Arbery’s kin share memories at virtual town hall

‘I want his voice to shine through me,’ says sister Jasmine Arbery.

Jasmine Arbery and her younger brother were a year apart and often celebrated their birthdays together. From now on, she’ll have to mark the milestone alone.

“Ahmaud was the person who encouraged, who helped me to reach my goals and helped me through crisis,” she said during a virtual town hall meeting on Friday. Ahmaud Arbery died Feb. 23 after an encounter with two men in a neighborhood outside Brunswick. He would have turned 26 on May 8, two days before Mother’s Day this year.

“I was his older sister and I was his protector,” Jasmine Arbery said. “I’ll always be his protector. I want his voice to shine through me.”

She and her mother, Wanda

Cooper-Jones, appeared via livestream during the Friday event hosted by Coastal Georgia Community Action.

“Stick to what you guys believe in,” Cooper-Jones told the cyberaudience. “You are going to be our voice in the future.”

Travis McMichael, 34, and his father Greg McMichael, 64, have been charged with murder and aggravated assault. Macon attorneys Laura and Franklin Hogue, who represent Greg McMichael, spoke to reporters on Friday.

“Greg McMichael did not commit murder,” Franklin Hogue said. “Greg McMichael is not a party to the crime of murder. This is not some sort of hate crime fueled by racism.”

The McMichaels are white. Arbery was black.

Laura Hogue said the defense is aware of “facts that point to a very different narrative” than one suggested by a now viral cellphone video showing the encounter and, ultimately, the last moments of Arbery’s life.

“There is more than one video of the incident,” Laura Hogue said.

In addition to the 36-second clip filmed that day, security camera footage recorded over a period of months is now part of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s case as agents try to piece together what happened before the fatal shooting.

Captured at the site of a home under construction in the neighborhood, the security camera clips show a person who appears to be the same young man entering the property several times since last fall. The person, usually wearing shorts and a T-shirt, is seen walking around inside the construction site, on the outside of the structure or in a dock area behind the property. Nothing was ever taken, property owner Larry English said.

On Friday, English’s attorney issued a statement saying the clips suggest the man could have been stopping by for a drink of water.

“There is a water source at the dock behind the house as well as a source near the front of the structure. Although these water sources do not appear within any of the cameras’ frames, the young man moves to and from their locations,” the statement issued from attorney J. Elizabeth Graddy said. “In one angle from Dec. 17, he appears to wipe his mouth and/or neck. In the last footage of him captured on Dec. 17, what sounds like water can be heard. He walks out of the house, eases into a jog, and disappears from view.”

Investigators are still trying to determine if the young man in the videos is Arbery, but his family’s legal team said a video of a person entering the property on the day of the killing appears to show him.

“This video is consistent with the evidence already known to us. Ahmaud Arbery was out for a jog,” the legal team said in a statement. “He stopped by a property under construction where he engaged in no illegal activity and remained for only a brief period. Ahmaud did not take anything from the construction site. He did not cause any damage to the property.”

Arbery’s mother and sister didn’t focus intently on the case itself during the Friday town hall, instead sharing memories of him.

A graduate of Albany State University with a degree in psychology, she said she previously worked as a counselor in a youth detention center and found that black youths face more scrutiny than others. “We’re policed more in our neighborhoods,” she said. “Of course, when you’re looked at more, you tend to find an issue there.”

Her family has been overwhelmed by the support they’ve felt since her brother’s death, she said, adding, “Please don’t ever stop seeking justice for my brother and your loved ones.”