The Black Panther Party members showed up armed in the neighborhood of the two men who chased down 25-year-old Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery. Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and their neighbor William Bryan chased and murdered Arbery on the street as he jogged in broad daylight.
Two of the men involved in the murder have already been charged, but the third person who has been confirmed to have filmed the murder, is still free despite reports claiming he was also involved in what many see as a lynching. The video shows disturbing footage of the fatal shooting of unarmed Ahmaud Arbery.
The Black Panthers joined Arbery’s family on a walk for justice in Arbery’s memory.
McMichael claimed he recognized Arbery from surveillance video capturing a recent burglary in his mostly white neighborhood and that he intended to make a citizen’s arrest.
It was also revealed that Barnhill’s son, a prosecutor for the DA’s office, was involved with “previous prosecution” of Arbery, but it’s unclear which incident.
Barnhill wrote that his office did “not see grounds for an arrest” of Greg and his son, Travis McMichael.
“It appears Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and [neighbor] William Bryan were following in hot pursuit of a burglary suspect with solid first-hand probable cause,” Barnhill wrote in a letter to Glynn County police Capt. Tom Jump. “Arbery initiated the fight. … At that point, Arbery grabbed the shotgun (that Travis McMichael was holding). Under Georgia law, McMichael was allowed to use deadly force to protect himself.”
“They have made reference to ongoing burglaries in this community, but some obscure, indistinct crime in the community does not empower the entire community to hunt down black men,” Lee Merritt, Arbery’s family attorney, told the outlet.
“These men were not performing any police function or any duty as a citizen of the state of Georgia. These men were vigilantes. They were a posse and they were performing a lynching in the middle of the day,” he continued.
(Photos by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
