Racism in America once again raised its ugly head - Brunswick, Georgia's history of racist violence was real before Ahmaud Arbery. an unarmed black jogger was gunned down. Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead back in February but it was not until the release of a video of the incident that it was announced that Gregory and Travis McMichael faced justice.
The video of the shooting was uploaded on May 5 on the website of a local radio station, WGIG, which received it from Gregory McMichael, but it was removed within two hours for being too graphic. The video was then uploaded to YouTube that same day.
I know this area of the country all too well. My first experience as a young news reporter covering the white hooded ones who never learn how to mind their own business, and more recently as an older journalism professor teaching at an all-black HBCU in Albany Georgia.
Gregory McMichael, 64, a former police officer, and his son Travis McMichael, 34, both white men were arrested and now William "Roddie" Bryan, 50, has also been charged.
The three white men participated in their onscreen vigilante roles before committing a real vicious crime and were arrested following a storm of public outcry after Bryan's video of Arbery's death was made public. Arbery was killed in a neighborhood about two miles from his Georgia home while he was out jogging. Attorneys for Arbery's parents said in a statement they called for Bryan's arrest "from the very beginning of this process."
This 25-year-old black man was shot and killed in February by two white men who chased him down while he was jogging through a neighborhood. This despicable act caught on video by a third accomplice and now a new national flashpoint over-policing and prosecutorial discretion echo not just the killing of Trayvon Martin but also the legacy of lynching in America.
“White supremacy projects criminality onto black people making even quotidian activities—like traveling by foot through a residential neighborhood or walking to the convenience store for snacks—a deadly risk for black people,” How the white vigilante killing of the unarmed, black jogger in Brunswick, Georgia, is both an echo of past violence and a modern call to action.
Ahmaud Arbery: Experts analyze shooting video of Georgia jogger https://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2020/05/13/ahmaud-arbery-shooting-video-legal-analysis-georgia-jogger/5184351002/
BBC News - Ahmaud Arbery: The third man charged over death of a black jogger https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52764898
