JAKARTA - Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African-American man died on February 23. He was just an ordinary man and unarmed, but unfortunately bad luck approached him.
Reporting from wikipedia, at that time Ahmaud was jogging around his home area, Satilla Shores Street, near Brunswick, Georgia, United States. Suddenly two men approached him in a pick up car. They are father and son, Greg McMichael is 64 years old and Travis McMichael is 34 years old. Previously, Greg was a police officer and public prosecutor in Glynn County, one of the areas incorporated in Brunswick.
Intercepting the Ahmaud road, Travis got out of the car holding a rifle. He fights Ahmaud. Not long after, Greg, who was still in the pick-up car, got off with a gun. Ahmaud tried to get away from them. However, after three gunshots, Ahmaud fell on the road. Ahmaud Arbery died as a result of that incident.
Two months have passed, not much has been done on this case. There were no arrests, let alone punishments. Until 5 May, a video was uploaded to the website of WGIG, one of the local local radio stations. The video, later found to be recorded by William "Roddie" Bryan, shows the seconds of the shooting.
Ahmaud Arbery's murder was caught on video! It's graphic but must be shared. @BenCrumpLaw will be representing Ahmaud's father Marcus Arbery as we seek justice in this modern-day lynching. Everyone must know the truth! #JusticeforAhmaudArbery pic.twitter.com/y4kBgRJ8X6
- Benjamin Crump, Esq. (@AttorneyCrump) May 5, 2020
After the video went viral, real action against the perpetrators was immediately carried out. 2 days later, on May 7, Greg and Travis were arrested by the police.
Ahmaud's family said they were relieved to hear that the perpetrators had been arrested, even though they expressed distrust of local law enforcement. Ahmaud's mother, Wanda Cooper, expressed her disappointment about this case to PBS News. She thought that if this case did not get national attention, her son's death could end up being covered up. For Ahmaud's family, these deaths were the result of modern lynching, the lynching of today.
It took 10 weeks to act on this case. As a murder case, this is quite a long time. It is known that one of the reasons that made the case slow to resolve was the resignation of the two public prosecutors who were supposed to handle this case because they had personal relationships with Greg and Travis McMichael.
The first public prosecutor, Jackie Johnson, the Brunswick Judicial Circuit attorney resigned because of a conflict of interest. Greg has worked with him on case investigations.
Then on February 27, the case was submitted to George Barnhill, the district attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit which is directly adjacent to the South Brunswick area. But then he also chose to resign at the request of Ahmaud's mother who learned that George's son had worked with Greg at the Brunswick Judicial Circuit. They were even assigned to sue Ahmaud several years ago.
Ahmaud's record in the police was not very good either. When he was 19, he was charged with carrying a gun at a school basketball game in 2013.He was also arrested for shoplifting in 2018.
After that the third public prosecutor, Tom Durden, the attorney for the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, which is directly adjacent to the north of Brunswick, began working on the case in mid-April. He also worked with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which eventually arrested Greg and Travis for murder and assault.
However, the community doesn't feel that it's enough. Given the slow pace of handling these cases, this problem could extend from a murder to a crime against the black race. Therefore, Georgia Attorney General Chriss Carr appointed Joyette Holmes from Cobb district - one of the areas in Atlanta - to handle this case. Officially he is the fourth public prosecutor for the case and he is also known as the first African-American to become a district attorney. Now this case is also not an issue in the United States alone, but the whole world knows it.
Last Friday, May 8, the world community made a virtual run entitled #IRunWithMaud as a tribute to Ahmaud Arbery, who should have turned 26 on that day.
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