Georgia AG steps in
. . . as police eye vid of ‘vic’ entering home being built
Georgia police are scouring newly obtained footage in the killing of unarmed jogger Ahmaud Arbery, as the state attorney general said he will review the handling of the case.
The brief home-security video appears to show a man who looks like Arbery, 25, walking into a home under construction, then leaving.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is examining the clip, which takes place a few minutes before his fatal Feb. 23 encounter with Greg and Travis McMichael.
“We are using video to put the timeline together to fill in the blanks of what happened that afternoon,” said Scott Dutton, GBI’s deputy director of investigations.
The tape, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, shows the man was on the construction site less than five minutes, mostly out of view, and didn’t appear to take anything.
Greg McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis, 34, were arrested last week and charged with murder after footage of Arbery’s death became public and sparked outrage. The pair had claimed they thought Arbery was responsible for local burglaries.
The new footage shows Arbery did nothing wrong, an attorney for his family said, noting walking around the site was not illegal.
“Arbery’s murder was not justified and the actions of the men who pursued him and ambushed him were unjustified,” said lawyer S. Lee Merritt.
Meanwhile, the Georgia attorney general will probe those investigating Arbery’s death after the local district attorney was accused of “shutting down” arrests in the case.
DA Jackie Johnson has denied the accusation.
Attorney General Chris Carr said he would look “into how the case was handled from the outset.
“The family, the community, and the state of Georgia deserve answers. We need to know exactly what happened, and we will be working tirelessly with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Brunswick community and others to find those answers,” Carr told The Washington Post.
Arbery, who was black, was shot in a scuffle with the McMichaels, who approached him in their pickup truck.
Alan Tucker, a friend of the McMichaels, said he leaked video of the killing hoping to calm allegations that the McMichaels, who are white, engaged in a “modern lynching.”