Family calls indictment a ‘huge win’

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Ahmaud Arbery’s parents on Friday praised the indictment of a former Georgia prosecutor on charges of misconduct in response to their son’s killing, calling it “a very huge win.”

A grand jury in Glynn County indicted former Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jackie Johnson on Thursday on charges of violating her oath of office and obstructing police. State prosecutors alleged she used her position to delay arrests of the white men who chased and killed Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man.

Johnson was the county’s top prosecutor when Arbery was fatally shot last year, and one of the armed men who pursued him had worked for her as an investigator.

“Yesterday was a very huge win,” Wanda Cooper Jones, Arbery’s mother, told reporters. “I’m speechless. Unfortunately, Ahmaud is not here with us today. But losing Ahmaud, it will change some things here in the state of Georgia.”

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, sought the indictment after requesting an investigation of possible misconduct by local prosecutors who failed to bring charges in the killing.

Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael armed themselves with guns and gave chase in a pickup truck on Feb. 23, 2020, after they spotted Arbery running in their neighborhood just outside the port city of Brunswick.

A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and took cellphone video of Travis McMichael fatally shooting Arbery at close range with a shotgun as Arbery fought back with his fists.

The McMichaels told police they thought Arbery was a burglar and Travis McMichael shot him in self-defense. No arrests were made until more than two months later, after the video leaked online, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case. The McMichaels and Bryan are jailed as they await trial on murder charges.