4 mins. of terror
Ga. men’s pursuit of Ahmaud revealed
Ahmaud Arbery, the unarmed black jogger slain by a white father and son in Georgia three months ago, was chased for more than four minutes before he was confronted by the men and gunned down, his family’s attorney said on Monday.
New video of the Feb. 23 incident paints a more damning picture of the father and son’s actions than a previously released clip of the slaying, and shows Arbery being pursued by them and another local resident for much longer than previously believed.
The footage shows Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34 — both now charged with murder — trailing Arbery, 25, in their pickup in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside Brunswick before getting out with a shotgun, Fox News reported
It also reveals that William “Roddie” Bryan — a white resident who recorded the cellphone video of the fatal encounter from inside his own vehicle — also pursued Arbery.
Bryan, who has not been charged in the killing, has claimed he was acting as a good Samaritan when he followed the McMichaels that day.
“He is a liar,” S. Lee Merritt, the attorney for Arbery’s family, told Fox News.
“If he was a good Samaritan, he would have honked his horn. It’s worth noting that on the video, he doesn’t even flinch. He doesn’t gasp. Shot after shot. He simply takes it all in,” Merritt said
Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, also told Fox that she wasn’t buying Bryan’s claim.
“Why would you videotape it? Why didn’t he do anything to help? Why didn’t he reach out right after the shooting?” Cooper-Jones said.
“Why did he only come forward after the video was leaked?”
Bryan could not be reached for comment on Monday.
It was not immediately clear if local police and prosecutors always had the full video showing Arbery being followed for so long.
“I can’t answer what another agency did or didn’t see,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vic Reynolds told Fox.
But Reynolds noted that the bureau secured felony murder warrants within 36 hours of getting involved in the case.
Also on Monday, Travis McMichael’s sister, Lindsay McMichael, 30, acknowledged that she posted a photo of Arbery’s bloody body on Snapchat after the shooting, but said she did so only because she is “a true-crime fan.”
“I had no nefarious or malicious intent when I posted that picture,” she told The Sun.
“The thing is I’m a huge fan of true crime — I listen to four or five podcasts a week — I’m constantly watching that sort of thing.”
She said her decision to share the image showed “absolutely poor judgment.”
“I just want people to realize we’re not monsters,” she said.
Merritt, the Arbery family’s attorney, called the photo “deeply disturbing.”