According to the judge, they “hunted and killed” Ahmaud Arbery. On Friday, the three white Americans already convicted of the murder of the young African-American jogger in February 2020 were all sentenced to life imprisonment.
For shooter Travis McMichael, 35, and his father Greg Michael, this is a conviction without the possibility of parole (Conditional liberation). Their neighbor William Bryan, on the other hand, who had helped to wedge Ahmaud Arbery between his pick-up and that of the McMichaels, will be able to benefit from it in the event of good behavior, in particular because he “showed remorse”, explained the judge.
“Running to save your life”
Ahmaud Arbery went out “to jog and he ended up running for his life,” Judge Timothy Walmsley said as he delivered sentence in Brunswick, a coastal town in southeast Georgia. The three men were convicted of murder on November 24, after debates marked by the issue of racism and the right to self-defense.
Before the judge, Ahmaud Arbery’s family had demanded Friday morning a “maximum punishment”.
They “took aim at my son because they didn’t want him in their neighborhood,” said Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones. The lawyers for the three men pleaded one last time an unintentional act that did not deserve imprisonment until death.
On February 23, 2020, the 25-year-old was jogging in Brunswick when he was chased by the three men in their cars. After an altercation, Travis McMichael opened fire and killed the jogger who was attempting to grab his rifle. He claimed to have acted in self-defense.
Arrested after a video has been broadcast
The defendants had assured to have taken Ahmaud Arbery for a burglar, after seeing him a few days before entering a house under construction. They also invoked an old law that allows ordinary citizens to arrest a suspect in Georgia.
In this state still deeply marked by racism and segregation, the three men had benefited from the leniency of the services of the local prosecutor, for whom Gregory McMichael had worked for a long time, who had left them at liberty. the video filming the death of the young African-American so that the investigation can be entrusted to the state police and the three men to be arrested.