The selection of jurors began Monday, October 18 in the trial of three white Americans, responding to the murder of young black jogger Ahmaud Arbery, a news item that scandalized the United States and fueled the major anti-racist protests in the summer of 2020. L he case almost never became known as the local authorities tried to cover it up.
On trial in a Georgia state court in Brunswick are Gregory McMichael, 65, his son Travis, 35, and one of their neighbors, William Bryan, 52.
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On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was jogging in this coastal town in the southeastern United States when he was chased by the three men.
The father and his son, armed, were in the same pick-up, while their neighbor followed them in his own vehicle while filming the scene.
After an altercation, young McMichael opened fire and killed the jogger.
The three men then claimed to have mistaken him for a burglar operating in the vicinity and had invoked a law in Georgia allowing ordinary citizens to make arrests.
For nearly three months, the services of the local prosecutor, for whom Gregory McMichael, a retired police officer, had worked for a long time, had not decided on any arrest.
It took the broadcast of the video of the drama, relayed massively on social networks in early May 2020, for the investigation to be entrusted to the state police.
Shortly after, the three men were arrested and charged with
"murder"
and
"arbitrary arrest"
.
An indicted prosecutor
The death of George Floyd a few days later, under the knee of a white policeman, had revived the debate on violence against African-Americans and the name of Ahmaud Arbery had resounded in the processions which multiplied throughout the United States until the end of summer. Frescoes, slogans, portraits: the young jogger has become an emblematic figure of the Black Lives Matter movement (black lives matter).
"A black man should be able to jog without fearing for his life,"
Democratic President Joe Biden even tweeted on the first anniversary of his death.
Given the extreme media coverage of the case, the selection of jurors will last several days.
The defendants are then expected to plead self-defense, arguing that Ahmaud Arbery has resisted lawful arrest.
Prosecutors should insist that the young man was unarmed and that nothing links him to a series of burglaries that took place in the neighborhood where he was running.
Lawyer Ben Crump, a specialist in police violence cases, hoped that the court rejects the
"tactics"
of the defendants.
"If these killers get away with it, that would mean that lynching black men in 2021 is of no consequence,"
he hammered.
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Since the tragedy, the state of Georgia has passed a new law punishing racist crimes and abolished the law that allowed citizens to make arrests. For its part, the federal justice also intervened and indicted the three men of racist crime. This will be the subject of another trial, in federal court, in February. In addition, Ahmaud Arbery's mother has filed a civil lawsuit and claims a million dollars in compensation. It targets the McMichaels and William Bryans, but also local police and prosecutors accused of wanting to cover up the case.
Rarer: A local prosecutor, Jackie Johnson, was indicted in September on professional misconduct.
According to the indictment, she would have let her
"affection"
for Gregory McMichael, who worked for a long time in his department, take precedence, and ordered the police officers in charge of the investigations not to arrest the son of this one.
