Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers found guilty of hate crimes in federal court
Written by Raiana Kelly
AADM Contributing Writer
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25 year old Black man, was jogging in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, when he was pursued by three white men. Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael were armed in their own vehicle and were later joined by their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, who filmed the pursuit on his cell phone from his own vehicle. After several minutes, Travis exited his vehicle and confronted Arbery with a shotgun; after a physical altercation, Arbery was shot three times.
On February 22, 2022, nearly two years to the day that Ahmaud Arbery was murdered, the three white men responsible for Arbery’s death were found guilty on all counts of hate crimes against the 25 year old; the jury found that the men’s attack on Arbery was racially motivated. This verdict comes months after the three were convicted of murder in a state court in November 2021.
This new verdict will add additional fines and life sentences on top of the life sentences they received for their previous murder convictions. Sentencing will be scheduled once the pre-sentencing reports are filed, the judge said.
While this verdict seems like a win and approaches justice for Ahmaud Arbery’s tragic death, racial justice remains a work in progress for our nation. Before the verdict, many legal experts spoke out about how hard hate crime cases are to win, especially without overwhelming evidence of racially motivated violence. As Shang Wu, legal analyst and former federal prosecutor stated, “we must challenge the assumptions that this case was extraordinarily difficult to win and only cases with overwhelming evidence of racially motivated violence deserve to be charged and prosecuted as hate crimes.”
The truth is, hate crime cases are not difficult to win, but the number of hate crime cases have declined by an alarming 82% between 2005 and 2019. Prosecutors and police are afraid of charging, prosecuting, and trying hate crime cases, but this shouldn’t be the case. “The prosecution and trying of hate crime cases must become a commonplace part of a prosecutor’s job rather than an extraordinary event,” Wu says.
It was only after video footage of the deadly incident went viral in the spring of 2020 that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was prompted to step in. The McMichaels and Bryan were arrested in May of 2020, three months after the incident took place. Without the video footage and the public outrage that followed its release, it appeared that no arrests or charges would be brought against the McMichaels and Bryan, especially considering two prosecutors initially instructed Glynn County police not to make arrests.
Additionally, at the time of Arbery’s murder, Georgia was one of only a few states without a law against hate crimes, which is why the three men were not charged with hate crimes at the state level. Governor Kemp signed new hate crime legislation, HB426, into law in June of 2020. HB426 was long overdue and followed the persistent efforts of activists for over a decade. South Carolina and Wyoming remain the only two states without hate crime bills.
At an event honoring her son on February 23rd, Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said “when we hear the name of Ahmaud Arbery, we will now hear and think of change.” While the verdict in Arbery’s case certainly raises our hopes for our justice system, we must continue to push and be outspoken about racial injustices. As Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement co-founder, Mokah-Jasmine Johnson, frequently reminds us “this is a movement, not a moment.”
Resources:
https://www.insider.com/experts-conviction-ahmaud-arbery-hate-crimes-case-hard-2021-5
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/22/us/ahmaud-arbery-hate-crime-trial-tuesday/index.html