The first police officer on the scene of Ahmaud Arbery’s killing testified Monday that William “Roddie” Bryan, one of three men charged with murder in the case, “cornered,” “blocked,” and “cut off” the 25-year-old black man five times, allowing Travis McMichael to open fire on the unarmed Georgia jogger with his 12-gauge shotgun.
Former Glynn County police officer Ricky Minshew said he was already in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside of Brunswick, Georgia, on Feb. 23, 2020, when he was flagged down and saw Arbery’s bloody body lying in the street.
The Remington shotgun McMichael used to kill Arbery was lying nearby in a yard. McMichael and his father, Greg McMichael, were pacing in the street.
Minshew, who is trained in CPR, has been widely criticized for not rendering aid to Arbery but testified he didn’t know if it was safe.
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“Being that I was the only officer on scene, without having any other police units to watch my back, there was no way that I could switch to do anything and still be able to watch my surroundings,” he said.
He also said he heard a “death rattle” from Arbery and that he “had bled out to the point that the blood was exceeding the perimeter of his body.”
Minshew also claimed that Bryan told him he wasn’t sure Arbery had done anything wrong and questioned whether he should have been chasing him.
Earlier Monday, crime scene technician Shelia Ramos of the Glynn County Police Department identified graphic images taken from the scene, including one of Arbery’s body under a blood-soaked sheet as well as close-ups of his wounds. Several jurors shifted uncomfortably in their seats while Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, exhaled quietly, CNN reported.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys have attempted to paint very different portraits of Arbery. Prosecutors claim he was an innocent man shot by three white strangers because of the color of his skin. The defendants argue they thought Arbery was stealing and that security cameras in an open-framed house under construction had previously caught him on tape, though investigators have rejected those claims.
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Travis McMichael’s attorney, Robert Rubin, described Arbery as an “intruder” who was caught four times on camera “plundering around.”
Prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said during her opening statement that the McMichaels and Bryan “assumed that he must have committed some crime that day.”
“He tried to run around their truck and get away from these strangers, total strangers, who had already told him that they would kill him. And then they killed him,” she said.
A jury of 12 people, 11 white members and one black member, were picked from a pool of 1,000 and seated Wednesday, following a contentious selection process in the coastal Georgia town that lasted for 2 1/2 weeks.
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The McMichaels and Bryan are charged with nine counts each, including malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault.
Arbery’s death was only investigated after footage from the incident was leaked online and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation became involved. The shooting and the alleged cover-up dominated national headlines and became part of a larger racial reckoning amid the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
