We don’t know what is going to happen in the case where a Black jogger was reportedly murdered by a retired law enforcement investigator and his son. Well, we hope we don’t know. In any case, his will be yet another name we will not forget – much to the chagrin of neo-fascists who are once again churning out the BS to save a face they don’t even have.
On what would have been Ahmaud Arbery’s birthday, the Ga chapter of the NAACP drew together a group of activists, organizers, politicians, religious leaders and local community members for a rally outside the Glynn County Courthouse. It came less than 24 hours after a father and son were arrested and charged with Arbery’s murder in February as he was running down a neighborhood street.
The rally was one of a series of events on Friday to honor Arbery and to call for justice in the wake of the killing. Gregory McMichaels and his son Travis allegedly gunned down Arbery on Feb. 23, after they pursued him in their truck believing he was a burglar and while attempting to make a citizens arrest, according to them. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), who took over the case and charged the McMichaels, is investigating how the Arbery case was handled by the offices of the District Attorneys of the Brunswick and Waycross Judicial Circuits.
The crowd of approximately 600 who came out to the rally heard speeches and presentations ranging from poems from local artists, to outrage and community togetherness being shared by local religious leaders, families shared personal stories of the corruption inherent in the counties policing. An attorney from a nearby county spoke of the firsthand accounts of systemic injustice in the three counties she has worked in, particularly in Glynn County, while some speakers spoke on passing a hate crime bill, a woman running for congress spoke about her platform on “social reform and criminal justice reform”, the common theme seemed to be keeping pressure on the case and that this is not a single isolated incident, but rather a systemic issue being brought to light. At the end of the event Ahmaud’s cousins were invited onto the stage and a balloon release was held and people danced and sang happy birthday for Ahmaud.
Meanwhile, Arbery’s high school football coach Jason Vaughn organized a run of 2.23 miles, representing the date of his death the same day, asking that runners document their run and post it to social media under the hashtag #IRunWithMaud. The hashtag generated more than 60,000 posts from around the world on Instagram.
Despite the support, given the history of past cases of innocent Black men women and children being gunned down in the name of enforcing the law and seeing the overwhelming majority of those responsible for those deaths being exonerated regardless of the situation, even if a crime was not being investigated or was even committed, many are skeptical of an outcome that is the justice that they seek for Arbery. Before the video of the killing was released by the Arbery family attorney on May 5, activities surrounding the case suggested reasons for that skepticism.
Gregory McMichael, a police officer in Glynn County from 1982 to 1989 worked as an investigator in the Glynn County District Attorney’s office for 24 years before retiring in 2019, and Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson, having a conflict of interest recused herself from the case. Waycross Judicial Circuit County’s DA George Barnhill took over, but because his son works as a prosecutor in Johnson’s office but stepped aside a month later at the request of Arbery’s family. The letter that he wrote recusing himself however, brought more scrutiny to his involvement when he attempted to defend the McMichaels and put the blame on Arbery himself for his death. “It appears their intent was to stop and hold this criminal suspect until law enforcement arrived,” Barnhill said. “Under Georgia law, this is perfectly legal.”
Georgia State Law states that a citizens arrest can be made if one was a witness to a crime or had immediate knowledge of a crime, neither being the case when Arbery was killed.
Meanwhile, the fringe right, neo-fascists and right-leaning libertarians, many of whom ironically have been in streets across the country holding rallies against the Covid-19 shutdown purporting to be in the name of freedom, have not recognized Arbery’s freedoms in their campaigns to defend the McMichaels, the approaches ranging from the absurd, such as ridiculing the idea that Black people jog to often using Barnhill’s discredited letter as a resource and accusing Arbery of being a burglar when the GBI has stated that despite a video showing him walking into a construction site, no evidence was shown that he was involved in such criminality. Further, despite the claims to from the McMichaels that has spread amongst those circles, that they believed he was a suspect in a recent string of break-ins, no such crimes were reported to police in the weeks leading up to the fatal shooting.
Mainstream conservatives however, have been slow to either speak about the case or defend the McMichaels. Moreover, one of the most prominent within those circles to write about the case has been the National Review, and it’s article “The Murder of Ahmaud Arbery” serves as an indictment against the father and son. “The McMichael posse didn’t mistakenly shoot down an innocent man in a botched effort to protect their home or their property,” The article read. “It is unlikely that their lives were in any real danger — and if they were, it was a precarious situation of their own making.”
The JustGeorgia Coalition has announced a Justice for Maud Caravan and Rally from Atlanta, GA to Brunswick, GA for this Saturday.
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BREAKING: Travis and Gregory McMichael Arrested for Murder of Ahmaud Arbery