It’s always perilous to render final judgments on any crimes from the outside without waiting for all of the facts. But the evidence currently available does not provide any conceivable justification for the pursuit and tragic killing of Ahmaud Arbery, an incident caught on tape.
Until very recently, the only thing available for scrutiny was a shocking amateur video recording of the incident. It appeared to show a black man running through a neighborhood street before a confrontation with two white men in a pickup truck. A struggle ensues. Shots are heard, and then the black male, now known to be Arbery, retreats before collapsing to the ground. He died from multiple bullet wounds.
Self-defense provides a reasonable protection from prosecution where it is taken in good faith. But it’s quite another thing when citizens pursue someone because they deem him suspicious and then gun him down.
The account of what happened on Feb. 23 was first captured by Glynn County, Georgia, police officer J. Brandeberry in a police report based on an interview with 64-year-old Gregory McMichael, who provided rifle cover when his son shot Arbery down.
McMichael told Brandeberry that there had been “several break-ins” in the neighborhood and that the perpetrator had been caught on surveillance video. While in his front yard, McMichael said he saw someone who he believed was the suspect involved in the break-ins “hauling ass” down the street.
McMichael then, according to the report, went inside his home, called for his son Travis, and then the two of them retrieved separate guns for the purpose of giving chase because they didn’t know if the male was armed. By his account, the pair approached Arbery in their truck and tried to cut him off, but Arbery turned around and ran the opposite direction.
The two continued their chase. As they approached Arbery, they called for him to stop running so they could talk. Once they pulled up beside Arbery, McMichael’s son, Travis, exited the truck to confront Arbery.
“McMichael stated the unidentified male began to violently attack Travis and the two men then started fighting over the shotgun at which point Travis fired a shot and then a second later there was a second shot,” the police report said.
Since May 5, when the video began to circulate online, additional facts have come to light, none of which substantially change our impression of what is seen in the video and of what we know about the district attorney’s initial decision not to make any arrests or press any charges in relation to Arbery’s death.
The first DA on the case recused herself on Feb. 27, citing a past working relationship with Gregory McMichael, a former Glynn County police officer. The prosecutor to take her place, George Barnhill, eventually recused himself as well, citing complaints by Arbery’s family (which Barnhill denied) that he had personal biases.
Barnhill nonetheless wrote a letter to the local police captain, arguing that no arrest was warranted, given the evidence. He argued that Georgia law made it “perfectly legal” for individuals to conduct citizens’ arrests and carry firearms in the open. However, a citizen’s arrest is only permitted when a citizen witnesses a felony. There would have been no altercation, deadly or otherwise, had the McMichaels not pursued a man who, by their own admission, they had seen doing nothing more nefarious than running down the street.
They did not claim to have witnessed a crime, so any thought that this was a legitimate citizen’s arrest is out of line. They had no reason to assume they were correct in identifying a man, running at a distance, as the same man they believed they had seen days earlier, possibly toting in his pants a concealed firearm — a theoretical firearm which, for all they knew, Arbery might have been lawfully entitled to carry.
Perhaps most troubling, Barnhill wrote that “Arbery’s mental health records & prior convictions help explain his apparent aggressive nature and his possible thought pattern to attack an armed man.” Even if this were true, it would justify nothing. In fact, it only provides one additional reason why it is a terrible idea to roll up and accost strangers while armed. You may be provoking a confrontation with someone who will react unpredictably. For all the politicized attempts to blame this shooting on Georgia’s “stand your ground” law, Arbery might have been the only person in this situation with a genuine and legitimate concern that his life was in danger.
Moreover, the fact that Arbery had once been convicted of carrying a weapon on campus when he was in high school and of “obstructing a law enforcement officer” is even more irrelevant, as was his previous charge of shoplifting while serving probation. A prior criminal record has no bearing on whether or not the shooting of Arbery was justified in this case.
A new video surfaced over the weekend showing Arbery, shortly before the pursuit and his death, entering and exiting a house under construction. It showed him doing nothing but looking around. People sometimes do this at construction sites, and it is not a felony. So why would entering an unfinished home and leaving, apparently with nothing in hand, be cause for concern by people who are not the homeowners and not involved in the construction?
Even if Arbery did have criminal intentions for the construction site — and there is no evidence to suggest that he did — it would not justify the actions of the McMichaels.
The United States is a nation of laws. As private citizens, if people have suspicions, they call the police. They allow the legitimate authorities to investigate crimes and take appropriate action. They do not have the right to take matters into their own hands. And they cannot claim to have stood their ground when they are the aggressors, provoking a confrontation and then claiming to have acted in self-defense after their own provocation leads to violence.
On Thursday, the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault, by recommendation of a new prosecutor who took the case before a grand jury. That was the right call. This matter deserves the full investigation it will now receive, and we hope that justice will run its course.
