Months before the death of Ahmaud Arbery, suspect and retired local police officer Greg McMichael offered police officers help on looking out for an “unwanted visitor” to a home construction site in his neighborhood.
An officer texted McMichael’s phone number to a property owner within the Satilla Shores neighborhood, indicating the retired officer was available for assistance in case anyone came onto the construction site, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Greg is retired Law Enforcement and also a Retired Investigator from the DA’s office,” Officer Robert Rash texted the owner on Dec. 20 along with McMichael’s phone number. “He said please call him day or night when you get action on your camera.”
The site is a focal point of the criminal investigation aimed at piecing together the events of the Feb. 23 shooting that killed 25-year-old Arbery, an unarmed black man. McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, both white, were charged with felony murder and aggravated assault earlier this month after footage of them confronting Arbery while armed went viral.
Larry English, the property owner who received McMichael’s phone number, had a motion-activated camera system that picked up unknown people going into the site installed. One of those people was a young man who started coming in October. English’s phone would receive an alert and text with a video every time cameras were activated.
English also called police to check on the property and received the December text letting him know McMichael lived nearby and could help.
LaGrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar, former president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said the text is concerning because it encourages a citizen to contact a former officer if actual assistance from police was needed.
“I’m not aware of any accepted policy for referring someone that requires a police response to delegate that response to a former law enforcement officer who happens to live in the neighborhood,” Dekmar told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Dekmar also said the text gave the perception that McMichael had a relationship with local law enforcement, who are now tasked with investigating the shooting.
“If it’s not a real conflict, it’s certainly a significant perception of one,” he said.
Arbery’s family is aware of the text, and their lawyer, S. Lee Merritt, told the paper he has concerns of the possible events that led up to the shooting, as well as the aftermath in how the investigation is unfolding.
“If anybody was going to stop this from happening it was law enforcement,” Merritt said. ”Instead, they encouraged it.”
A video of the shooting was met with widespread backlash and public disturbance when it went viral earlier this month. The video shows the McMichaels, both with firearms, confronting Arbery. Several shots can be heard in the video, which ends with Arbery collapsing on the pavement.
Reports broke last week, showing that McMichael was stripped of his power to arrest and law enforcement certification a year before the fatal shooting after he skipped use-of-force training. His ties to local law enforcement have complicated the prosecution of the case. The first two prosecutors assigned to the case have since rescued themselves, and one has been accused of preventing the arrests of the McMichaels.
The Justice Department is now considering hate crime charges against the father and son and is looking into the handling of the case after a request from Georgia’s attorney general.
