Ahmaud Arbery’s killers deny racist motives in appeals

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Three white men serving prison sentences in the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery are asking an appeals court to throw out their federal hate crime convictions, with two of them arguing their histories of making racist comments don’t prove they targeted Arbery because he was Black.

“Every crime committed against an African American by a man who has used racist language in the past is not a hate crime,” defense attorney Pete Theodocion said in an appellate brief written on behalf of defendant William “Roddie” Bryan.

Arbery, 25, was chased by pickup trucks and fatally shot in the streets of a Georgia subdivision outside the port city of Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020. His killing sparked a national outcry when cellphone video Bryan recorded of the shooting leaked online more than two months later.

Greg McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, armed themselves with guns and pursued Arbery after he was spotted running past their home. Bryan joined the chase in his own truck and recorded Travis McMichael shooting Arbery at close range with a shotgun.

All three men were sentenced to life in prison after a jury convicted them of murder in a Georgia state court in 2021. The following year, they stood trial again in U.S. District Court and were found guilty of committing federal hate crimes in Arbery’s death. That jury was shown roughly two dozen racist text messages and social media posts by the McMichaels and Bryan.

They all filed legal briefs in their federal appeals March 3 with the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Attorneys for Bryan and Greg McMichael say their hate crime convictions should be overturned because the evidence shows they pursued Arbery thinking he was a criminal, not because of his race.

Greg McMichael initiated the chase when Arbery ran past his home because he recognized the young Black man from security camera videos that in prior months showed Arbery entering a neighboring home under construction. None of the videos showed him stealing, and Arbery was unarmed and had no stolen property when he was killed.

Arbery’s race was “a fact of no greater import to Gregory McMichael’s calculus than Mr. Arbery’s biological sex, the shorts he was wearing, his hairstyle, or his tattoos,” wrote Greg McMichael’s attorney, A.J. Balbo. He said there would have been no chase had the runner been a Black woman.

Bryan didn’t know the McMichaels and had never seen the security camera videos. Still, his attorney said that Bryan “had every right to assume” Arbery was likely a criminal after seeing him run by with the McMichaels in pursuit and ordering Arbery to stop.

“Arbery never called out for help or gave any signs that he was the victim of an unprovoked attack,” Theodocion wrote on Bryan’s behalf.

Travis McMichael’s appeal makes no effort to challenge the motivates for Arbery’s killing. Instead, his attorney argues a technicality, saying prosecutors failed to prove that Arbery was chased and killed on public streets — as stated in the indictment used to charge the three men.

Defense Attorney Amy Lee Copeland says documents show that Glynn County officials declined to claim responsibility for the streets of Satilla Shores from a private developer when the subdivision was dedicated in 1958. She argued there’s no record that the county ever changed its mind.