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Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers cornered him while exercising on the streets of his neighborhood and killed him in cold blood
The United States Justice is unpredictable, particularly when judging murders of black men at the hands of the police or some white vigilante. This is what happened to Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020, a 25-year-old African American. He had gone out for a run through the streets of a suburb of Brunswick, a coastal town of Georgia, when three white men started chasing him with two vans. It didn’t take long for “Corner him like a rat”, as described by the judge who decided the case, and kill him with bullets even though he was unarmed. This time, however, there was no mercy for the murderers. A popular court has sentenced them to life imprisonment without the right to parole for two of them.
“A Glynn County resident, Brunswick High School graduate, son, brother, young man with dreams was shot dead in this community,” said the Judge Timothy Walmsey before pronouncing the sentences. “He left his house to exercise and ended up running to try to save his life”. It did not succeed. Two vans chased him for five minutes until they managed to block his way. On board they traveled Travis McMichael, 35, and his father Gregory McMichael, 66, both sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison because there are no limits to life in prison in Georgia. His neighbor William BryanThe 52-year-old will be able to apply for parole following serving 30 years behind bars.
His lawyers used during the trial that the three acted in self defense when trying to carry out a “Citizen arrest” following thinking that Arbery was a robbery suspect. It is what is known as ‘vigilantism’, protected by law in some states. “None of them have remorse and do not deserve mercy,” said the mother of the murdered young man, Wanda Cooper-Jones. “They did not confuse his identity or confuse the facts. They decided to go following my son because they didn’t want him in his neighborhood. They chose to treat him differently from other people who frequently visit his community and, as they were not able to scare or intimidate him, they decided to kill him ”.
Protests once morest racist violence
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The Arbery case rekindled protests once morest racist violence once morest blacks, a constant that refuses to disappear. Again the video recording of what happened, recorded by Bryan and later leaked to the prosecution attorneys, was instrumental in dismantling the assassins’ pretexts.
All of them will have to face a second trial, this time federal, in which they are accused of a hate crime. Regardless of what may happen in this second process, civil rights defenders have expressed their satisfaction with the sentences. “This sentence shows that even in the deep southWith a jury of 11 white people and one black, white men can be sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a black man, something unthinkable not long agoReverend Al Sharpton said.
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