Man who filmed Ahmaud Arbery killing arrested and charged with murder
The man who filmed the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, the unarmed Georgia jogger killed in February, was arrested on Thursday and charged with felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
William “Roddie” Bryan Jr, 50, had maintained he was not involved in Arbery’s death in the Satilla Shores neighborhood, and merely recorded the now widely circulated video of Gregory and Travis McMichael chasing down and killing Arbery.
He is the third person arrested more than two months after the slaying.
“We are going to make sure that we find justice in this case. We know that we have a broken family and a broken community down in Brunswick,” Joyette Holmes, the prosecutor assigned to handle the case, said at a news conference on Friday.
Under Georgia law, a felony murder charge means that a death occurred during the commission of an under
lying felony and doesn’t require intent to kill. A murder conviction in Georgia carries a minimum sentence of life in prison, either with or without parole.
Vic Reynolds, the director of the Georgia bureau of investigation, said on Friday that if law enforcement believed Bryan was only a witness in the case, they wouldn’t have arrested him.
Attorneys representing Arbery’s family had called for Bryan to be arrested because he helped trap Arbery, who was fleeing the McMichaels. The other two men were arrested earlier this month and face charges of murder and aggravated assault.
Law enforcement officials in the area are facing heavy scrutiny for their handling of the case. A local prosecutor recommended not bringing charges against the McMichaels in April before recusing himself from the case.
Arbery was slain on 23 February when the McMichaels, a white father and son, pursued Arbery after spotting him running in their neighborhood.
Gregory McMichael told police he suspected Arbery, who is black, was a burglar and that Arbery attacked his son before being shot.
Bryan lives in the same subdivision just outside the port city of Brunswick, and the video he took from the cab of his vehicle helped stir a national outcry when it leaked online on 5 May.
The video quickly drew a strong reaction from the Georgia governor, Bryan Kemp, a Republican who called it absolutely horrific. The Georgia bureau of investigation soon took over the case from local police, and the arrests of the McMichaels followed on 7 May.
Attorneys for Arbery’s parents cheered the news of Bryan’s arrest. “We called for his arrest from the very beginning of this process,” attorneys S Lee Merritt, Benjamin Crump and L Chris Stewart said in a statement. “His involvement in the murder of Mr Arbery was obvious to us, to many around the country and after their thorough investigation, it was clear to the GBI as well.”
“Roddie Bryan is not now, and has never been, more than a witness to the shooting,” his attorney, Kevin Gough, said in a statement on Monday. “He is not a vigilante. Roddie did not participate in the horrific killing of this young man. Mr Bryan has committed no crime, and bears no criminal responsibility in the death of Ahmaud Arbery.”