Voters oust prosecutor criticized in Arbery case

SAVANNAH — A Georgia prosecutor who was criticized for her office’s response to the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery has been ousted by voters, who elected an independent candidate who had to collect thousands of signatures to get on the ballot.

District Attorney Jackie Johnson, a Republican, lost her reelection bid Tuesday after serving a decade as the top prosecutor in southeast Georgia’s Brunswick Judicial Circuit. Johnson said she believes Arbery’s slaying, and what she says are false allegations blaming her for a long delay before arrests were made, played a big role in her defeat.

“It was a very big factor,” Johnson said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I’m confident that when the truth finally comes out on that, people will understand our office did what it had to under the circumstances.”

Arbery was slain in February by a white father and son who armed themselves and pursued the 25-year-old Black man as he ran through their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick. More than two months passed before Gregory and Travis Mcmichael were arrested on murder charges. In a year of protests over killings of unarmed Black men, Arbery’s death caused a national outcry.

Gregory Mcmichael was a retired investigator who had worked in Johnson’s office. Because of that relationship, Johnson says, she immediately recused her office from involvement in Arbery’s killing and referred police to an outside prosecutor.

Two Glynn County commissioners accused prosecutors in Johnson’s office of telling police not to arrest the McMichaels immediately after the shooting. Johnson insists she and her assistants gave no guidance to police. The Mcmichaels were charged in May soon after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case.