Arbery death marked with memorials, lawsuits
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — When white men armed with guns pursued and killed Ahmaud Arbery as he ran through their neighborhood, few outside the Georgia port city of Brunswick paid much attention at first.
A year later, as three men await trial in the Feb. 23, 2020 slaying, those closest to the 25-year-old Black man sought to make sure Arbery’s death isn’t overlooked again.
Arbery’s mother filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday accusing the men charged in her son’s death and local authorities who first responded to the shooting of violating his civil rights. The complaint filed by Wanda Cooper-jones in U.S. District Court seeks $1 million. Attorneys for the men charged with killing Arbery say they suspected he was a burglar and committed no crimes.
Members of Arbery’s family in Brunswick were expected to join a memorial procession Tuesday evening in the Satilla Shores subdivision where he fell bleeding in the street from three close-range shotgun blasts. Other relatives planned a candlelight vigil at a church in Waynesboro, where Arbery is buried in his mother’s hometown. At the Georgia state Capitol in Atlanta, Democratic lawmakers joined civil rights activists to mark the anniversary.
Immediately after the shooting, police interviewed the men who chased Arbery down, and let them walk free. The first prosecutor assigned to the case saw no reason to bring charges. Pleas for justice by Arbery’s family went largely unheard as Georgia and the nation entered lockdown in the coronavirus pandemic.
Arbery had been dead for more than two months when a cellphone video of the shooting was leaked online May 5 and a national outcry erupted. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case the next day and swiftly arrested the shooter, Travis Mcmichael; his father, Greg Mcmichael; and neighbor Roddie Bryan on murder charges.
Outrage over Arbery’s slaying still simmered when a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd on May 25, igniting protests across the U.S. denouncing racial injustice.