “a good neighbourhood is always policing itself” while describing Mr Arbery as a “recurring night-time intruder” who ignored calls to stop when he was confronted. But it was countered by views on why they would confront him with heavy firearms as if they were hunting.
The US judicial system is despised because the case was tossed around among district attorneys who seemed to be leap-frogging from delivering justice to the Arbery family. The Brunswick judicial circuit was given the case first but Jackie Johnson recused herself after being indicted for blocking the arrest of Travis McMichael [Source]. The second district attorney to get the case, Waycross judicial circuit’s George Barnhill also recused himself while the investigation was going on. The third DA had to handle the case and was aided by the released video footage.
Justice Delivered for Arbery, his family and the black community
Cellphone footage, CCTV footage, police interviews and forensic science all contributed to nailing the three defendants. Out of 27 counts laid out, the three were found guilty in 23 counts, so they are facing imprisonment. But since justice came only because the murder was recorded, some have questioned verdicts delivered in other murders which were not recorded [Source].
Commenting on the verdict given, senior assistant district attorney for Cobb county and prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said “The verdict today was a verdict based on the facts and based on the evidence. And that was our goal. To bring that to that jury, so they could do the right thing because the jury system works in this country”. She added, “And when you present the truth to people and they can see it, they can see it, they will do the right thing”.
The jury of 11 whites and one black person delivered justice despite being doubted for racial inequality.
